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…
Oregon native Dan Hixson began his golf career as a tour pro and later became a club professional, but his real desire was to be a golf course architect. Despite no formal training, he slowly learned the profession and soon was hired to build Bandon Crossings, a public course just south of Bandon Dunes. That…
Ron Whitten has been one of the most prominent and influential voices in golf course architecture since the mid-1980’s when he became Golf Digest’s architecture editor. He created the current criteria for the magazine’s popular (or, depending, notorious) Top 100 U.S & World Courses lists, has written various books including the essential compendium, “The Architects of…
Peter Kessler was the face and voice of the Golf Channel when the station first went live in 1995. Over the next seven years he commanded the show, mastering ceremonies and interviewing virtually every important figure in golf and instruction. In the course of that time period, and for years following hosting his show on…
Brad Klein has been one of the media’s foremost authorities on golf course architecture since he began writing for Golfweek Magazine in 1988. He created that publication’s highly influential ranking of America’s 100 greatest modern and classic courses, and he recently, after 30 years, moved on to a new position with Golf Advisor and the…
Keith Cutten is an integral player in golf design’s next generation who has worked alongside a variety of architects including Bill Coore, Jeff Mingay, Doug Carrick and, most importantly, his mentor Rod Whitman shaping features, drafting plans, developing budgets and running job sites. He’s also one of the leading young historians on golf course design and…
Mike DeVries belongs to an elite class of golf architects working today who have been fortunate to work on properties that qualify as some of the best sites golf has seen since the 1920’s. His jaw-dropping design at Cape Wichkam Links on Kings Island in Tasmania, with wide holes rolling along the rocky ocean shore,…