Arnold Palmer’s father Deacon was the head professional and green keeper at Latrobe Country Club in Pennsylvania so the young Arnie grew up in a golfing environment, helping his father about the club. He attended Wake Forest College in North Carolina but left in 1951 to enlist with the US Coast Guard, where he served for three years.

He won more than twenty events in and around his home state, starting in 1946, but he reached the pinnacle of his amateur career in 1954 when he won the US Amateur at the Country Club of Detroit. Within a short time, he married his wife Winnie, quit his job as a paint salesman in Cleveland, and turned professional.

Arnie’s first win on the PGA Tour wasn’t accomplished on home soil. Instead, it arrived at the 1955 Canadian Open in Toronto, at Weston Golf and Country Club. This would be the first of almost a hundred professional victories that would come his way around the world over the following thirty five years as a player on both the regular men’s and senior tours.

Of course, the highlights of that stellar career were the seven Majors he captured between 1958 and 1964. In addition to those individual titles, Palmer also had a fantastic record in team events when he represented his country, winning thirteen out of thirteen: seven Ryder Cups (1961-1975) as a player or captain and six World Cups (1960-1967) as a player.

He was Mark McCormack’s first signing for IMG and his charismatic style was a major factor in establishing golf as a big time sporting event on television in the late 1950s and early 1960s. Arnie’s good looks and modest background, allied to the way he played golf by taking risks and wearing his emotions on his sleeve, captured the hearts of the viewers.

Arnold teamed up with architect Ed Seay in 1972 as a design partner, forming the Palmer Course Design Company which was later renamed Arnold Palmer Design Company when the firm moved to Orlando, Florida, in 2006. Together, they were responsible for more than three hundred golf courses around the globe, including the first modern course to be built in China in 1984.

Ed Seay was the technical powerhouse driving Arnold’s design business for more than thirty years. A graduate from the University of Florida with a degree in Landscape Architecture, Ed began working with Ellis Maples in the mid-1960s before continuing his design career with Mr Palmer.

He was a member of the American Society of Landscape Architects, the Urban Land Institute, and the Advisory Board for the World Golf Hall of Fame. Seay was elected as a member of the American Society of Golf Course Architects in 1970, serving as ASGCA President in 1976-1977, and he was a member of the organization until his death in 2007.

Erik Larsen worked for Arnold Palmer along with Ed Seay from 1983 to 2005, designing nearly a hundred courses across twenty-three states and in twenty-five different countries. After moving to the Orlando office in 2005, he became executive vice president of the company, running all the company operations for Mr. Palmer until starting his own firm, LarsenGolf, in 2011.

Thad Layton began his design career with Arnold in 2000, having gained a degree in Landscape Architecture from Mississippi State University. Since then, he has gained a wealth of experience and insight from his direct involvement in more than fifty projects within and out with the United States.

According to the company’s website, “his overriding goal is to create a fun and strategic golf course for every level of player. He believes the best courses are built in the field and can often be found on-site working side by side with the construction crew to get the details just right.”

Brandon Johnson joined the Arnold Palmer Design team in 2006. A graduate of North Carolina State University, where he gained his degree in Landscape Architecture, he then studied at Harvard Graduate School of Design, earning his Masters degree in Landscape Architecture in 1999.

“The design process is meant to be fun, loose, rigorous and sometimes exhausting through the exploration of plentiful ideas,” Johnson says on the company’s website. “The ultimate goal is discovering fresh, unique and creative solutions that thrill our clients, excite the player and utilize the land to the fullest.”

Arnold Palmer remained active in his design business right up until he passed away in September, 2016. He is survived by two daughters from his first marriage to Winifred Walzer in 1954 and by his second wife Kathleen Gawthrop, who he married in 2005, six years after Winnie died.

The Arnold Palmer Design Company lives on in Arnie’s absence, with Thad Layton and Brandon Johnson ensuring Mr. Palmer’s golf course design philosophies continue to live on throughout the world.

World Golf Hall of Fame – Class of 1974

: “It is not hyperbole to say that golf’s place within popular culture today is due in large part to the powerful presence of Arnold Palmer. He was an integral part of the game’s explosive growth in the 1960s. His timing was impeccable – as television proliferated and became a major part of the American landscape, it needed a star. And Palmer, who won the game’s biggest events with a boldness and charisma not previously seen, was the perfect star.

He had an everyman quality to him that appealed to the masses. His passion on the course, dramatic whirlybird follow-through and fierce animation was different from the cool intensity that the game’s greats before him had cultivated.

With his thick forearms and wasp waist, he was a sweaty, 5-10, 165-pound blue collar dynamo who joyfully made golf an athletic event – and fans from all walks of life could not get enough.

‘Arnold Palmer did not play golf, we thought,’ wrote Hall of Fame member Dan Jenkins. ‘He nailed up beams, reupholstered sofas, repaired air conditioning units. He was the most immeasurable of all golf champions.’

With a fiery, muscular swing that produced a piercing draw, Palmer was one of the finest drivers of the ball who ever lived, and from a distinctive pigeon-toed stance, a superb putter.

He led the PGA TOUR’s money list four times, and in 1963 became the first player to win more than $100,000 in a season. He played on six Ryder Cups teams, and was the winning captain twice.”

“One reason why the galleries swarmed to Palmer, as earlier galleries had to Jones, was that they liked the looks of this broad-shouldered, compact athlete who had the build of a halfback or middleweight boxer, this handsome man whose face was so mobile that his moods and feelings were clearly registered for everybody to see. They also liked his manner – calm, assured, masculine, and American – plus the vast underlying drive and energy that early in a tournament were visible only in his love of forceful hitting and his long, reaching strides down the fairway, but which manifested themselves unforgettably during the decisive hours when he was taking off after the leader and holes were running out fast.

He had to count on his natural athletic talent to carry him a long ways, for his technique lacked the refinement of a great champion’s… When he came tearing down the final holes – ‘charging’ became the word favoured by his fans – he made golf seem as exciting as any contact sport, and many sports buffs who had hitherto scoffed at the game became ardent converts after watching Palmer in action on television. When his fans met their hero in the flesh they were seldom ever disappointed. He had the innate politeness and patience to treat people as individuals in handling their endless requests for autographs and answering their repetitive questions… Success did not change him, and by remaining entirely himself, he was equally at home with Presidents, as men, Caddies, students, tycoons, farmers, and small-town radio interviewers eager to tape a closeup with him.”


: “The King’s two (arguably) greatest designs could not be more different from each other. Old Tabby Links on Spring Island in the Carolina Lowcountry is pancake-flat, but manoeuvers in compelling fashion through a live oak forest. The hourglass-shaped par-three 17th along the marsh gets all the attention, but Old Tabby is loaded with fun variety, including a handful of short par fours led by the curious 15th, which combines a Palmer rarity – centreline bunkers – with an island green.

On the Ring of Kerry in Ireland, Tralee Golf Club is almost certainly the most spectacular natural site Palmer and Seay ever worked with. This seaside links is defined by towering dunes on its back nine, but the front side features a pair of holes with a classic Palmer feel – the 3rd, a short par three playing out to a point of land back dropped by a 14th-century castle; and the 8th, a strong dogleg par four tracking along the beach.

Along with Latrobe, the course that’s most closely linked with Arnold Palmer is the host venue of his Invitational, Orlando’s Bay Hill Club. It’s easy to forget that the Tour mainstay was actually originally designed by Dick Wilson back in 1961. That said, the King made an indelible mark on Bay Hill through a series of renovations dating back to 1969. The most recent changes, in 2009, involved rebuilding the greens and adding closely shaved slopes to give players a range of short-game options.”

Arnold Palmer: Memories, Stories, and Memorabilia from a Life on and off the Course

Playing by the Rules: The Rules of Golf Explained & Illustrated from a Lifetime in the Game

Play Great Golf: Mastering the Fundamentals of Your Game 

Go for Broke! My Philosophy of Winning Golf 

World Golf Hall of Fame – Class of 1974: "It is not hyperbole to say that golf’s place within popular culture today is due in large part to the presence of Arnold Palmer. He was an integral part of the game’s growth in the 1960s. Golf needed a star. Palmer, who won with charisma not previously seen, was the perfect star.”

Arnold Palmer

Arnie teamed up with Ed Seay in 1972, forming the Palmer Course Design Company which was later renamed Arnold Palmer Design Company when the firm moved to Orlando, Florida, in 2006.

 was born in the west of Scotland, the son of a mechanical engineer father and a mother who was a historian and Old Norse linguist. While still a teenager, his family moved to the Highlands and he spent a good part of his formative golfing years in Dornoch working as a greenkeeper and a caddy.

He carried Seve Ballesteros’s bag when he came to play an exhibition match at his old club and he later spent a year on the European Tour caddying for professionals like Andrew Oldcorn and Jeff Hawkes. Mackenzie studied at Edinburgh College of Art and Heriot Watt University, playing to a low single figure handicap when competing in university golf matches.

Tom graduated with a Landscape Architecture degree in 1989 and began work almost immediately with 

, which was a dream start for a young man setting out in his design career. A member of West Sussex Golf Club, he’s also a member of the European Institute of Golf Course Architects, serving as president from 2015 to 2107.

 enrolled at Cambridge University to study engineering, organising the university golf club’s tour to the northeast of the United States of America in 1989, the year of the 100th Varsity Match, when the squad played at the likes of Merion, Pine Valley and Shinnecock Hills. After gaining a degree in his chosen subject, Martin did a postgraduate year which meant another year of university golf, naturally.

He applied for many jobs within the golf industry and ended up interviewing for what he hoped would be a management position at Foxhills Country Club & Resort. Instead, he was offered a start as a waiter! As it turned out, he became friendly with (and later married) one of the Spanish waitresses, Ana Alonso from Santander, who had been studying law in Madrid but was then learning English in England.

She introduced Martin to Manuel Ballesteros when they were in the north of Spain on a visit but the lack of a relevant qualification in a subject such as agronomy prevented him getting a start with Amen Corner, Seve’s design firm. Instead, he returned home and spent time as a night shift shelf stacker in a local supermarket before his big breakthrough into golf happened through Andy Mackenzie, whose brother Tom had been working for a year with architect Donald Steel.

 article by Peter Masters in June 2019, the author has this to say about Martin’s early days with Donald Steel:

It started as something of an apprenticeship but quite quickly progressed into a strong three-man team with Steel leading from the front before allowing his younger fledglings to deal with the more detailed design work. He rarely drew any maps or plans, preferring to work on site with the developers and constructors.

This was in contrast to Tom whose skilful sketches set him aside from the other two. “The quality of his drawings blew my mind,” remembers Ebert.” I couldn’t do that, but I could do engineering contour plans defining levels of the ground. Tom copied me and that’s what we use today.”

 was formed in 2005, after Tom and Martin had spent fifteen productive years as lead designers with Donald Steel & Company. Chris Hugget, an Engineering Design graduate who did graphic design for Donald, joined the firm in 2006 and he now looks after a variety of functions for the practice, including 2D and 3D visualisation, drafting and documentation. He’s also a qualified drone pilot.

Mike Howard, a graduate in Environmental Geography at the University of Stirling with a Masters in Landscape Architecture from the University of Edinburgh, is the newest member of the team, arriving in 2016. He still plays in national tournaments but is involved in a wide range of activities, from historic research to on-site construction visits.

An important part of the firm’s effort involves offering advice to golf clubs. As their website states: “all clubs have different needs and problems and we relish our advisory work on established courses. It is amongst the most challenging work but is often the most rewarding.”

As at the end of 2018, it’s reckoned the company had offered guidance to nearly two hundred clubs since it had been formed. At that time, it was providing consultation services to seven of the ten clubs currently on the Open rota. This work forms only a small percentage of the company’s total output but it’s easily the most prestigious and high profile element of what they do.

Upgrade work at Royal Troon, Trump Turnberry and Royal Portrush has been carried out following the company’s tried and trusted formula of conducting historical research into the evolution and development of the courses, taking a close look at club archives, assessing past editions of newspapers and sourcing old ground and aerial photography.

Other completed projects to re-open to critical acclaim in recent times include the reworked Himalayas nine at Prince’s in Kent, Delamere Forest in Cheshire, the Championship layout at Trevose in Cornwall and the West course at Saunton in Devon.

Heathland regeneration programs have also been supported at clubs such as Liphook, New Zealand, Hindhead and Royal Wimbledon, where selected tree removal and restoration of heathland areas offers wildlife a more natural habitat in which to thrive.

On the international front, Martin and Tom worked in North America and a few other overseas locations during their time with Donald Steel but their foreign work has been fairly limited in the past few years. That may well change following the firm’s appointment to restore Hugh Alison’s world-ranked layout at Hirono in Japan and it’ll be interesting to see if similar assignments come their way following the completion of this one.

There are two Goodwood Golf Clubs located in different continents in Mackenzie & Ebert's portfolio. Goodwood Golf Club in Sussex, England (originally designed by 

) was a renovation project. Goodwood Golf Club in Ontario, Canada, is an original Mackenzie & Ebert design. Ironically both are private clubs.

Tom Mackenzie and Martin Ebert were lead designers at Donald Steel & Co. for fifteen years before starting their own company in 2005. They advise seven of the ten current Open venues and consult at a large number of clubs with courses ranked in our Britain & Ireland Top 100.

Mackenzie & Ebert

Mackenzie & Ebert was formed in 2005, after the duo had spent fifteen years as lead designers with Donald Steel & Co. They now provide advice to seven of the ten current Open Championship venues.

Kerry

Ireland

“I have never come across a piece of land so ideally suited for the building of a golf course," said Arnold Palmer. Tralee Golf Club was his first Irish endeavour and it opened in 1984; it’s a rugged and exhilarating creation. Now, let’s be honest, Kerry is a very special county, the ‘Lake District’ of Ireland, an unspoilt, quiet and romantic place. Surely anybody could design a golf course in these surroundings? Well, first of all we might need to remind ourselves that Palmer wasn’t exactly a run-of-the-mill golfer and when he turned his attention to design, he always wanted to choreograph a links course in Ireland. When the opportunity arose, he wasn’t going to mess it up, was he?

Palmer (and his associate, the late Ed Seay) designed a course that will stimulate the senses every bit as much as the enchanting and breathtaking scenery. According to folklore, Palmer created the first nine and Mother Nature did the rest. The front nine at Tralee Golf Club plays across fairly level links land, but the majority of the holes hug the coastline and the ground is elevated, affording magnificent views from the cliff top across Tralee Bay to the Atlantic Ocean beyond. The back nine plays through mountainous dunes with fearsome carries across ravines to plateau greens.

The combination and variety of the holes make the entire experience captivating and exciting. There are only a few courses that grab your attention from the first tee shot, keeping hold of it until the very last putt drops. The links at Tralee is one of those few captivating courses.

There are so many great holes that it is almost impossible to single one out, although the 3rd, called “The Castle”, is considered to be the signature hole, a par three measuring almost 200 yards from the back tees. Scenically, it is glorious and reminiscent of the 7th at Pebble Beach. Take a line on the ruined castle which stands sentry to the left and behind the green – anything hit to the right of this green will be eaten by the rocks and the sea.

The 17th is called “Ryan’s Daughter” because the landscape was dramatically filmed in the award-winning movie and the hole will stick in the memory for a very long time; an elevated tee shot on this 355-yard par four must carry across a ravine to a craggy fairway, leaving an approach shot to a tiny raised tabletop green.

We always say that the measure of a good golf course is that the holes stay in the memory forever. There are so many memorable holes at Tralee, so much so that you might need to throw away some lesser memories to make room for the experience that is Tralee. But not everyone is a fan.

, Tom Doak remarked: “The course suffers from the same general problem as Ballybunion New – spectacular scenery at the expense of good golf – although the terrain itself isn’t as dramatic or as integral to the course. The “signature” holes, the par-3 3rd and 13th and the par-4 12th and 17th, are probably the worst on the course, although there are some dull inland holes as well. Some love the course, but I think some good land was wasted here.”


Tralee

Ballybunion (Old)

Britain & Ireland

At Tralee Golf Club, Palmer has designed a golf course that will stimulate the senses every bit as much as the enchanting and breathtaking scenery.