Tag: Old Head

International golf course architect Ron Kirby dies at 90

Ron Kirby worked on hundreds of courses around the world in various roles.

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Golf course architect Ron Kirby, whose top-rated efforts included Old Head of Kinsale in Ireland and Apes Hill in Barbados, died Thursday in Copenhagen, Denmark. He was 90 years old when overcome by a quick illness, and he was still working on a golf project.

Kirby worked on hundreds of projects around the world, both as solo jobs and in tandem with some of the biggest names in golf design.

A native of Beverly, Massachusetts, Kirby got into golf as a boy, serving as a caddie, a caddie master and on a grounds crew. He studied agriculture at the University of Massachusetts-Strockbridge before going to work for golf architect Dick Wilson. He later joined the crew for Robert Trent Jones Sr., working on courses in the U.S., Europe and the Caribbean.

Kirby – a member of the America Society of Golf Course Architects – started his own firm in 1970 with consulting partner Gary Player. Kirby sold that firm to Golden Bear Inc. and joined Nicklaus Design Services, working for Jack Nicklaus as overseer of European projects.

The ASGCA wrote that throughout Kirby’s career, he was accompanied on projects by his wife, Sally, who died in 2021. Their travels set the tone for Kirby’s autobiography, “We Spent Half Our Lives on the Wrong Side of the Road.” Kirby is survived by children Faye, Ron Jr. and Beverly.

Golf course architect Ron Kirby (Courtesy of the American Society of Golf Course Architects)

“Ron Kirby was one of a kind, or perhaps I should Ron and Sally Kirby were two of a kind,” ASGCA president Brit Stenson said on the organization’s website. “His positive impact on golf course architecture in countries around the world will serve as a professional legacy, but it was Ron’s enduring relationship with Sally that many of us will long remember.”

Kirby’s last completed designs were a full makeover of Apes Hill that debuted last year, plus a nine-hole par-3 course at Apes Hill.

“He was an incredible man, always with a smile and a twinkle in his eyes who had an abundance of rich friendships from the dozen plus countries he worked in globally,” Roddy Carr, a famous Irish golfer who was instrumental in Kirby being selected to design Old Head Golf Links in Ireland and Apes Hill Barbados, said in a media release announcing Kirby’s death. “Ron lived a rich and full life and did what he loved doing right to the end – recently sketching golf holes in Denmark.”

Golfweek’s Best 2023: Top 50 modern courses in Great Britain and Ireland

The links layouts dominate the rankings of the best modern courses in England, Ireland, Scotland and Northern Ireland.

Welcome to Golfweek’s Best 2023 rankings of the Top 50 Modern Courses in Great Britain and Ireland – built in or after 1960 – as determined by Golfweek’s Best Raters.

The members of our course-ratings panel continually evaluate courses and rate them based on our 10 criteria. They also file a single, overall rating on each course. Those overall ratings on each course are averaged to produce a final rating for each course. Then each course is ranked against other courses in Great Britain and Ireland to produce the final rankings.

Listed with each course below is its average ranking, location, designers and year opened.

*New to or returning to list

Other popular Golfweek’s Best lists include:

Photographer Evan Schiller shares the shots that show how beautiful this game can be

From California to Ireland and all points elsewhere, Evan Schiller takes photos that make the game of golf look better.

Anybody can take a picture of a golf hole with a smartphone. Quick glance at the framing in broad daylight. Try to get some background. Push the button. Easy.

But to capture golf courses in the best light consistently, to wait out the weather and the clouds, to frame a shot in such a way that golfers will spend hundreds of dollars or more to hang a print on their walls at home? That’s art.

Evan Schiller has been such an artist for decades. His photos have graced the covers of too many magazines to count, been featured on websites, are sold in pro shops and wow golf fans on social media. Schiller is one of just a handful of accomplished photographers specializing in commercial course photography that makes the rest of want to climb into an airplane to reach the best destinations in the game.

And there’s a lot more to it than just snapping a quick photo. He typically is hired well in advance by customers with high expectations. He shares his shots with the courses and sells them to consumers on his website, evanschillerphotography.com. On site at a course, he typically spends days looking for just the right shots at the perfect angles in flattering light. He uses traditional cameras and, in recent years, drones to make those shots happen.

No. 3 at Ballyneal in Colorado (Courtesy of Evan Schiller)

Schiller has a long track record in golf, both as a player and a club pro before hanging out his shingle as a photographer. He played on the college squads at Tulane and the University of Miami, where he teamed up with Woody Austin and Nathaniel Crosby. He played the mini-tours and plenty of state opens after college, going so far as the South African Tour in the 1980s. He then took his first club job at Quaker Ridge Golf Club in New York, later moving to Westchester Country Club. And that is where his love for photography blossomed.

His new website features more than 800 photos for sale on a variety of paper and other mediums. They are even available as MetalPrints, for which dye is infused directly onto specially coated aluminum to create a beautiful luminescence. The courses he has shot include many among Golfweek’s Best lists of top courses. Think Bandon Dunes, Pebble Beach, St. Andrews and the like.

The devil is in the detail for these kinds of high-level photos. Lighting is crucial to show the ground contours, and capturing just the right clouds can make or break a shot. It takes days of planning and sometimes a bit of luck with the weather, and frequently there are just minutes available in a given day when it all comes together perfectly. And Schiller has to coordinate it all with course operators and ground crews, going so far as to ensure that nobody has driven any machinery on a given hole before he arrives in the morning, thus leaving unsightly tire tracks in the dew. There’s a lot more to it than pushing a button.

The affable Schiller recently shared what goes on behind the scenes to make it all come together, on demand, time and again. The following are excerpts from that interview.