John Morrison was educated at Charterhouse School in Goldaming, Surrey from 1905 to 1911, during which time he captained the school’s cricket and football teams. He also captained the Public Schools Team against the MCC in his final year at Charterhouse before he went up to Trinity College, Cambridge to study history and law.

The Great War curtailed his university studies and he joined the Royal Flying Corps, where he was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross for flying torpedo bombers. It’s also thought he was one of the first pilots to land a plane on an aircraft carrier. After the war, Morrison returned to Trinity College, graduating in 1920.

His sporting achievements as an amateur during the 1920s were many, including a cap for England against Wales at football, and he captained Corinthians when they beat Blackburn Rovers 1-0 in the first round of the F.A. Cup at Crystal Palace in 1924. He also played cricket for both the Somerset and Northumberland county teams.

Morrison joined Harry Colt’s design partnership in 1923 (the same year 

 withdrew) and became a director of the company five years later. He was also a skilled practitioner on the golf course, winning the Worplesdon Foursomes (partnering Joyce Wethered) in 1928 then the Belgian Open Amateur Championship the following year.

During the 1930s, Morrison and Henry Longhurst were long-standing partners for Charterhouse in the Halford Hewitt early season match play competition for public schools, where each team fields five foursomes pairs. Over a six-year spell, the prodigious pairing of Morrison and Longhurst won all but one of 32 matches played.

Morrison was Captain of both Sunningdale (1933) and Royal Worlington & Newmarket (1936) and he teamed up with Joyce Wethered to win the Sunningdale Foursomes on a couple of occasions in the mid-1930s. When World War II broke out, Morrison enlisted in the RAF, serving first as a Wing Commander then Group Captain of a training facility.

He was a larger than life figure with an iron constitution, as remarked on by Henry Lord and Peter Pugh in 

Masters of Design – Great Courses of Colt, MacKenzie, Alison & Morrison

 when they wrote: “Aside from being a consummate sportsman, he also proved his drinking prowess by winning a beer-drinking contest at Oktoberfest in Munich. To celebrate this, he reputedly drank a pint of sherry, which was his preferred tipple.”

 on numerous design projects in the United Kingdom and on the continent of Europe. Indeed, a large proportion of the overseas commissions for Colt Alison & Morrison Ltd were overseen by John Morrison but, like 

, his contribution is often overlooked in favour of headline partner Harry Colt, whose name and reputation is far more widely known.

Morrison worked extensively in The Netherlands, Germany and Spain before World War II then in France and Italy after the war. On the domestic front, he’s probably best known for remodelling the course at Prince’s along with 

 in the late 1940s and he remained active after the demise of Harry Colt in 1951 and Hugh Alison a year later, collaborating with J. Hamilton Stutt on projects until he passed away in 1961.

John Morrison was a larger than life figure with an iron constitution, remarked Henry Lord and Peter Pugh: “Aside from being a consummate sportsman, he also proved his drinking prowess by winning a beer-drinking contest at Oktoberfest in Munich. To celebrate this, he reputedly drank a pint of sherry, which was his preferred tipple.”

John Morrison

John Morrison joined Harry Colt’s design firm in 1923 and became a director of the company five years later. He was also a skilled practitioner on the golf course, winning prestigious amateur tournaments.

Northern Italy

Italian Open

European Ladies' Amateur

European Amateur Team

Italy

Ten years after Italy became a Republic in 1946, Circolo Golf Torino moved to the Parco Regionale La Mandria, the old hunting estate of the former ruling House of Savoy. The Turin club, then thirty-six years in existence, had found the perfect woodland site for its members to pursue their sport.

Englishman John Morrison designed the original Blue course and some time later, the 18-hole Yellow course was added. A number of holes were renovated in the late 1990s by the Canadian architect Graham Cook in preparation for the 1999 Italian Open, won by Scotland's Dean Robertson. In more recent times, Graham Cook has been involved in updating the green complexes as part of – in the words of the club – “a master renovation plan”.

Both the Blue and Yellow are classic parkland courses laid out over gently undulating terrain with plenty of trees, bunkers and water hazards to punish wayward shots. This is exemplified on the Blue course’s 171-yard par three 13th hole, where the raised green is framed on three sides by trees and protected in front by both sand and water.

The Italian Open returned to Golf Club Torino in 2013, won by Frenchman Julien Quesne and the La Mandria club also hosted the event in 2014, which South Africa's Hennie Otto won.

Graham Cooke – course architect writes:

 “Prior to the last Italian Open held at Golf Club Torino, I was engaged to create more drama and interest for the Blue course. I primarily added a series of creative, grassy accent mounds throughout the course. The mounds were sculptured with hollows and peaks in such a way that no form was repeated. The introduction of these forms made a major impact, as the course had limited grade changes and the existing features, especially fairway bunkers, had no framing or backdrop.

The program gave numerous bunker sites a proper home and the visuals from the tees were greatly enhanced. Other parts of the program involved tee additions, fairway cutting pattern changes and a few green complex changes.

In summary, I was very pleased with the results and the members and professionals who came to the Open were charmed by the new, more expressive, appearance of the course. This project demonstrated that accent mounds, properly sculptured, can impart an older feel to an established course. It is my firm belief that the original architect would have been pleased at the results and would have embarked on a similar look had he had the material or budget when the course was originally built.”


Torino (Blue)

Milano (1st & 2nd)

Continental Europe

John Morrison designed the original Torino golf course and a number of holes were renovated by the Canadian architect Graham Cook in preparation for the 1999 Italian Open, won by Padraig Harrington.