The eighth episode’s guest, Tom Fazio, is well known as one of the most renowned and prolific golf course architect’s to ever exist.
Tom has designed over 200 courses, most of them in the United States. He has more courses on the Golf Digest top 100 courses list than any other architect in history and several of those courses are ranked in the top 50. He’s designed the course for the 2021 Olympics in Japan, is Pine Valley and Augusta National’s go-to guy for additions and renovations, and my favorite fact is that the Best Modern Day Golf Architect poll was discontinued entirely after Tom claimed the award three years in a row. Back in 2008 for my senior project in high school, I had the opportunity to shadow Tom and his team at Shooting Star in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, while it was rock and gravel being shaped by bulldozers - they were still using spray paint to map out each potential hole! Here’s a handful of courses Tom has renovated, restored, or redesigned: Augusta National, Bel-Air, Butler National, Caves Valley, Congressional, Firestone, Inverness, Jupiter Hills, McArthur, Merion, Oak Hill, Oakmont, PGA National, Pine Valley, Quail Hallow, Riviera, Sea Island, Shadow Creek, Shooting Star, Whisper Rock, Winged Foot Goes without saying Tom has played a large part in the evolution of golf and course architecture over the past 40 to 50 years. We cover a range of topics from how he got started in his profession, what it’s turned into, how he approaches custom crafting each course, and his thoughts on players hitting the ball further than ever and what that means for the future of course design.
