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==Design Philosophy==
==Design Philosophy==


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Many young men who have established young firms, have been trained only with an understanding of the “American perception of golf,” by men who themselves have never traveled to Scotland, Ireland, or England – never studied the early classic courses in America. In an effort to create golf courses which architects feel will better challenge the best golfers, most golf courses opening today severely penalize the less capable player and fail to stand the test of championship play. Many of these new courses embarrass and humiliate the player of modest skill. This is unfortunate, and faulty.

For Ron Prichard, it is of extreme importance that golf architects recognize a golf course must be designed in a manner which will provide each player with an alternative and safe route of play on every golf hole. Framing each side of a golf hole with a continuous border of water, sand, and/or trees, provides no relief for the player who is not a straight hitter. The fallacy in this penal style of design is that the best players strike the ball with accuracy and are therefore rarely penalized. The average player who cannot always play to the center of a fairway is continually demoralized. There are better ways to create challenges for the better player and retain a sense of joy for a golfer of less skill. There are better ways to defend "par."

Mountains, oceans, brooks and lakes are beautiful bonuses in the creation of a great golf course; however, these are not required elements. Golf courses such as the classic William Flynn course at Shinnecock Hills Golf Club in Southampton, Long Island or the wonderful Ross course, (Pinehurst No. 2), in Pinehurst, North Carolina illustrate a magnificent simplicity of design without these added elements of nature. There are many other wonderful golf courses in our country and throughout Great Britain which exemplify methods of creating great golf courses on ordinary pieces of land.

A golf course architect must carefully examine a piece of property and strive to develop the most efficient and least destructive way to "fit" a golf course onto the land. We should be inspired to design an honest sturdy test of the game of golf along historic guidelines. The golf course should play like a chessboard, offering the player a variety of moves as he plays from point to point. It should challenge him to examine his game and to stretch to develop a better variety of strokes.

This is a very important decade in the history of golf architecture. Increased pressure for the protection of our natural environment may have a beneficial effect on the design and management of golf courses. Golf traditionally has been played over grounds of very natural condition with some emphasis placed on the maintenance of tees, the greens, and the fair playing area. In more recent history, intensive maintenance has produced a new standard of turf quality and a very different style of golf. By embracing a different standard in America, we have established a new version of golf, which is not the Royal and Ancient game. We have embraced soft, lush turf covering all portions of the golf course, robbing the golf architect of a most crucial ingredient of the game: the effects of the ground on the bounce or run of the ball. With maintenance limitations established by restricted use of water and chemicals, this bounce and the kick of the land would be restored, along with a return of some element of "luck". These characteristics are so crucial to golf, and they are universally praised by players of the game who travel to our early classic courses.



== Original Golf Course Designs ==
== Original Golf Course Designs ==

Revision as of 20:09, 4 February 2008

Ron Prichard, Golf Course Architect
File:0529prichard2.jpg
Personal Information
Birth Place Fayson Lakes, New Jersey
Age 57
Education Graduate of Economics and Fine Arts from Middlebury College, in Middlebury, Vermont
Career Golf course architect and restoration expert
Most Famous Projects Architect of TPC at Southwind in Memphis, host of the PGA Tour's St. Jude Classic; restored famed Aronimink Golf Club in Newtown Square, site of the 2003 Senior PGA Championship
Famous Redesigner of... Donald Ross, Seth Raynor, A.W. Tillinghast, Willie Park, Jnr., and William Flynn.


Ron Prichard is a renowned golf course designer.

Ron Prichard attended Middlebury College, in Middlebury, Vermont and concentrated my studies on Economics and Fine Arts. While attending Middlebury, Prichard was a member of the golf team with which he traveled throughout New England to play many wonderful old golf courses. After graduating from Middlebury in 1963 and serving as an officer in the U.S. Army until his discharge in 1966, Ron Prichard then began a sixteen year long endeavor as he traveled the world working for famous designers Joe Finger, Desmund Muirhead, and Bob Von Hagge, until finally opening up his own practice in 1983.

He was a student of golf course designer Joe Finger, Desmund Muirhead, and Bob Von Hagge, although perhaps his greatest influence comes from the works of Donald Ross, Seth Raynor, A.W. Tillinghast, Willie Park, Jnr., and William Flynn, whose golf courses he is renowned for his restoration of.

Education

Ron Prichard attended Middlebury College, in Middlebury, Vermont and concentrated my studies on Economics and Fine Arts. While attending Middlebury, Prichard was a member of the golf team with which he traveled throughout New England to play many wonderful old golf courses. After graduating from Middlebury in 1963, Prichard served in the U.S. Army as an Officer. During his recreation time here he played such courses as Longmeadow, Essex County, Worcester, and Myopia Hunt Club, in Massachusetts; the Yale Golf Course, and Fishers Island off the coast of New London, Connecticut; Wannamoisett, Rhode Island Country Club, and Newport Golf Club, Rhode Island; Shinnecock Hills, The National Golf Links, and Garden City on Long Island; Ridgewood, Baltusrol, Essex Fells, Pine Valley, and Somerset Hills in New Jersey, and Glens Falls in New York.

For sixteen years, since his discharge from the U.S. Army in 1966, Ron Prichard has studied golf architecture and been associated with three capable architects--Joe Finger, Desmund Muirhead, and Bob Von Hagge--who demonstrated a variety of styles and influences in their work. He has traveled constantly studying the greatest golf courses in the world in an effort to discover the secrets of the world's early master architects and had built the beginnings of a photographic slide library (now exceeding sixteen thousand slides) of most of the great classical golf courses in Scotland, Ireland, England, and the United States.

Design Philosophy


Original Golf Course Designs

Golf Course Location
Bear Brook Golf Community Sussex, New Jersey
Clearcrest Pines Golf and Banquet Center Evansville, Indiana
Fairway Hills Golf Club Columbia, Maryland
Franklin County Country Club Washington, Missouri
Hickory Valley Golf Club Gilbertsville, Pennsylvania
Huntingdon Valley Country Club Huntingdon Valley, Pennsylvania
Ironwood Golf Club Richmond, Virginia (planning stage)
Nagoya Century Golf Club Nagoya, Japan
PineCrest Country Club Montgomeryville, Pennsylvania
Selman Field Golf Course Monroe, Louisiana
Sendai Asagami Golf Resort Sendai, Japan
Tournament Players Club at Southwind Germantown, Tennessee
Wedgewood Country Club Conroe, Texas


Remodeled Golf Courses

Golf Course Location
Alexandria Country Club Alexandria, Louisiana
Bayou de Saird Country Club Monroe, Louisiana
Greenbriar Hills Country Club Kirkwood, Missouri
Hanover Country Club Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire
Indian Valley Country Club Telford, Pennsylvania
Lake Charles Country Club Lake Charles, Louisiana
Lakeside Country Club Houston, Texas
Lakewood Country Club Dallas, Texas
Montammy Golf Club Alpine, New Jersey
North Hills Country Club North Hills, Pennsylvania
Stones River Country Club Murfreesboro, Tennessee

Restored Golf Courses

Golf Course Location Original Architect
Aronimink Country Club Newtown Square, Pennsylvania Donald J. Ross 1928
Barton Hills Country Club Ann Arbor, Michigan Donald J. Ross 1920
Beverly Country Club Chicago, Illinois Donald J. Ross 1914
Blue Hill Country Club Canton, Massachusetts -
Charles River Country Club West Newton, Massachusetts Donald J. Ross 1921
Cherokee Country Club Knoxville, Tennessee Donald J. Ross 1910
Coatesville Country Club Coatesville, Pennsylvania Alex Findlay 1921
Cohasset Golf Club Cohasset, Massachusetts Donald J. Ross 1922
Concord Country Club Concord, Massachusetts Donald J. Ross 1914
Elmhurst Golf and Country Club Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada Donald J. Ross 1919
Exmoor Country Club Park, Illinois, (planning stage) Donald J. Ross 1914
Country Club of Farmington Farmington, Connecticut Devereaux Emmett 1923
Franklin Hills Country Club Franklin, Michigan Donald J. Ross 1926
Harkers Hollow Golf Club Phillipsburg, New Jersey Robert White
Hatherly Country Club Scituate, Massachusetts Unknown Designer 1897
Highlands Country Club Highlands, North Carolina Donald J. Ross 1926
Huntingdon Valley Country Club Huntingdon Valley, Pennsylvania William S. Flynn 1927
Idle Hour Country Club Lexington, Kentucky, (planning stage) Donald J. Ross 1924
Irondequoit Country Club Pittsford, New York Donald J. Ross 1916, 1948
Jeffersonville Golf Club West Norriton, Pennsylvania Donald J. Ross
Lake Shore Country Club Glencoe, Illinois Thomas Bendelow, Redesign; Donald J. Ross
Cherokee Country Club Knoxville, Tennessee Donald J. Ross 1910
Locust Hill Country Club Pittsford, New York Seymour Dunn 1914 and Robert Trent Jones 1931
Longmeadow Country Club Longmeadow, Massachusetts Donald J. Ross 1921
Manasquan River Golf Club Brielle, New Jersey Robert White 1922
Metacomet Country Club East Providence, Rhode Island Donald J. Ross 1921
Minikahda Club Minneapolis, Minnesota Donald J. Ross 1917
Mink Meadows Golf Club Vineyard Haven, Massachusetts Wayne Stiles 1935
Minneapolis Golf Club St. Louis Park, Minnesota, (planning stage) Willie Park, Jr., and Donald J. Ross 1920
Morris County Golf Club Morristown, New Jersey Seth Raynor
Mount Kisco Country Club Mount Kisco, New York A.W. Tillinghast
Mountain Ridge Country Club West Caldwell, New Jersey Donald J. Ross 1929
Country Club of New Bedford North Dartmouth, Massachusetts Donald J. Ross 1924
New Haven Country Club New Haven, Connecticut Willie Park, Jr.
North Shore Country Club Glen Head, Long Island, New York Albert W. Tillinghast
The Orchards Golf Club South Hadley, Massachusetts Donald J. Ross 1922 & 1927
Point Judith Country Club Narragansett, Rhode Island Donald J. Ross
Richmond Country Club Staten Island, New York Robert White 1916
Riverton Country Club Riverton, New Jersey Donald J. Ross 1916
Rye Golf Club Rye, New York Devereaux Emmett
St. Davids Golf Club Wayne, Pennsylvania, (planning stage) Donald J. Ross 1926
Skokie Country Club Glencoe, Illinois Donald J. Ross 1914; William B. Langford and Theodore J. Moreau 1935
Skytop Lodge Skytop, Pennsylvania Robert White 1927
Suburban Golf Clu Union, New Jersey Albert W. Tillinghast
Texarkana Country Club Texarkana, Arkansas William B. Langford, Theodore J. Moreau 1927
Trenton Country Club West Trenton, New Jersey -
Wannamoisett Country Club Rumford, Rhode Island Donald J. Ross 1928
Wanumetonomy Golf and Country Club Middletown, Rhode Island Seth Raynor 1922
Warwick Country Club Warwick, Rhode Island Donald J. Ross 1924
Wilmington Municipal Golf Course Wilmington, North Carolina Donald J. Ross 1925
Worcester Country Club Worcester, Massachusetts, (planning stage) Donald J. Ross 1913