Architect Brandon Johnson, formerly of Palmer Design, launches own golf course firm

Harvard-trained architect Brandon Johnson hangs out his own shingle with new design firm.

Golf course architect Brandon Johnson has made it official: After 17 years working for Arnold Palmer Design Company, he is hanging out his own shingle with today’s introduction of Brandon Johnson Golf Course Design.

The Harvard-educated Johnson joined Palmer Design in 2006 when that firm moved to Orlando. Johnson and Thad Layton were the design leads in recent years for Palmer, which wound down operations late in 2023. Layton announced the formation of his own firm in September.

Johnson has worked on several dozen courses around the world for Palmer involving everything from renovations to new courses.

“I’m excited, and as I’ve explained it to people, it feels like I’m graduating college again,” said Johnson, who interned for the PGA Tour as a course designer in the mid-1990s before taking a job out of college with The First Tee. “There are a lot of opportunities, and there’s a lot of excitement.”

Palmer Design built more than 300 courses in 37 states and 27 countries, including many listed on Golfweek’s Best ranking of top modern courses in the U.S. and the state-by-state rankings of public and private layouts. The company really took off in the 1980s and has been one of the most recognized brands in course architecture ever since. But business, especially in constructing new courses, slowed for the company following Palmer’s death in 2016. Layton and Johnson had mostly worked on renovations since.

Old Tabby Links
Brandon Johnson led the renovation to Old Tabby Links in Okatie, S.C., which was originally created by Arnold Palmer Design Company. It was one of many jobs Johnson undertook as one of the lead designers for Palmer Design.  (Jason Lusk/Golfweek)

“I’m a very seasoned professional, but you know, I’m still young in the business,” said the 50-year-old Johnson, a native of Charlotte, North Carolina who did his undergrad in design at North Carolina State before attending Harvard for graduate school. “I had a professor in my junior year that said it’s going to take you 25 years to master this profession of landscape architecture. I think that we’re always learning and we’re always growing, so now I have this incredible kind of background in my career that I’m able to apply to my own firm.”

Johnson is busy lining up jobs and plans several announcements of renovations and possibly new courses in the coming months. He intends to spend as much time as possible in the field working with course shapers – generally speaking, shapers are the highly skilled heavy equipment operators who turn an architect’s plans into reality.

“It’s interesting, in my early days at the Tour, Pete Dye had a lot of influence,” Johnson said. “He was almost always on-site, and there was always that mentality that even though we might be in the office some, how we thought about projects was the work being done in the field. Even in my time at Palmer, we certainly transitioned when Thad and I were running the company to be much more involved in the field through every step of the process. I think, for me, that’s the way I will be starting out on my own, and it’s always kind of been my mentality.”

Golf has boomed in recent years as more players took up the game during COVID, and there has been a greater interest in course architecture as well. Johnson said it’s a great time to strike out on his own.

“People are seeking out fun, new and interesting architecture,” he said. “To me, what fun means is golf is going to have a lot of variety, and it’s going to allow you to think and maybe execute a shot in several different ways. It’s drawing you in, and it’s going to make you want to get back on the golf course. I think of the feelings that I had as a kid and I just couldn’t wait to get to the golf course. …

“You hope you have the opportunities to show the golfing world what you can do as an architect, and I’m really excited about that opportunity and look forward to working with some really good clients on some unbelievable pieces of property, working with people who are equally as passionate and in love with this game as I am.”

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Arnold Palmer Design Company winding down as senior golf architect Thad Layton hangs own shingle

Arnold Palmer Design Company built a vast legacy with more than 300 courses around the world.

Golf architect Thad Layton couldn’t be much more excited to have started his own eponymous business after more than two decades working with Arnold Palmer Design Company, but his announcement on social media this week served in many ways as a closing bell for the company founded by Palmer in 1972.

Palmer Design has built more than 300 courses in 37 states and 27 countries, including many listed on Golfweek’s Best ranking of top modern courses in the U.S. and the state-by-state rankings of public and private layouts. The company really took off in the 1980s and has been one of the most recognized brands in course architecture ever since.

But business, especially in constructing new courses, slowed for the company following Palmer’s death in 2016, and the company plans to wind down operations as non-architectural matters shift from Palmer Design specifically to the greater Arnold Palmer Group. Brandon Johnson, Palmer Design’s other senior architect, declined to comment to Golfweek about the news. Calls to Palmer Design seeking comment were unanswered.

Adam Lawrence, writing about Palmer Design’s winding down for golfcoursearchitecture.net, pointed out that there has been no significant example of a branded golf design business surviving after the death of its principal architect, and now the same appears to be true for Palmer Design.

Layton said he has dreamed of creating his own firm for several years. The industry has boomed since COVID started in 2020, with the ranks of players swelling as they searched for outdoor recreation. Since 2021 there has been significant interest industrywide in building new courses along with renovations and restorations to existing courses.

“The timing couldn’t be better for me to enter the golf business as a sole practitioner,” said Layton, a Mississippi State grad. “I’ve been in this business now for 25 years. It’s just been good times in the golf industry these past few years, and I couldn’t find a better time to hang out my shingle. I have a lot of experience putting together strategic master plans for clients, being able to deploy their capital in a meaningful, sustainable way.”

Layton said he took on increased roles as a course shaper in recent years for Palmer Design, frequently spending time on heavy equipment turning drawings into golf holes. His most recent project for Palmer Design was a greens and bunker renovation at Peninsula Papagayo in Costa Rica, where he did the detailed shaping.

He plans to continue with a hands-on approach, using the term “design-build model” on his new website – in general, that indicates an architect who is intimately involved in projects, working with a specific crew of contractors on a frequent basis.

Layton also mentioned his love of golden age architecture with classic courses built in the four decades running through the 1930s. He then expressed a love of courses built by modern architects in that style, citing Sand Hills in Nebraska by the team of Bill Coore and Ben Crenshaw as well as Pacific Dunes at Bandon Dunes Golf Resort in Oregon, built by Tom Doak.

Layton already has a project lined up, consulting on the Donald Ross-designed Lakewood Country Club in Colorado. He said he has been in talks with several other course operators about work on their layouts, too, and he hopes to soon get a crack at designing new courses.

“Where my heart is, I want to do new stuff, new courses,” said Layton, who moved to Denver four years ago after living for years in Florida, where Palmer Design was based. “I’m hopeful, once I get established, that I can show the golf world what I can do on a new site. …

“Golf has been a lifelong pursuit. I mean, I’m a golfer before I’m a golf course architect. That’s what got me interested in all this, all kinds of different golf courses. Seeing courses that have adopted Golden Age architecture, that’s where I want to get to. I’m super excited to get started.”

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Justin Thomas partners with Jack Nicklaus to build new Panther National course in Florida

Panther National will be Justin Thomas’ first foray into course design, and he has an experienced partner.

Justin Thomas is throwing his hat into the course design ring, as the 14-time PGA Tour winner joins forces with Jack Nicklaus to build Panther National in Palm Beach County, Florida.

The new 18-hole layout will be a Jack Nicklaus Signature course, and it will be the first foray into golf architecture for Thomas, 28. It’s not dissimilar to how Nicklaus got his start: Then 28 years old, Nicklaus first worked as a course designer with Pete Dye in 1968 at Harbour Town, which opened in 1969 on South Carolina’s coast at Sea Pines Resort. Nicklaus has since designed more than 425 courses in 45 countries.

The new golf facility at the planned residential community of Panther National is slated to include a training facility with a nine-hole, par-3 course, a short-game area and hitting bays supported by technology to improve performance.

A rendering of a home to be built at Panther National in Palm Beach Gardens, Florida (Courtesy of Panther National)

Timelines for construction and completion were not included with a release that announced the new private course and community. An official launch announcement was planned for later Thursday (this story will be updated with any details provided). The developers said Panther National will be built on the last remaining parcel of buildable land in Palm Beach Gardens and will be the first new golf course community in the county in nearly two decades.

The Panther National community will include 218 custom homes designed by architect Max Strang and will range in size from 4,000 to 10,000 square feet. Swiss developer Dominik Senn plans to focus on minimizing environmental impact and clean energy, and will partner with Tesla Energy to power the estates and amenities.

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Lusk: Five new golf courses I can’t wait to see in 2022, from Nebraska to New Zealand

Landmand, Te Arai, among others have golf architecture fans champing at the bit for 2022 to arrive.

After a decade of course closings dominating the headlines starting with the economic downturn in 2008, architects have been busier moving earth over the past several years. Coast to coast as well as abroad, several top-tier layouts have come online from noted architects – think Tom Doak, Gil Hanse and Jim Wagner, Bill Coore and Ben Crenshaw, even Tiger Woods.

This new year promises more of the same, with the following five new courses being among those I can’t wait to see in 2022.

In keeping with recent development trends, these courses aren’t necessarily close to major population centers. Only one of them – the East Course at PGA Frisco – is near a big city, situated as it is on the northern outskirts of Dallas. The other four on this list? You’ll need planes, trains, automobiles or maybe a boat, and definitely a passport.

Doesn’t matter. Great golf is worth any travel. So in no particular order, here are five new courses I want to sink my nubby spikes into during 2022.

Jack Nicklaus, Gary Player form course design alliance as Black Knight seeks to start building again

The Golden Bear and Black Knight have been friends for decades, with this design alliance further proof of that.

The course design firms of Jack Nicklaus and Gary Player announced Wednesday they have formed a strategic alliance to help Player relaunch his business building golf courses.

Player has designed more than 135 courses worldwide since starting in the 1980s, but his design business was on hold for several years during a legal dispute with his son Marc Player that was resolved in 2020. Now his marketing firm, Gary Player Enterprises, is ready to start building again.

A page announcing the two Hall of Fame players’ partnership on nicklausdesign.com said the alliance will allow Player to draw on the talents and infrastructure developed by Nicklaus Design, which has built more than 425 course in 46 countries.

“When I approached Jack, my goal was to create a relationship that would elevate my design business, and I am thrilled to have my design work supported by the most talented and thorough design firm in the world,” Player said in the release on the Nicklaus site. “… I love working with the land to develop a truly memorable, challenging and enjoyable golf experience, and working with the support of Nicklaus Design will allow me to concentrate on the unique, creative opportunities that each site presents to me.”

Nicklaus and Player were rivals on the course for decades starting in the 1960s. Nicklaus went on to win 18 professional majors among his 73 PGA tour titles, while Player won nine majors among 24 titles on the PGA Tour and more than a hundred more around the world. The Golden Bear and the Black Knight have been friends for decades, with this design alliance further example.

“When I partnered with Howard Milstein (executive chairman of the Nicklaus Companies) in June 2007, one of the goals was to institutionalize and strengthen the Nicklaus Companies to continue my personal legacy in the golf business and ensure the expertise and resources needed to develop and support the people who will design the golf courses of the future,” Nicklaus said in the announcement on his site. “Now, we’re happy to be in a position to facilitate the next phase of my dear friend Gary’s career.”

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A Monster no more? Oakland Hill Country Club is ready for its next major after restoration

A South Course renovation stiffened the test for the better player while making the track at Oakland Hills more fun for the average golfer.

BLOOMFIELD HILLS, Mich. – When golf course architect Gil Hanse has time to play golf these days, he abides by his three-strike rule.

“If it’s cold, windy and rainy I’m out,” he said. “If it’s two of the three, I’m OK.”

On a warm July summer day near Detroit, Hanse managed to squeeze in nine holes at famed Oakland Hills Country Club, fresh off a $12 million restoration he led with design partner Jim Wagner and onsite coordinator Kye Goalby, son of Masters champion Bob Goalby. With its testing doglegs, sea of sand and some of the trickiest undulating greens, Ben Hogan nicknamed it “the monster.”

Hanse chuckled when asked to reveal his score. He noted that whenever he and Wagner turn up to play one of their courses, the superintendent always picks the hardest flags on the course. Nevertheless, Hanse was pleased with making five bogeys and four pars before Mother Nature intervened. And yet that nine-hole score perfectly illustrates how Hanse has stiffened the test for the better player while making Oakland Hills more playable and therefore more fun for the average golfer.

Players on the practice green during the first round of stroke play of the 2016 U.S. Amateur at Oakland Hills.
Players on the practice green during the first round of stroke play of the 2016 U.S. Amateur at Oakland Hills with the iconic clubhouse in the background (Tracy Wilcox/Golfweek).

“That’s the magic sauce,” Hanse said. “That’s what all of us architects are trying to do. The level of precision required to play the golf course is fairly low. There are wide openings to the greens where you can run the ball where you couldn’t before but we made the fairways narrower where Tour players hit it, or where there are bunkers.”

Oakland Hills, which was founded in 1916 and counts Walter Hagen as the club’s first professional, always has been considered one of golf’s great cathedrals. Even before the restoration, the South ranked as No. 2 in Michigan on Golfweek’s Best Private Courses list. It also is tied for No. 23 on Golfweek’s Best Classic Courses list for all layouts opened before 1960 in the United States. This is land that original designer Donald Ross once proclaimed, “The Lord intended it to be a golf course.”

It gained a reputation as one of the toughest tests of golf after Robert Trent Jones Sr., sharpened its teeth ahead of the 1951 U.S. Open. In the first round, Hogan bogeyed five of the first nine holes and shot an opening 4-over 76 to dig himself a hole but rallied with a final-round 67, at the time the competitive course record, and famously said, “I brought this course, this monster, to its knees.”

That was the first of six U.S. Opens the club hosted, but none since 1996. Oakland Hills was the site of the 2004 Ryder Cup and Padraig Harrington’s victory at the 2008 PGA Championship, but it is one of the worst-kept secrets in golf that this latest renovation was green-lit with the objective of being awarded a seventh U.S. Open and with ambitions of becoming the USGA’s Midwest rota choice for years to come.

When Oakland Hills hosted the 2002 U.S. Amateur – won by Ricky Barnes in a flowery Hawaiian-print shirt that hangs in the clubhouse – technology advances to the driver and golf ball had given players the upper hand. Bill Haas shot a 29 in match play and members were none too happy to read headlines in the local papers proclaiming, “The Monster has lost it teeth.”

Rees Jones, son of RTJ Sr., had inherited his father’s moniker as the Open Doctor, and was called in to bring The Monster back to life. He narrowed fairways and added steeper bunkers, but in doing so made the course a test where an aerial approach of long, high and straight was required. Steve Brady, director of golf at Oakland Hills for 24 years, said that the course was still a bucket-list item for architecture buffs, but golfers crossed it off and didn’t want to come back. It was too hard and, dare one say, boring. When members asked Brady if he’d like to play with them, he’d check which course they were playing – Oakland Hills’s sister course is the North Course, a Donald Ross dating to 1924 – and if they said the South he’d answer, “I’ve got a thing.”

Hanse and his team returned The South to Ross’s original intent, a course that both asks and allows the golfer to consider myriad options to get at a flag. With the exception of the short par-3 13th, every hole provides some front-door entry for a running shot. The course is far more interesting and, by design, more fun for the membership.

“The best architecture doesn’t dictate to the player how they are going to play the golf course,” Hanse said. “When it becomes singular and one dimensional, it’s not great architecture.”

Later, during the same conversation Hanse added: “This game is supposed to be fun, right? We learned a valuable lesson from Mark Parsinen when we did Castle Stuart. He said, ‘Keep the average golfer hopeful and engaged.’ ”

This latest restoration began in the fall of 2019, a 21-month project, to unlock the original design features laid out by Ross. Archived aerial photos and original plans, along with a program from the 1929 U.S. Women’s Amateur, allowed them to get the details right and lent scale and perspective.

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“It became our bible,” Hanse said of the tournament program. “Kye Goalby probably knows by memory every word of that 1929 program. I think he put it under his head when he went to bed.”

All 18 greens were restored to their original size and shape while constructing them to USGA specifications. Precision Air sub-surface units were installed to control moisture and temperature. Bunkers also were restored with new drainage, fairways were restored to their original widths, new irrigation was installed and a significant number of trees were cleared to improve playing conditions and reopen the vistas. Could these measures be the difference maker in scoring Oakland Hill’s next major? Hanse argues in the affirmative.

“I don’t think the litmus test for the USGA or PGA is going to be can it still challenge the best players in the world? If you get the greens firm and rolling and the rough growing, you can host any championship out here. The thing that will be the most interest to them will be the infrastructure changes and the ability to host a championship with a more predictable outcome with relation to conditions,” Hanse mused. “They want to be able to understand how much control do they have over the setup? The infrastructure, the precision air system, the drainage, the bunker liner system, all the things we’ve done will yield a much more predictable outcome if we have a bad weather week.”

To that point, Hanse said that every green has at least three restored hole locations bringing the severely undulating green complexes front and center as the primary challenge again. Short or long shots now experience the classic Ross table-top runoffs. This will give championship setup committees the options it prefers.

“Can they dictate the way the golf course is presented to the players?” Hanse said. “If there’s only three hole locations, they’re stuck. If more, they can ratchet it up if playing too easy or back off if too hard.”

The creek at the seventh hole was restored to the design settings of Donald Ross (Adam Schupak/Golfweek).

One of the most notable enhancements is the return of the seventh hole’s putting green to its original location, along with the original size of the creek, which bisects the par 4. It looks like it’s been there all along, and has been widely praised by the membership as the course’s most popular new-old feature.

Some of the improvements are more subtle. Landing areas were made larger – Hanse removed 10 bunkers on the second hole and 15 trees at the eighth and another 23 at the 11th – most notably at the par-4 16th, which was widened by 30 yards. En route to winning the 1972 PGA Championship, Player pushed his drive into the right rough about 150 yards from the lakeside green. He had a stand of willow trees in his way, but he gambled and hoisted a 9-iron to 4 feet. The signature shot of the championship earned a plaque at the spot of the shot. The willows, planted in the 1950s to create The Monster, are no more and today Player’s drive would have rested 10 yards into the fairway.

The plaque for Gary Player’s iconic 9-iron from the rough at the 1972 PGA Championship can now be replicated from the fairway (Adam Schupak/Golfweek).

“That avenue of play was taken away unless you were Player. We felt like stripping away the evolution was another way of letting golfers decide the club. Longer shot, less water, but now the golfer has the freedom (to choose their angle of attack),” Hanse said.

The removal of superfluous trees – crimson, silver and Norway maples, Siberian Elms, Ohio Buckeyes, Honey Locusts, ash, birch, pines, spruces and sycamores – opened up site lines and allowed the club’s iconic neo-colonial white clubhouse that stands on the crest of a hill to be viewed from the most distant spots.

Asked to highlight one of his own touches he left on the famed layout, Hanse didn’t hesitate. “Hopefully nothing,” he said.

He delivered on his promise to make Oakland Hills stand out enough that it should deserve strong consideration to be awarded its seventh U.S. Open while making the course more playable for the members. The USGA’s Jeff Hall, Jason Gore, John Bodenheimer and Mark Hill, the key decision makers in evaluating future sites, all have visited to see the changes. What they found was a kinder, friendlier, more strategic course, but still every bit a monster. And one that is all dressed up and ready for its next major.

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NYC-area golf club gets an overhaul — including some touches from Rees Jones

The famed golf course architect is known for his work on renowned courses like the Bethpage Black and six other U.S. Open venues.

WHITE PLAINS – With a pandemic-inspired boom in full swing, area golf and country clubs are beginning to make a play for new members.

There’s no shortage of competition in this neighborhood.

Westchester Hills Golf Club got right to work at the end of the season, installing a comprehensive system to improve drainage on the greens. A $1 million irrigation system was approved earlier this month, and in hopes of retaining and recruiting members, the club is relying on the restorative powers of Rees Jones.

It’s a name drop.

The famed golf course architect is known as the “Open Doctor” for his work on renowned courses like the Bethpage Black and six other U.S. Open venues.

“We have a really good pedigree,” club president Joe Oates said of the 6,358-yard layout that opened in 1913. “Our golf course two or three years ago was not in great shape and we heard it from the members. If we want to retain members and continue to attract new members, we have to do something for that portion of the golf course where it’s lacking.”

The lobby of the clubhouse at Westchester Hills Golf Club in White Plains on Tuesday, December 15, 2020. (Photo by John Meore/USA Today Network)

The original design at Westchester Hills came from Peter Clark, its first head professional, who was a Donald Ross protégé. The greens were redone in 1922 under the guidance of Walter Travis.

Jones and his lead designer Bryce Swanson have developed a master plan that starts with green expansion and bunker renovation.

“We’ve looked at every feature and looked at how we can improve that feature,” Jones said. “I think that is really the way restoration should be going right now especially at these clubs that have a history. … It does have the character and the style that should be restored.”

Over time, most of the greens had lost character.

“You can go out on the golf course and see what some of the old green sizes were,” Jones said. “A lot of the greens have shrunk 400 square feet, 1,000 square feet. It looks like when I went into the Country Club in Brookline before the 1988 U.S. Open, all the greens had gotten round during the depression and the Second World War, but the essence of the design was still there.”

Along with that work, the bunkers and green surrounds will get plenty of attention. Some of the fairways might be adjusted, too.

“The idea is to make it a lot more interesting,” Swanson said. “Less accomplished players will be allowed to go to a shot they know they can hit instead of playing out of the heavy rough. For the better players it will definitely become more challenging.”

Green drainage repairs underway at Westchester Hills Golf Club in White Plains on Tuesday, December 15, 2020.

By modern standards, 6,300 yards is modest.

“It’s not a long golf course, but length is really out right now,” Jones added. “I think we as architects over-emphasize length. … Most golfers have enjoyed the game more with the better equipment, but their ball still isn’t going that far. It’s a finesse golf course. It’s a golf course you enjoy playing every day because it has a lot of shots, variable lies.”

There is one green left to do before the drainage work is complete. Materials for the irrigation system are en route and will be installed over the winter. Some of the restoration work is also slated to begin in the coming weeks.

If the project stays on schedule and the weather cooperates, 17 holes will be open March 15 and the entire course will be open April 1.

“We’ve probably invested between $300,000 and $400,000 the last two years,” Oates said of the price tag. “We think somewhere between $1.5 and $2 million dollars is what the investment is going to be between the XGD drainage, the Rees Jones redesign work and the irrigation. Some of the work, the funds are in place, but we’re going to need to borrow money to do the irrigation work.”

The plan approved by the members includes a debt service fee.

According to general manager Josh Lowney, the club added 56 members this year and now has 348 members. There are typically multiple levels of membership at private clubs, including social, pool, golf and inclusive.

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Westchester Hills is also planning to increase cart and walking options next season. Cosmetic improvements to the women’s locker room are planned and the pool is getting upgraded infrastructure.

More affordable food options are on the proverbial table, as well.

“We have had a tremendous increase in play this year,” Oates said. “Through the end of October we were up almost 30 percent, which is amazing. We think this is what’s going to take us to the next level.”

Mike Dougherty covers golf for The Journal News/lohud.com. He can be reached at mdougher@lohud.com, or on Twitter @hoopsmbd, @lohudlacrosse, @lohudhoopsmbd and @lohudgolf.

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Saving Sharp Park: Time to restore Alister MacKenzie gem in California

PACIFICA, Calif. – Golfers around the world dream of playing Cypress Point, the ultra-exclusive Alister MacKenzie masterpiece on the Monterey Peninsula that weaves through sand dunes and forests before finishing alongside the crashing waves of the …

PACIFICA, Calif. – Golfers around the world dream of playing Cypress Point, the ultra-exclusive Alister MacKenzie masterpiece on the Monterey Peninsula that weaves through sand dunes and forests before finishing alongside the crashing waves of the Pacific. For decades it has been counted among a handful of the world’s greatest courses – and if given the opportunity, many a golfer would happily sacrifice a month’s pay to tee it up at Cypress Point.

Or visitors can play another MacKenzie coastal gem 100 miles north on Highway 1 for $54. That “other” MacKenzie is Sharp Park, a San Francisco-owned muni located in Pacifica, a beach town about 10 minutes south. Sharp opened in 1932, just four years after Cypress Point and one year before MacKenzie’s Augusta National. And while Sharp Park is still a fantastic course to play, it’s time to restore one of his municipal greats.

Sharp Park’s history is as interesting as the course itself. The land was donated to the city of San Francisco by the Sharp family in 1917 with the stipulation that it be utilized as a “public park or playground.” John McLaren, creator of Golden Gate Park, envisioned using the property to supplement the existing layouts at Lincoln Park and Harding Park, which were packed with avid golfers. McLaren hand-picked Dr. MacKenzie to design Sharp Park and gave him free rein to indulge every architectural impulse the seaside site had to offer. 

MacKenzie considered seaside links land to be “easily the most suitable for the game,” and regarded St. Andrews – where he served as consulting architect early in his career – as the ideal golf course. He authored “The Spirit of St. Andrews” and famously charted the Old Course’s unique double greens and fairway bumps, hollows and hidden bunkers. His detailed map, first published in 1924, remains in print to this day. 

In 1914 he assisted mentor H.S. Colt in designing St. Andrews’ Eden Course alongside the Eden Estuary northwest of the Old Course. But ironically, MacKenzie himself designed very few seaside links – only five of his more than 50 courses worldwide. In addition to assisting on the Eden Course, MacKenzie remodeled links at Seaton Carew on England’s northeastern coast (1925) and Old Tom Morris’ Lahinch (Ireland, 1927). Only Cypress Point and Sharp Park were his own original seaside links creations. 

 

Sharp Park (Courtesy of R. Brad Knipstein Photography)

MacKenzie was intent on recreating a Scottish links at Sharp Park. In 1930 he announced Sharp would be “as sporty as the Old Course at St. Andrews and as picturesque a golf course as any in the world.” He laid out the course and entrusted colleagues Chandler Egan, Robert Hunter Jr. and Jack Fleming to carry out the work. 

The good doctor and team took full advantage of the coastline and dunescape on the west half of the property by laying out holes in varying directions to highlight natural features. Consider the stretch of holes two through eight:

  • No. 2 – Drivable par 4 playing west toward the Pacific with headlands in the distance.
  • No. 3 – Long par 4 playing north on the beach.
  • No. 4 – Short par 3 playing northeast with green set among dunes and mountain backdrop.
  • No. 5 – Short par 4 playing north along the edge of a lagoon (a version of MacKenzie’s famed Lido hole).
  • No. 6 – Medium par 3 playing west into the prevailing wind out to the beach.
  • No. 7 – Long par 4 playing south on the beach.
  • No. 8 – Long par 4 dogleg right playing south in the dunes with headlands in the background.
  • Away from the shore, the team needed to get more creative as the flat artichoke fields that occupied the site were not as compelling for golf as the coastline. Laguna Salada – the dominant water feature adjacent to the shoreline – was converted from a brackish marsh to a freshwater lake. MacKenzie designed holes around the lake. Dramatic greens, flamboyant bunkering and rumpled fairways provided character for the easily walkable layout. The original 10th hole was a mirror image of the 5th – another design that produced a version of MacKenzie’s Lido hole. As the course took shape, local writers hailed it as “a second St. Andrews.” 
A poster showing the original layout of Sharp Park

Over the decades the story of Sharp Park has taken some twists and turns, but the ethos of the property, and the enjoyment of those who play it, has never waned.

In 1941 major storms damaged the beach holes. Rather than rebuild them, the city created four new inland holes. In subsequent decades, the sequencing of the course changed, certain holes were shortened and greens shrunk into ovals. Cart paths or trees now sit where clusters of bunkers once dotted the landscape. Thankfully there was never a major redesign or renovation that altered the original landforms of the greens or bunkers.

In 2011 a federal lawsuit filed to protect habitat for the San Francisco garter snake and California red-legged frog threatened to close the course for good. Local golfers, led by Richard Harris and Bo Links, assembled a team of lawyers, environmental experts, philanthropists and volunteers and won an eight-year legal battle to keep Sharp Park an 18-hole course, open to all at a modest greens fee. 

Thanks to the community, when you walk out to the first tee today you can still feel the sea air. You can still hear the laughter and camaraderie of locals aged 5 to 95. And you can still see the subtle contours and hillocks crafted by MacKenzie. 

No. 18 at Sharp Park (Courtesy of R. Brad Knipstein Photography)

Now that the course has been saved, those of us who love Sharp Park and understand its history believe it is time to restore MacKenzie’s municipal masterpiece. 

Due to litigation, environmental regulations and politics, a large-scale restoration hasn’t occurred, but we have plans to do preservation maintenance work so a future generation can enjoy this historic legacy. I have been working with course designer Tom Doak, the Alister MacKenzie Foundation and San Francisco Public Golf Alliance, along with city officials, to figure out what can be done, when and how. In the meantime we are doing what we can to showcase MacKenzie’s artistry. Last year our team used a 1931 irrigation map and historic aerial photos to flag out the original dimensions of several greens. The grounds crew has mowed out the edges of two of them so golfers can see the undulation and size of MacKenzie’s original putting surfaces. 

In May thousands will descend upon San Francisco to watch the world’s best tee it up at the PGA Championship. Local leaders will proudly tout TPC Harding Park as the city’s crown jewel. No doubt they will highlight investments made to the municipal course in the early 2000’s, largely at the urging of former USGA president Sandy Tatum. 

All the while, just 6.5 miles away sits Alister MacKenzie’s greatest municipal course, a linksy layout on the Pacific with infinitely more character just begging to be restored. Hopefully the city will take the approach it did 90 years ago at Sharp Park (and 20 years ago at Harding Park) and invest in golf. The community and the game deserve such.