Golf Architects/Designers: Tony Jacklin

Anthony Jacklin is an English golfer, who was the most successful British player of his generation. He was also the most successful European Ryder Cup captain ever. Born in Scunthorpe, England, Jacklin grew up in a working class family, the son of a truck driver. His father passed along his love of the game to his son and instilled in Tony the belief he could be a great champion. “He always said, ‘You’ve got two arms, two legs and a head on your shoulders just like them,'” Jacklin recounted, “whenever we were talking or watching Arnold Palmer or whoever the great players were made me realize that that was true.”

His vast experience and long career has allowed him to play thousands of golf courses throughout the world, together with his own ideas on golf course design he started the Jacklin Design Group. He feels the layouts that stand out are the very traditional courses designed in the 20’s and 30’s. Jacklin has some very strong opinions about golf design. Number one is that a golf course should be expertly engineered, as well as aesthetically and strategically designed. Tony is very aware of potentially high annual operating costs.

He favors the look and play of the traditional courses; the great, grand courses of the game that never go out of style. Combine that with the current knowledge of irrigation and agronomy, He believes a designer can make a golf course that is environmentally responsible, conserves water resources and requires minimal maintenance to look great.

Tony Jacklin believes that the building of a course should be aimed for players that are not champion golfers pointing the fact that even tournament courses are used 350 days out of the year by average players. He states ‘I don’t design a course for myself, and then add additional tees for the daily players. I design completely for the daily player. Every shot, from tee to green.’ He believes good design can have large sweeping elevation changes and still work well as far as water and maintenance is concerned, if engineered properly. That means avoiding ‘radical’ design features, but still producing an exciting course that requires minimal maintenance.

Jacklin knows he has succeeded in his design philosophy when the golf course looks as if it has always been there, like it belongs. He will walk the course after the overall routing, looking at every shot from the perspective of the player. His aim is to get play started quickly and let the player gain confidence before meeting the tougher challenges of his course. The object of his course design is to let the course teach the players as they go and help him help them play better golf.

Completed projects:

The Concession, Sarasota, Florida – USA (joint design collaboration with Jack Nicklaus). Recognized by Golf Digest as America’s 2006 Best New Private Course

San Roque Golf Club, Sotogrande – Spain (joint design collaboration with Dave Thomas).

Klassis Golf and Country Club, Istanbul, Turkey .

St. Pierre Park Golf Club, L’Ancresse, Guernsey, Channel Islands