Tom Fazio
Hailing from a small Pennsylvanian industrial town, Tom Fazio’s fifty-year career has seen him ascend to the summit of the golf architecture world. With, quite literally, countless golf courses to his name, this is the story of the designer who never fails to split opinion.
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Family affair. It was all thanks to his uncle, George Fazio, that Tom entered the world of golf course design aged just 17. A professional golfer with two PGA Tour wins and a third-place finish at the 1950 US Open to his name, George had transitioned into course architecture at the end of his playing days, taking on Tom as an apprentice in 1962. It was there a young Tom learned the fundamentals of engineering, landscaping and accounting, before becoming a full partner in the firm by the 1970s.
National acclaim. George and Tom Fazio built their first high-end course together, Jackrabbit at Champions Golf Club in Houston, in 1964, but it was their 1970 design at Jupiter Hills, Florida, that kicked off what was to come. Butler National, Illinois, Moselem Springs, Pennsylvania and The National Golf Club of Canada followed, as the firm grew into one of the most successful in America.
Pinehurst
The Pinehurst mantle. Further attention was brought when the pair were hired for the construction of a new course at the renowned Pinehurst resort in 1975. What became Pinehurst No 6 would mark a distinct change of direction from the previous works of Donald Ross and Ellis Maples - the course was a more rugged track, it’s contours and harsh angles demanding more aggressive approaches, boasting arguably the most challenging back nine on the resort.
New beginnings. The establishment of Fazio Golf Design and Consulting in 1982 saw Tom move away from the family firm, as well as from his uncle’s philosophy. While hard, technical courses had been favoured by George, Tom was in favour of exploring more strategic and aesthetic designs, many of which soon followed.
Shadow Creek. Built in the heart of the barren Nevada desert, Shadow Creek is a veritable masterpiece of course design, or rather, course construction. Employed by Las Vegas casino magnate Steve Wynn, for whom money was no object, Fazio was entrusted with the ambitious vision of creating a verdant oasis, moving millions of cubic yards of earth to plant trees, mould hills and sculpt creeks. What Fazio created was wholly artificial – in his own words, a ‘total site manipulation’ - but within the world of its tall pines the outside world feels many miles away, setting a new audacious benchmark of possibility.
Recognition. Bestowed by the Golf Course Superintendents Association of America to those who have made significant contributions to the world of golf, in 1996 Fazio became just the second architect to be a recipient of the Old Tom Morris Award after Robert Trent Jones Sr in 1987. Fazio was also named ‘Best Modern Day Golf Course Architect’ three times running in Golf Digest in 1991, 1993 and 1995, leading to the award being discontinued.
Controversial character. Fazio’s unique vision for how golf fits into a landscape has, from some of the more purist corners of the golf architecture world, garnered criticism of his philosophy. “I don’t believe nature can make great golf all by itself,” he writes in his book Golf Course Designs, “I think it’s pretty obvious that you need to shape the land forms to create a quality golf setting and to produce acceptable shot values. That’s where a golf course designer really earns his keep.” This unsentimental attitude to the natural settings in which he builds is what has allowed him to thrive with projects such as Shadow Creek, but has also seen him criticised as a designer of style over substance.
US Masters at Augusta
Augusta. His notoriety in the golfing world by the 1990s has seen Fazio entrusted with leading many of the modifications to the course in recent years, large and small. He’s rebuilt greens, relocated bunkers and added length to holes by creating new back tees, and in doing so has occasionally fundamentally altered the playing value of the hole, most notably the 7th and 11th. While his changes have not been universally popular – some believe the lengthening of holes and narrowing of fairways goes away from what Bobby Jones and Alister MacKenzie envisaged – what’s certain is the significant impact he’s had on the world’s most famous course.
Waterville, Ireland
Going global. While Fazio is most notable for his designs on US soil, particularly his home of the Carolina’s, his work has crossed borders more than once in recent times. While he has stepped outside of his homeland before – such as with his update of Waterville in Ireland in the late 1980s – his projects in Japan, updating Kasumigaseki (East) for the 2020 Summer Olympics, in South America, creating the stunning Santapazienza Golf Club in Sao Paulo, and in the Dominican Republic, with the seaside Putacana (Corales) have widened his influence across the world.
Ryder Cup 2027. Adare Manor, Ireland, was originally designed by the great Robert Trent Jones Sr in 1995, but when J.P McManus became the owner in 2015, Fazio was employed to give the course a revamp. While the routing remained in place, Fazio set about rebuilding every tee and green on the property, with the course now one of the finest manicured tracks in the world thanks to 220,000 tonnes of sand ensuring fairways stay dry. Sub Air technology has also been installed beneath each putting surface, providing constant air movement for ultimate aeration.