ARCHITECTURE
A Proud Past
The ASGCA has proudly served the golf industry since 1947
D
ustin Johnson never considered the spot
where his tee shot landed on the 72nd hole of
the 2010 PGA Championship to be a bunker;
but Pete Dye, ASGCA Fellow, did. To make Whistling
Straits in Sheboygan, Wisconsin, Dye’s design scattered
bunkers throughout the course. Nearly 1,000 of them,
to be more precise; including the patch of sandy ground
under Johnson’s feet that would prove to be his undoing
when he grounded his club – a two-stroke penalty that
kept him out of a playoff.
When asked after the tournament if Johnson’s
situation might lead to changes at the course Dye said in
a humorous manner, “I think it needs more bunkers.”
Besides providing an unfortunate occurrence for
Johnson – who later admitted he had failed to note the
course rules posted in the clubhouse – that tournament
shined a new light on golf course architects. The work of
a golf course architect today is both an art and a science,
continuing a legacy that reaches back more than a century.
38 | CSGA Links // March, 2015
The members of the America Society of Golf
Course Architects (ASGCA) design the great majority
of newly-constructed and remodeled golf courses in the
United States each year and have branched out to also
design courses worldwide. And in each instance, ASGCA
members produce these challenging and interesting
layouts while enhancing the environment unique to each
course.
Since the days when Donald Ross started laying
out the courses at Pinehurst Resort in North Carolina
early in the last century the profession of golf course
architecture has blossomed in the United States.
But it wasn’t until 1947 that 14 of North America’s
golf course architects gathered in Pinehurst for their first
official meeting. They determined a society of golf course
architects was necessary to promote the professional,
ethical development of the finest golf courses possible.