Ron Prichard: Difference between revisions
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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. |
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. |
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For sixteen years |
For sixteen years after his discharge from service in 1966, Ron Prichard had 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. |
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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. |
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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." |
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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. |
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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. |
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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. |
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| 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 after his discharge from service in 1966, Ron Prichard had 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
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Remodeled Golf Courses
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Restored Golf Courses
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