Bruce Hepner began his architectural career in 1990 as an associate for Ron Forse, with whom he became one of the early advocates and influencers of historic golf course restoration. He returned home to Michigan in 1993 to work for Tom Doak, first as a shaper and later as a designer at modern masterpieces like Pacific…
Brian Curley began his golf course architecture career working on a number of Pete Dye courses for Landmark Land Company. There he met another Dye protégé, Lee Schmidt, and the two combined forces to form the company Schmidt-Curley Golf Design. Since the 1990’s they’ve built courses all over the U.S. and throughout the world, and for…
Peter Kessler — the Voice of Golf, historian and one of the most outspoken commentators in the game — returns to the podcast to talk to Derek about his recent social media dustups with Brandel Chamblee and the fans of No Laying Up, about being provocative on Twitter, the skills required to be great on…
P.B. Dye began working on his father Pete Dye’s construction sites when he was a boy. Along with his brother, Perry, he’s had the closest and longest view of how Dye conceived of and built golf courses and was a primary assistant during several of his father’s touchstone courses, including Long Cove on Hilton Head…
Thad Layton began working for Arnold Palmer Course Design in the late 1990’s and now, as Senior Architect and Vice President, leads the company along with fellow designer Brandon Johnson. Since 1972, the firm has been known for producing a massive number of courses worldwide, mostly associated with real estate. Over the last five years, however, Layton…
Tom Mackenzie joined with Martin Ebert to form the golf architectural firm of Mackenzie & Ebert in 2005. They each began their careers designing golf courses for Donald Steel, and their business is very much a continuation of the elder architect’s practice. Like Steel, Mackenzie prefers to design naturally, altering landscapes as little as possible…
Richard Mandell’s golf design practice has taken off over the last 10 years. He entered the business in the early 1990’s and paid his dues for over a decade working singular jobs while learning how to build and renovate courses with a minimal amount of of unnecessary inputs or accessorization. As a result he gained a…
Ron Forse was an engineer who made a jump into golf course architecture in 1989, working on a project in West Virginia in conjunction with Dr. Michael Hurdzan. Though not necessarily his intent, he began taking jobs consulting with a number of historic club, guiding them through the process of renovating their old courses. Since…
South Carolina native Beau Welling played college golf at Brown University and earned a landscape architecture degree from the Rhode Island School of Design. After exploring career opportunities in several diverse fields, he committed to golf course architecture joining Tom Fazio’s staff in the late 1990’s. In 2007 he opened his own firm in Greenville, and became…
Tom Coyne’s fourth book is “A Course Called Scotland,” a funny and poignant tale of his journey playing over 100 links courses in Scotland, England and Wales in less than 60 days. His goal was twofold: to find out the meaning of golf, which must exist somewhere in those sacred links soils; and to hone…