Egg Harbor, N.J. - Golf course architect Stephen Kay, who has crafted several courses of natural repute and remodeled many other, added associate Doug Smith as a partner of his design firm.
The new Stephen Kay/Doug Smith Golf Course Design will operate out of Kay's offices in Egg Harbor and Smith's in Eastchester, N.Y.
"Doug has been with me for 14 years and has been running a lot of jobs himself since I opened the New Jersey office," Kay said. "It was time for him to become a partner. We now offer clients a partner rather than an employee."
"We both have similar concepts of solid, strategic architecture and how a golf hole should play," Kay said.
Besides bachelor's and master's degrees in landscape architecture from the Rhode Island School of Design, Smith has degrees in fine arts and history. Upon completion of his master's degree, he joined Stephen Kay Golf Course Design, and Kay put him to work days on the maintenance crew at Westchester Country Club and nights working with the design firm.
"Stephen thought I needed to know what happens at a golf course after it is built," Smith said. Kay himself holds a landscape architecture degree from Syracuse University and a turfgrass management degree from Michigan State University.
Kay and Smith agree they don't want golfers to see any telltale Kay/Smith "fingerprints" on any of their designs.
"We design what the land dictates and what the client desires," Smith said. "Therefore, our courses
look different every time. We're not imprinting our ego, but nature's ego."
Among their 18-hole projects are the Links of North Dakota in Williston, N.D., annually ranked among the top 100 modern courses in America; Architects Golf Club in Lopatcong, N.J., co-designed with Golf Digest architecture editor Ron Whitten and rated in the Top 10 New Courses by both Sports Illustrated and Links magazine in 2001; the Links of Unionville, named a Modern Classic by Links magazine this spring; and McCullough's Emerald Golf Links in Egg Harbor Township, voted in the top 35 new golf courses among 360 in 2002 by Golf Magazine.
Kay and Smith have also performed major restorations and remodeling, including a number of courses designed by such classic architects as Donald Ross, A.W. Tillinghast and Devereux Emmet. Among them are Ross's Winchester (Mass.) Country Club and Hartford (Conn.) Golf Club, which hosted the 1996 Mid-Amateur tournament; Tillinghast's Sunningdale Country Club in Scarsdale, N.Y., and Hempstead (N.Y.) Golf Club; and Emmet's Hampshire Country Club in Mamaroneck, N.Y., and Leewood Golf Club in Eastchester, N.Y.
Among the projects on Kay/Smith's plate are The Hamlet at Willow Creek, an 18-hole daily-fee course that will be a centerpiece of a golf residential community in Mt. Sinai, Long Island, N.Y., Kay/Smith's third project with The Holiday Organization; the Emmet-designed Seawane Club on Long Island which, though not yet complete, was named The Met Golfers' Club of the Year in January; a major reconstruction of Nissequogue Golf Club in St. James, N.Y., which has attracted 40 new members even though it won't be finished until 2005; and a complete rebuilding of Deerfield (Fla.) Country Club for The Holiday Organization.
