Mount Rushmore of Golf Course Architects

Most of us can remember fairly quickly the identities of the four presidents on Mount Rushmore. The name of the artist who sculpted the figures into the Black Hills granite comes to us a little slower, however, sometimes not arriving at all.

The man with the tools was Gutzon Borglum (and 400 hired hands), the son of Danish immigrants, who was given free rein by South Dakota State Historian Doane Robinson to carve whatever or whomever he chose, so long as it attracted tourists.

Borglum selected four U.S. presidents—George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln, and Theodore Roosevelt—whom he felt were key to the emergence and expansion of the United States in its first 150 years. And it appears his choices were never really questioned. Of course, you could argue the case for each quite easily given their place in U.S. history, but there were no clearly defined criteria. It was a subjective decision.

So it must be with a Mount Rushmore of golf course architects. We’re not talking about our four favorites, necessarily, or even the first four. As if we could say with any confidence who the four earliest golf course architects were anyway—was someone who chose where to push a tin can into a hole in the ground 200 years ago a golf course architect? Or do you have to be photographed in work boots, holding rolled up plans, and pointing to a distant (imaginary?) green before you can be considered one?

Everyone will have their own set of benchmarks for whom should be immortalized in stone. Here are my choices.

H.S. Colt

Old Tom Morris had assisted Allan Robertson in laying out 10 holes at Carnoustie in 1842 (aged just 21), built 12 holes at Prestwick in his early 30s, and did much in his mid-to-late 40s to create the St. Andrews Old Course that we play today, but he was a caddie, clubmaker, greenkeeper, and player before laying out courses with any great regularity. Many of his most famous designs came during his 60s, in fact, some even later—he made his well-documented visit to Askernish at the age of 70, and his original 16-hole course at Muirfield likewise opened when he was 70.

It was Harry Colt who established golf course architecture as a career and full-time profession, in the UK at least. The Cambridge graduate was a solicitor for a short time before being chosen for the job of club secretary at Rye on England’s southern coast where he co-designed the club’s beloved course in 1894. He became secretary at Sunningdale in 1901 and, though he always gave the original designer credit for the course, made significant changes to Willie Park Jr.’s layout.

In 1913, having designed superb courses at Blackmoor, Camberley Heath, Stoke Park, and St. George’s Hill near London, he left Sunningdale to pursue a career in course architecture, visiting North America three times—in 1911, 1913, and 1914 when he designed courses for Toronto Golf Club and Hamilton Golf Club in Canada, and the Country Club of Detroit, Bloomfield Hills, and Old Elm in the U.S. During his second trip, in 1913, he also spent a week with George Crump at Pine Valley.

Colt was perhaps the man most responsible for the shift from formulaic and penal design to thought-provoking and strategic, creating engaging holes shaped by the soft curves of nature.

After another 35 years in the business (he died in 1951), he had compiled a list of originals and redesigns that also included Muirfield (he rerouted Morris’s course in 1925), Royal Portrush, Royal Liverpool, Royal Lytham and St. Annes, Wentworth, and County Sligo in Britain and Ireland, along with Utrecht De Pan, Kennemer, Royal Hague, Saint-Cloud, St. Germain, and Hamburger in Continental Europe.

Donald Ross

Born in Dornoch, Scotland, in 1872, Ross came to the U.S. as a club professional and clubmaker in 1899. After making changes to the Oakley Country Club course in Boston where he began life in America, Ross turned the Pinehurst Resort’s original holes (two nines by different designers) into a cohesive 18-holer that became No. 1, built No. 2 and No. 3, and made huge improvements to Essex County Club in Massachusetts around 1909–10. Having demonstrated a remarkable talent for designing golf courses, he transitioned into the role of full-time architect while maintaining a significant presence at Pinehurst.

He spent 35 years building a hugely impressive inventory of courses totaling around 400 (great faith in his construction team and foremen meant he visited maybe only 250 himself), that have stood the test of time, and which will likely be as revered a hundred years from now as they are today.

In 1946, he was a founding member of the American Society of Golf Course Architects becoming its first honorary President. He did more with the land he was given than perhaps any architect before or since, creating wonderfully natural courses that always gave the golfer options, holding their attention from first to last. Besides his masterpiece at Pinehurst No. 2, Ross’s greatest designs include Seminole in Florida, Oakland Hills in Michigan, Aronimink in Pennsylvania, and Wannamoisett in Rhode Island where he built an endlessly engaging par-69 on just 89 acres.

Alister MacKenzie

The Englishman of Scottish descent made his design debut in 1907 at Alwoodley in Leeds, following up two years later with the excellent Moortown, just a mile away.

He built a handful more courses before winning a prestigious competition in Britain’s popular Country Life Magazine that sought designs for a two-shot hole to be built at C.B. Macdonald’s Lido course on New York’s Long Island. Bernard Darwin, Herbert Fowler, and Horace Hutchinson had chosen MacKenzie’s entry, giving him the boost to his ego and credibility that enabled him to become a full-time course architect following World War I.

In 1923, he left a four-year partnership with Colt and C.H. Alison to further his reputation both at home and overseas and, three years later, sailed to Australia where he designed perhaps his greatest course—Royal Melbourne (West) as well as Kingston Heath, Royal Adelaide, Victoria, and New South Wales. In that same year, he made his first trip to the U.S. where he’d eventually settle and design a number of world class courses including Meadow Club, Pasatiempo, Crystal Downs, the Valley Club of Montecito, the sensational Cypress Point in California, and Augusta National in Georgia where he worked alongside the great Bobby Jones. He also spent time in South America at the beginning of 1930 when he built the highly regarded Red and Blue courses at the Jockey Club in Buenos Aires.

MacKenzie designed or redesigned roughly 65 courses during his 27 years in the business (not nearly as prolific as either Colt or Ross) adhering to the 13 design principles that appeared in his two popular books—Golf Architecture, published in 1920, and the almost sacred Spirit of St. Andrews which was lost for over 60 years following his death in 1934 then published in 1995. His courses lent so much to their beautiful surroundings, but exquisite bunkers, enthralling greens, and holes that were challenging for great players but perfectly playable for the less gifted made them appealing for everyone.

Bill Coore and Ben Crenshaw

Yes, each of the four presidents Borglum chose to memorialize on Mount Rushmore had died before their faces appeared in the rock, which suggests our fourth pick should likewise be deceased. And having two partners instead of an individual is a further tweaking of the precedent Borglum set 83 years ago.

Regardless, I’m selecting two architects who may be in the second half of their careers but whose love for the job enables them to leap about worksites with the energy of much younger men. Crenshaw, a two-time Masters champion, formed his design partnership with the ever humble and highly judicious Coore in 1985, since when they have created an extensive list of very special courses.

They aren’t included here to balance out the eras or give a nod to contemporary architects, but simply because they belong in such company. It’s possible/probable more top 100 courses (U.S. modern) than the 10 they already have will emerge in the coming years, but a look down their existing collection of 45 projects (32 new builds including Sand Hills, Friar’s Head, Cabot Cliffs, and Lost Farm; 13 renovations including Pinehurst No. 2, Riviera, and Maidstone) suggests altogether superior talent.

The two partners feed off each other—without Crenshaw, Coore loses an elite golfer with a keen sense of the game’s architectural history, while no Coore means Crenshaw loses an immense golf intellect who understands better than anyone what constitutes a great golf course.

So though it was tempting to single out Coore (for many, Crenshaw will always be a great player first and foremost), and while he is certainly revered by his contemporaries not to mention capable of building great courses by himself, it just seems wrong to separate them.

(Very) Honorable mentions: James Braid, Tom Doak, Pete Dye, Tom Fazio, Robert Trent Jones Sr., A.W. Tillinghast, C.B. Macdonald, Seth Raynor

Who is on your personal Mount Rushmore of golf course architects?