Design. Build. Keep.

Our design goal is simple: to make the journey to the hole a more interesting one for the golfer.

The contour of a green, the position of hazards, and the shape and slope of the fairway can all be used to create holes that make the golfer think: What side of the fairway makes for a better line to the green? How close to the hazard am I willing to aim? How badly do I need a par, or a birdie? Our favourite designs ask these sorts of questions and offer a multitude of options. Sometimes the strategies are obvious but more often than not only trial and error will reveal the best route to the hole. 

This principle is best illustrated on The Old Course at St. Andrews – the oldest and certainly the most interesting course in the world. Staggering that the oldest and most interesting course wasn’t really designed by anyone…it simply evolved.  It can take dozens of rounds to begin to understand the intricacies of the Old Course and that’s before you really get to know how the wind or a different pin position can alter your best line of play. With bunkers randomly scattered over a wide, crumpled landscape and enormous double greens there is seemingly endless number of ways to play each hole.

Not every course looks the same as St. Andrews but the questions it asks are just as relevant to the Melbourne sandbelt, the heathlands of London or a parkland course in the USA.

Great golf holes aren’t created in an office. The true test will always be what has been left for the golfers to play and enjoy; what’s put on the ground not what’s on the plan.

Construction and shaping are just natural extensions of the design process. Too often they’re regarded as separate endeavours, but we figured out long ago that the best results came when we spent a lot of time in the field, working to refine the hole as it comes out of the ground. We spend countless hours pushing dirt around, refining and shaping until we feel we’ve achieved the best outcome. 

This is a throwback to the early days of golf course design, when architects would prepare a routing and provide instructions in the field on the finer details, rather than documenting them with drawings.  Today, while we can provide detailed plans, our preference is to use concepts and work to refine them in the field, always allowing for room to make adjustments. The goal should always be to make the holes better, not just replicating the plan, and we typically keep making refinements right up until the time of seeding.  

Each project is unique and inevitably requires a different approach to construction.  Whilst we have staff skilled in design, shaping and project management we have also formed great relationships with many liked-minded consultants and contractors who assist us from time to time to help realise our vision for the course.

With a deep reverence for the history of the game, the great courses of the world and the great architects of the past, our role is as much to preserve and maintain these traditions as it is to push the boundaries of modern design. We also endeavour to build long term relationships that ensure our courses are kept at their best and are able to evolve intelligently over time. 

We are fortunate to work with a number of clubs with significant architectural history where our role is often to preserve and restore rather than a wholesale re-design.