Donald James Ross was born in 1872 to Murdoch Ross, a stone mason by trade, and his wife Lillian Campbell. Their first child had died soon after birth that same year so Donald became the eldest in the family, followed in subsequent years by three brothers and two sisters.

Murdoch was a member of a masonry crew that worked on the New York State capitol building during the 1870s so he was away from home on the other side of the Atlantic when his son was just a toddler. Who’d have guessed Donald would later follow in his father’s footsteps to find fame and fortune in the United States?


At the age of fourteen, he completed his formal studies and took up an apprenticeship with carpenter Peter Murray, who had an arrangement with the local Dornoch Golf Club to build the wooden boxes for holding sand on every tee.

 at St Andrews in 1893 then spent part of the following season at Carnoustie before returning to serve under the Dornoch club secretary John Sutherland for six years as head professional, club maker and green keeper.

In 1899, Ross took a steamship to New York then a train to Boston to join up with Robert Wheeler Willson, an American professor of astronomy who he’d spoken to the year before about starting a new life in the New World. Within a year of his employment at Oakley Country Club, Ross had reworked the club’s original Willie Campbell-designed course.

He returned to Scotland in 1904 to marry Janet Kennedy Conchie, from Moniaive in Dumfries and Galloway, who he’d met in Dornoch before heading abroad. They would go on to have one child, Lillian Grace Wilson, named after her paternal grandmother.

Though not as good a golfer as his brother Alex (who won the US Open in 1907), Donald could play a bit too, evidenced by his two victories at the Massachusetts Open (in 1905 and 1911). He also competed in seven editions of the US Open, with a best placed finish of 5th in 1903 at Baltusrol. At the 1910 Open in St Andrews, Ross finished joint 8th, ten shots behind the winner, James Braid.

Shortly after taking up his position at Oakley, James Walker Tufts, the owner of the newly opened Pinehurst Resort in North Carolina, engaged Ross to serve there during the winter months as golf professional, caddie master and club maker but he was soon helping superintendent Frank Maples with maintenance and construction duties.

By 1907, the old ‘Pyramids of Pinehurst’ – chest-high chocolate drop fairway mounds – had been removed from the property and the 18-hole No.2 course was in play, measuring just over 6,000 yards with a bogey score of 80 (closer to a par of 72 by modern standards) and sand putting surfaces in operation – grass greens didn’t arrive at Pinehurst until the mid-1930s.


Ross remained at Oakley for eleven years before moving thirty miles northeast to Essex Country Club. Of course, he immediately set about redesigning the club’s course, retaining only two holes, but the project wasn’t completed until 1917, four years after he’d left the club.

As Ross’s architectural work expanded during World War I, he hired J.B. McGovern then Walter B. Hatch as design associates to assist with the ever increasing workload. Walter Irving Johnson, a draftsman and engineer, was assigned the task of drafting final plans. Ross’s brother Aeneas also worked as a construction supervisor from 1922 to 1932 before returning to Dornoch. All told, it’s reckoned Ross was involved in around 400 projects during a thirty-five year design career which ran in parallel with his responsibilities at Pinehurst.

In fairness, it’s reckoned Ross only personally visited around two-thirds of all the courses he’s attributed with, which proves he must have had great faith in his associates to ensure that high standards were maintained across the board in a consistent manner.

At the height of his design powers in the 1920s, Ross oversaw one of the biggest landscape contract operations in the country, with around 3,000 men working on his jobs through sub-contacted companies. How he managed to juggle his architectural workload with his Pinehurst responsibilities is anybody’s guess.

Eric Nelson, Ross’s long-term personal secretary (who succeeded him as general manager at Pinehurst Country Club in 1946) was the man who, from late April to late October every year, would follow Ross out of Pinehurst to wherever he was staying in New England. He’d then continue to look after the day-to-day operations of the design company, handling accounts and correspondence, as well as organizing train travel for the many site visits that had to be made. Without this administrative assistance, Ross would have really struggled to keep on top of things.

Frank Maples was Ross’s golfing right-hand man at Pinehurst. Joining the resort in 1902, he eventually became the director of grounds and maintenance, a position he held until he died in 1949. It was Maples who put the Donald Ross plans for the No.2 course into practice, with no drawings or formal plans required. His first son Ellis became a designer in his own right and a second son, Henson, joined his father in 1940 at Pinehurst, where he stayed for thirty years.

Ross’s wife Janet died of heart failure in 1922. Donald's granddaughter Elizabeth picks up the story:

"In the spring of 1923, Donald was engaged to Susie Aldridge of Rome, NY. She died on August 31, 1923 of breast cancer. My sister Susan was named after her as my mother had adored her.

DJR then married widow Florence Sturdy Blackinton of North Attleboro, Mass. a few years after Janet died and about two years after Aunt Susie had also died. Florence was a widow of Roswell Blackinton, owner of a silver items manufacturing company.

They married at the home of a friend which was located in Framingham, Massachusetts. Donald had been taken to that home as he had fallen very ill with a throat ulcer. He was expected to die. My mother Lillian was brought to him from her school, Emma Willard in Troy, NY. She had just turned 15. He recovered there and married Florence in that home while sick.

In a letter he wrote to his brother, he revealed that Florence would be a “good guardian” should anything happen to him.”

Donald Ross suffered a heart attack on 25th April, 1948 and died in Moore County Hospital the next morning. The following week, he was buried next to his first wife Janet in Newton Centre cemetery, Massachusetts and both his daughter and son-in-law were laid to rest in the same plot after they died in 2000 and 1982.

Donald Ross was a founding member of the American Society of Golf Course Architects which held its first meeting (on home turf for him) at Pinehurst in December 1947. Members of the society have worn red plaid jackets at formal gatherings since 1973, when the distinctive Ross tartan was adopted as a tribute to their honorary first president.


From architect Kris Spence, who specializes in restoring Ross courses: “Ross realised he was introducing a new populace to the game and felt a responsibility to teach the game in a balanced manner and examine a player’s ability to hit a broad spectrum of shots. His use of bunkers to direct a player to the proper line of play or suggest a shape of shot spoke to the player’s abilities.

Ross didn’t force the player around the course; he gave them multiple options and let them choose. Often the shortest route was fraught with danger but the longer route was more visible and comfortable. The approach from each would present a different requirement and difficulty.

His work is so unique because he designed and routed what he was given. His courses seldom look alike due to the way he connected each and every hole to that piece of property. He designed holes by visualising golf shots and knowing how the ball would react on the ground. He placed bunkers and angled his greens to interact with what he perceived the ball movement, drainage and other factors to be.”

“When I was a young man in Scotland, I read about the American businessman absorbed in making money. I knew the day would come when the American businessman would relax and want some game to play, and I knew that game would be golf. I read about the start of golf in the United States, and knew there would be a great future in it, so I learned all I could about the game: teaching, playing, club-making, greenkeeping and course construction. And then I came to America to grow up with a game in which I had complete confidence. Golf has never failed me.”

From Ron Whitten in the Introduction to the book 

“Ross was both a playing and teaching professional, but by 1910 he had made golf course architecture his primary occupation. Within ten years, Donald Ross had become the first superstar of American golf. His name was a designer label and appeared in advertisements for resort courses, calendars, grass seed and other turf products. He designed a set of signature golf clubs, produced by Bristol Golf Equipment.

No architect in his day had more influence on his craft. When Ross really started devoting his energies to golf architecture, the job was still considered to be that primarily of an engineer. The competition at the time – C. B. Macdonald, Devereux Emmet, Willie Park Jr. – were competent at supervising golf holes onto sites, but the results were startling artificial.

Ross transformed golf design into an art form and the profession into one for an artist. He produced marvellous routing plans that merged golf holes comfortably into the landscape. The small details were as important to Ross as the grand, design, especially the finesse shots around the greens.”

, made this comment when profiling the architect: “Donald Ross was the first American-based golf architect to advocate and create naturalness in the construction of courses. Incorporating a design philosophy similar to that of 

, Ross’s routings took full advantage of each site’s best, natural features. His greens were bold and full of variety, not unlike those at his home course in Dornoch.

However, and perhaps more tellingly, Ross paid as much attention to a green’s surrounds as he did to its internal green contours. Ross believed in moulding green contours seamlessly into the existing terrain; and his green sites almost always put a premium on short, recovery shots.”

Discovering Donald Ross: The architect and his golf courses

writes: “Throughout his work, Ross’s golf courses were to embody a particular vision and brilliance. This has allowed many of them to stand out 75 or more years after their inception. Nor did his work remain static or formulaic. A close appraisal reveals a modest if discernible evolution that might even be interpreted as following into phases or stages.

His early work includes a number of quirks or oddities that, while distinctive, appear to be the result of certain design and construction limitations. It’s not that Ross should be faulted; rather, these works, built basically between 1900 and 1918, suggest a designer who was conscious of certain site limitations and who was struggling to accommodate his designs within them.

In many cases, he was able to compensate for constraints in routing with bold and creative putting surfaces. During this period he experimented with or deployed a number of unusually shaped bunkers that by no means can be said to look formulaic or predictable. This period might be termed his “’Formative Era.’

Among the representative works of this era that remain in relatively pristine form today are Essex Country Club (MA), Rhode Island Country Club, Wannamoisett Country Club (RI), Brae Burn (MA), White Bear Yacht Club (MN) and French Lick Springs Golf Course (IN).

After World War I, Ross developed a more mature, flowing style in which features were more carefully integrated – ‘floated out’ in the parlance of construction shapers, whose task it would become to ‘tie in’ contour lines that adhered to natural topographic features.

This work was greatly aided by hiring of design associates Walter B. Hatch and J. B. McGovern. Ross’s plans also became more technically adept thanks to the professional engineering and drafting provided by Walter Irving Johnson, who came on board in October 1920. The lines are smoother, more economical, and incorporate more mechanical construction.

Again, at the risk of oversimplification, we can call this his ‘Mature Phase’. Representative works that still embody these features would include Broadmoor Country Club (IN), Franklin Hills (MI), Holston Hills Country Club (TN), Salem Country Club (MA), Seminole (FL), and Mountain Ridge (NJ).

These works of the 1920s are more elegant, with smoother transitions from fairway into the green and fewer bunkers but more strategic in nature. There is a certain grace to these layouts, reflected in the more carefully fashioned contours of the greens and their positioning so that they were visible from a standard area of approach.

Ross’s workload, the busiest in the country through the 1920s, quieted dramatically the last 15 years of his life. What work that did come his way was sporadic, and done with greater concern for economy of production than for aesthetic effect. This can be termed his ‘Functionalist Phase’ – a concern more for playability and maintainability that with a particular aesthetic or strategic effect.

His works during this era really bridge two different modes of building. In the 1930s his work consisted largely of municipal projects that were impressive feats of construction. After World War II, Ross found more work – for two years or so, until his death in April of 1948. The few projects he designed throughout this era do not readily show the same attention to detail of his Formative and Mature phases.

How could they, as Ross was limited in his travels, and he has also slowed down physically and mentally owing to ageing and declining health? This work was almost entirely taken up by J.B. McGovern, with assistance from Frank Maples’s son, Ellis. That Ross’s work was in such good hands helps explain the substance and elegance of Raleigh Country Club (NC), the last course he ever did.”

 commented as follows in the foreword of Bradley S. Klein's book 

: “The mystique about Donald Ross starts with his marvellous routings. When I see Ross courses, and I mean the ones he was seriously involved in, I’m amazed how he could take an old topographic map and route the holes with such variation. Many of the Ross courses that we’ve heard about and that have come into national recognition were on good pieces of ground to start with. They were all on self-contained lots, where you didn’t have to cross roads or walk around areas that you couldn’t build on.


He was the first designer to make the opening shot play one way, then switch the kind of play needed on the second shot. Whatever he had done on the first hole, he’d flip on the second. He might set up a bunker on the right-hand side and expect you to cut your tee shot. He would then reverse that around the green and expect you to draw your approach.

That’s the thing about Ross courses: for all their genius, they vary. He designed them one way, but the builders had to be really skilled at construction to interpret them correctly. It often depended on who was hired to build them. Some of his courses are good because they were built by people who got their hands dirty and made his plans come alive. Other Ross courses look different and are a little extreme because they were built by people who weren’t very good at making sense of his sketches.

I wonder what Mr. Ross would say about the game and the about how his courses play today. I wonder if, or how, he would have changed his designs. In some ways, design was easier for him because there wasn’t such a big difference between good players and average resort players. Ross could also count on firm, fast fairways back then, but today’s courses are much more lush. Which means it’s become a different game, and the difference between midrange golfers and professionals is bigger than ever.”

From Ron Forse, another Ross restoration expert, in a 

 interview, November 2020: “Donald Ross didn’t do the same architecture his whole career (people make a fatal error of logic by thinking an architect’s career was monolithic and did not evolve). His first era we call primitive, which was marked by arbitrary features and sometimes and sometimes a slightly clumsy but fascinatingly quirky design. The period is from the early 1900s to 1919.

His second era was from 1920 to WWII. We call this his mature work. It is now very strategic in nature. This period is also more beautiful in that the features blend better with nature. Ross has evolved beyond the primitive. His third stage of work was his Post War Era, which was very short – 1945 until his death in 1948. At this time his associate J.B. McGovern did most of the work.

Essentially, this era was marked by what looks like a blending of 1920s Ross with the architecture of William Flynn. The bulldozer was being used and bunker design had sand flashed in many cases all the way to the top of the feature (McGovern built courses for Flynn at times as well as working for Ross).

As a designer I think he was a very quick study, an instinctive architect. Ross could be a very good artist as well. His mounding features and green complexes were simply beautiful. And his bunker artistry is on display in old photos of Seminole in Florida, where he had plenty of time to work his craft due to the onslaught of the Depression.

His field notes for changing Wannamoisset were done in one day in June 1927. He said this was his best course and was yet still making improvements. This is instructive about the man. He was also flexible. At the Sagamore in upstate New York he allowed himself to route the first hole into the morning sun because the layout was so spectacular.

James Harrison of Pittsburgh who worked for Ross as a young man at Edgewood Country Club remembered Ross as being somewhat quirky in that he liked to go to the 5 and 10 store and look at the little trinkets (I don’t know how identifying this would be of his actual character).

Ross’s humility was shown in his acceptance of Jim Harrison’s criticism of his routing at Edgewood. Holes 13 through 18 all have out of bounds on their right hand side. Harrison thought he should have routed them in the opposite direction and told him so years later. ‘Well maybe you are right,’ Ross replied.”

From Richard Mandell in the introduction to the book 

Great Donald Ross Golf Courses Everyone Can Play: Resort, Public and Semi-Private

: “Donald Ross strove for originality in all his work, and knew that originality comes primarily from utilizing the lay of the land to its utmost potential. How else can one maintain that unique quality within such a long list of works? As each piece of property is original to the world, so too does each Donald Ross course fit the needs of its location.

The more Donald Ross golf courses one plays, the more this originality and variety in design precludes the categorization of his work into tight confines. Surely many are familiar with his more-famous layouts, such as Seminole or Pinehurst No. 2, yet the many other courses that are more accessible to the everyday golfer truly demonstrates Donald Ross’s unique place in golf history.

He was a great advocate of public-access golf, and knew that success lay in the universal appeal of the game to players at all levels. His designs reflect those tenets very well by leaving the lavishness to others and simply revealing the attributes of the ground itself in each golf hole, being sure to give the golfer a myriad of options.

Donald Ross weaved rhythm into his designs: long holes followed by short ones, left-leaning holes followed by right-leaners, or a bunker to carry followed by one to avoid altogether. Sadly, all this artistry can be easily destroyed over time by exuberant renovations in the name of ‘modernisations.’ That is why it is vital to preserve his works, allowing golfers not only the opportunity to enjoy the simplicity of his designs, but also the realization that a round of golf can be a round of pure pleasure.”

Golf Has Never Failed Me: The Lost Commentaries of Legendary Golf Architect Donald J. Ross

, a collection of short essays by Ross written between the two world wars but not published until 1996

Discovering Donald Ross: The Architect and his Golf Courses, 

, published in 2017, by Paul Dunn and B. J. Dunn

World Golf Hall of Fame – Class of 1977: In the words of Jack Nicklaus, Donald Ross designed golf courses led to positive thinking: “His stamp as an architect was naturalness.” Ross was, and still is, considered the Michelangelo of golf.

Donald Ross

Donald Ross worked with Old Tom Morris at St Andrews in 1893 then spent part of the following season at Carnoustie before returning to serve under the Dornoch club secretary John Sutherland.

Tom Bendelow was raised in Aberdeen, one of nine children born to John Bendelow and Mary Edwards, and he learned how to play the game with his father on the old Kings Links near the city centre. He trained as a typesetter and worked on the 

 before marrying the daughter of a local farmer, Mary Ann Nicol, then emigrating to America in 1892, with his wife and daughter following a year later.

 and replied to an advertisement in the newspaper looking for a golf instructor to teach the game to a local family. It turned out the advert had been placed by members of the Pratt family. Charles Pratt had been a pioneer in the petroleum industry and Tom gave lessons on his estate in Glen Cove, Long Island. He eventually set out a short 6-hole practice course on the property around 1894.

This was probably Tom’s first course design, though it’s thought he also laid out a few other courses for wealthy and sports-minded businessmen in the New Jersey area around that time. Stuart Bendlelow, Tom’s grandson, gave an interview to the 

 in 2004, detailing how his grandfather got started on the design front:

“Tom Bendelow’s most notable early efforts, and the ones that really propelled him into national prominence, were at Van Cortlandt Park, in the Bronx. Here he re-designed the existing nine holes, added a second nine, supervised the construction and maintenance of the course, directed play, organized tournaments and offered instruction. This was the country’s first 18-hole municipal golf course and something of a model for what Tom felt should to be replicated across the United States.”

Bendelow then began to work with A.G. Spalding designing golf courses all over the country, co-operating with municipal parks and businessmen to provide basic golf course design for layouts which were inexpensive to build, easy to maintain and which would provide the maximum in playable rounds of golf. Of course, it also helped to have Bendelow expand Spalding’s golf equipment business at the same time.

 on his 1900 American tour and played with him in several exhibition matches. He also caddied for Vardon in the 1900 U.S. Open at Wheaton, Illinois.

By the time Tom moved to Chicago as Director of Golf Course Development with A. G. Spalding in 1901, he had already designed almost a hundred courses, mainly in the states of New Jersey, New York and Pennsylvania.

Tom opened an indoor golf school in the basement of Spalding’s Chicago offices, offering lessons during the winter months. He was appointed as an official for the golf competition at the 1904 Olympics in St. Louis, Missouri and three years later became Editor of the annual publication called 

During his sixteen years with the company, he laid out more than 250 courses across the country, venturing into Canada on several occasions.

Bendelow left to become Manager of the Golf Department for Ashland Sporting Goods in Chicago in 1917. When the firm was then acquired by Thomas Wilson Sporting Goods Company, he was appointed as its first Golf Department Manager.

He didn’t last long with Wilson as he joined the American Park Builders Company in 1920, taking over the position of Chicago-based Chief Golf Course Designer from William Langford, who had left to form his own design partnership with Theodore Moreau.

His new duties saw him focus his efforts on designing city plans, subdivisions, country clubs and golf course communities. He also designed park systems and even cemeteries throughout the United States and Canada. Incredibly, he still managed to lay out an estimated 150 courses in the fifteen years leading up to his death in 1936.

Bendelow is recognized as the most prolific of course designers worldwide and a pioneer in establishing and growing the game in America. Apart from his architectural skills, he also taught golf course design at college level, played with the likes of Harry Vardon, and wrote enthusiastically about the game. He even had his own line of Thos. E. Wilson clubs.

There’s absolutely no doubt that “Johnny Appleseed” Bendelow exerted a profound impact on the introduction and spread of the game of golf across North America. More’s the pity that his contribution is often overlooked or, worse still, played down.

by Geoff Cornish and Ron Whitten: “Bendelow’s reputation after his death centred on the primitive staking method Bendelow (as well as many of his contemporaries) utilized around the turn of the century. This simple method was labelled pejoratively “eighteen-stakes-on-a-Sunday-afternoon.” Ironically, Bendelow, a deeply religious man, never laid out a course on a Sunday. He refused to even play golf on a Sunday, so strict was his personal doctrine. He never drank alcohol, never swore and never told off-color jokes. His only apparent weakness was for the huge cigars he constantly smoked. None of his relatives could recall if he smoked them on Sundays.”

 by Keith Cutten: “Due to his early design methodologies, Bendelow’s contributions as a golf course designer are often overlooked. However, those early courses were intentionally simple, as they were intended for new golfers, part-time players, and families. As golfing interests and abilities matured, so too did Tom’s course designs. He added more features, recommended bolder shaping of fairways and greens, and gave more thought to the strategic placement of hazards.

Following World War One, opportunities to design and construct golf courses quickly resurfaced. Larger budgets and grandiose visions soon followed in response to increased economic prosperity. It was during this period that Tom Bendelow was able to focus on perfecting his layouts. Where Bendelow had the time and money to perfect a course, as was the case at the three-course facility at Medinah (Illinois), the calibre of his work was outstanding.”

 article: “In the 1890s, when Tom Bendelow got into the golf business, the future of the sport was uncertain. Many considered it a passing fad of the rich. Golf needed a mentor, a champion to set its roots and help it grow. With his relentless drive, positive attitude and powers of persuasion Bendelow drew thousands into the game. No one worked harder or longer, traveled farther or had a greater impact on golf's growth in the USA. While credited with more than 600 courses, half of those being public links, his work made golf accessible to all men and women, young and old, wealthy and working class, offering to them the benefits and rewards of golf for the first time. From these roots, legions of players have evolved. It can truly be said that ‘More people have learned to play golf on a Bendelow designed course than that of any other golf course designer’.

And as vast numbers of players were drawn into the game, there evolved a greater demand for even more courses, clubs, balls, equipment and related business opportunities. The desire for more challenging course layouts also emerged as players acquired greater skills and the permanence of the game and competition grew. With interest in golf growing, greater financial resources became available for bigger, longer, more challenging courses with higher construction costs and bigger architect fees, a trend that Tom had written about in the 1890s. The course architects who made their reputations during the ‘Golden Age of Golf Design’ and thereafter owe much to those who laid the solid foundation for the sport in America.

Over four decades, Bendelow worked as a golf instructor, course designer, club superintendent, tournament organizer, competition official, sporting goods manager, university lecturer, municipal golf promoter, and a mentor to such golf notables as Charles “Chick” Evans, William Langford, Peter Jans and Carl Anderson. He actively used his newspaper background to write about the sport, its benefits, its growth, its management and its future. Tom Bendelow's efforts were preeminent in the founding and growth of golf as a popular sport among the greater population in America. It is puzzling that the modern era scribes of American golf history have chosen to ignore his contributions.”

Thomas “Tom” Bendelow: The Johnny Appleseed of American Golf

 by Stuart W. Bendelow (2006): “It is worth noting that Tom Bendelow’s first job in golf was that of a teacher or instructor. His interest and enthusiasm were infectious. His eager students soon needed places to play and sought his services again to design a few private holes or a complete course. These early designs were for new golfers – part-time players, women and families – and they were simple designs to promote play and practice, not so difficult as to discourage but challenging enough to reward good play. And they were not so intricately designed to be overly costly for those responsible for maintaining the course.

This was especially true of the courses Bendelow designed prior to 1900. When Bendelow joined A.G. Spalding & Bros. his (and A.G.’s) objective was to promote the game of golf (and equipment sales) by increasing the number of golf courses. They were not seeking to design and build championship courses or courses to test the honed skills of the best players, but rather courses that new players could enjoy, courses that would improve player proficiency, courses that would promote participation, and courses that could be maintained at a reasonable expense. Ideally, he felt that municipal or public golf courses should be like public ball fields, open to all players at little or no cost.

The methods of golf course construction changed radically over the course of Bendelow’s career, making it virtually impossible to compare what he did (or could do) in 1895 with what was possible in the 1920s. Nevertheless, he always strove to give his client, public or private, the best facility their resources would permit. There is no record of his ever arguing for more financial support than the client was willing to expend. And in the case of public facility ventures, he was ever-mindful of the continued costs of course maintenance and facility upkeep, factors that would affect the playability of the course and the enjoyment of the players.

It would be fair to call Bendelow’s approach to course design a ‘naturalist’s approach,’ in that he strove to utilize the natural features of the chosen site to maximum advantage. If a site had an especially unique feature – rock outcrop, stream, grove of trees, scenic view – he would work his hole placements in such a way as to take full advantage of the features even if that meant working his layout from the middle out.

Bendelow’s designs changed as the game of golf changed. When given good sites and adequate resources with which to work, he could produce a very challenging lay out, equal to the best work of the day. His personal goal however, was to build good, solid, enjoyable golf courses – ‘sporty’ was his favorite term – for use by the vast majority of American golfers.

While Medinah’s No. 3 Course may continue to be listed as Bendelow’s best work, others may argue otherwise. There are dozens of Tom Bendelow-designed golf courses that continue to provide a challenging and pleasurable experience to the present day golfer.”


Principally a functional architect, Bendelow refined his procedures in Chicago, producing elaborate detailed plans and molding plaster cast models to demonstrate proposed green contours. He lectured about golf architecture at the University of Illinois and wrote about it for national publications. The Golf Course by Geoff Cornish and Ron Whitten

Tom Bendelow

Bendelow worked with A.G. Spalding designing inexpensive golf courses to build and maintain, thus enabling Spalding’s golf equipment business to rapidly expand nationally.

Manitoba

Canadian Amateur

Canadian Women's Amateur

Canada

The prairie province of Manitoba is not exactly overflowing with quality golf courses but the 18 holes at Pine Ridge Golf Club, just outside Winnipeg, are certainly worthy of inclusion in the upper echelons of the national rankings.

Within a few years of formation in 1912, one of the club's early committees decided to appoint Donald Ross as course architect and so Pine Ridge is one of only several Canadian designs – 

 are two of the others – to bear the stamp of the great golf course designer.

For a fee of just over $500, Donald Ross remodelled the original Tom Bendelow course by adding eleven tees, over a hundred bunkers, six new greens and four brand new holes.

Opened for play in 1921, the Ross layout is routed over gently rolling terrain and it extends to a modest 6,622 yards from the back markers, with many of the tree-lined fairways doglegging left or right across the landscape.

Although there are five par threes on the scorecard, the first one-shotter is not encountered until the 148-yard, uphill 7th hole, played to a green surrounded by four bunkers. Back-to-back par three holes follow around the turn; the 9th uphill then the 10th downhill.

The remaining short holes are played on holes 14 and 16; the former featuring a well-protected punchbowl green whilst the three-tiered putting surface of the latter is definite three-putt territory.

Pine Ridge Golf Club

St Charles (Ross & MacKenzie)

North America

The prairie province of Manitoba is not overflowing with quality golf courses but Pine Ridge Golf Club is worthy of inclusion in the upper echelons of the national rankings.