Looking out my window

By all valid credentials, I am a golf course architect, though I find it very difficult to adorn that title. A golf course architect is, well, a person who designs golf courses, and I do that. In most aspects.

In my mind, to have earned this title is to be traveling job site to job site, standing in the dirt, pointing at a horizon, showing a shaper a doodled contour sketch of how this bunker ties into this green, and how this green ties into this tee, and that tee needs to be oriented just so to highlight the borrowed landscape from this and that. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve been on many a job site, ridden many a fairway mower, dug my fair share of ditches, but the majority of my “in-the-field” hasn’t been on the seat of a dozer but rather from the well-worn seat of a gray office chair that looks past two monitors and a laptop out a window and onto my suburban Cincinnati backyard.

Not quite the romantic picture most folks think of when picturing an architect.

This is not meant to be a self-deprecating career piece. It is meant to shed light for maybe a high school or college kid who wants to get into golf course architecture but feels more comfortable behind a laptop.

To give you a look into what goes into the day-to-day in this office, I’ll let you in on how I got here.

I didn’t grow up wanting to be a golf course architect. I didn’t even know they existed until I was in college. I entered my undergrad as a foreign language and international economics major at the University of Kentucky because I thought it sounded cool, and I enjoyed taking French classes in high school.

That intrigue didn’t last long.

Fortunately, I had a roommate my sophomore year who was studying horticulture and told me about landscape architecture. I got into the program and was able to merge my excitement of the outdoors and golf with a line of study. I then read any book I could get my hands on that delved into our world of golf design.

I worked a summer on a maintenance crew at the Courses of Lawsonia before landing an internship with the course management company that coincidentally also built courses. I was diving deep into the industry one summer and I was hooked. I wound up working for that company for three years after college, working on some really rewarding projects but ultimately moving on to shore up my personal life (read: get married). I did the typical landscape architect route for about five years but just wasn’t satisfied professionally. My low-expectation, beer-soaked college self would have been less than impressed with what I was doing.

So, I decided to take a chance.

On the last day of February 2020, I quit my very steady job as a landscape architect to consult for a golf irrigation designer and a golf course architect. Two clients. Two. And we all remember what happened in March 2020. Oh, and my wife and I had our first daughter on the way. I’ll spare you the details, but golf was one of the bright spots from COVID. We weathered the storm.

Two clients grew to three, then four, then five. Today, I’ve had the chance to consult with more than 15 firms, all in the golf design world. I’ve been able to work on some extremely high-profile, thoughtful, creative and downright fun projects with my clients. I don’t work with every one of them every day, but every one of them has offered me a chance to learn what goes into a successful project, and how to run a successful company. Through the ASGCA’s Tartan Program — developed for younger professionals emerging in the golf design industry — I’ve connected with golf course architects from every walk of life, and I listen intently to any advice they’re willing to toss my way.

I’ve been fortunate enough to ride the wave of the booming golf industry [knocks firmly on the nearest piece of wood] while at the same time balancing my home life. I have three daughters now. The oldest turned 5 last summer. If you have small children and a working spouse, you know there is much to balance. As sexy as jet-setting from project to project is, it just wouldn’t work for me at this stage in my family’s life. So, the role of architect via office chair has been one of necessity and comfort for now.

My day-to-day work consists of anything from irrigation as builts, grading plans, master plan renderings, book illustrations (yes), project estimates and budgets, programming irrigation software for superintendents, field collection with GPS units worth more than my car, Zoom meetings, more Zoom meetings, iPad sketching, and some lighthearted Twitter (X) banter, all while trying to market myself and keep my company’s books straight. I’m sure this type of schedule generally rings true for most entrepreneurs.

When I put my first business plan together, I told myself I’d consult for other designers for the first five years. I’m a little over five years into the plan, and it has been the most rewarding path toward becoming this well-traveled, dirt-covered, napkin artist I had once dreamed of being. I think in the current state of the industry, hardly anything is conventional anymore. No more 15-person design firms. Heck, no more 10-person design firms.

I’ve had a chance to do some local design work in Cincinnati, which has worked well into the balance. If and when the jet-setting work comes, I’m not sure I’d ever want to give up some of these partnerships I’ve made. In fact, I think I’d like to collaborate with my clients and colleagues as long as they’ll have me. We’re all just trying to create great work, learn new things on each project and enjoy the ride along the way.