🌍 Women Golf Course Architects — Playability, Purpose & Perspective

🖋️ Introduction

Across more than a century of golf-course architecture, women have brought a distinctive and enduring perspective to the design of the game.

Whether sketching early layouts on open fields or shaping modern landscapes through data and sustainability, their shared language is playability — the belief that a golf course should challenge, delight, and include every golfer.

From Ida Dixon’s pioneering layout at Springhaven in 1904 to Christine Fraser’s inclusive designs in the 21st century, women architects have consistently viewed design through empathy and imagination — asking not just how a course looks, but how it feels to play.

Their collective work tells a story of artistry, analysis, and belonging — of designers who have quietly, and powerfully, expanded what golf can be.

🌿 A Shared Foundation — Playability as Philosophy

For these women, playability is more than a technical term — it’s a philosophy of access and enjoyment.
It means designing for the real rhythm of the game: how people move, think, and connect across the landscape.

While each architect has her own voice and vision, all share three core principles:

• Empathy for the player – understanding diverse experiences of the game.

• Respect for the land – letting the natural site guide the design.

• Commitment to inclusion – ensuring the course welcomes, not excludes.

These ideas — first imagined by pioneers like Ida Dixon and Molly Gourlay — continue to define the best modern design thinking today.

🌱 Themes of the Modern Era

Today’s women architects continue to evolve the profession by connecting design with experience.
They bring expertise that spans technical, environmental, and social dimensions:

• Environmental Design — sustainability and conservation at the heart of routing (Beljan, Ferroni, Haug).

• Strategic Redesign & Restoration — revitalising classic courses with modern insight (Fraser, Gourlay’s legacy).

• Data & Playability Consulting — using metrics and observation to refine experience (Eales & Womack).

• Advocacy & Education — mentoring, research, and DEI leadership (Haug, Fraser, Beljan).

• Player-Centred Creativity — design that reflects lived playing experience (Alcott, Hollins, Dye).

Together they show that golf-course architecture is not a fixed tradition — it’s a living craft, enriched by the perspectives of women who see the game as a shared landscape.

⛳ Women Golf Course Architects — A Century of Playability, Purpose & Progress (1904 → Today)

🌿 “Different eras, different skills — one enduring philosophy: golf should be playable, beautiful, and shared.”

— Women’s Golf History Project

1904 – Ida E. Dixon 🇺🇸

First Female Golf-Course Architect
🟢 Springhaven Club (PA)
“Practical routing and community-minded playability.”

Designed with natural landforms and accessibility in mind, Ida Dixon’s work marked the beginning of women’s authorship in golf design.
📸 Image: The Gables Mansion or Springhaven Club (Public Domain)

1920s–30s – Molly Gourlay 🇬🇧

Britain’s First Professional Woman Architect
🎨 Collaborator with Tom Simpson
“Subtle, strategic artistry from a player’s eye.”

Gourlay bridged artistry and engineering, creating courses of quiet sophistication and balance.
📸 Image: Portrait (NPG, London)

1928–33 – Marion Hollins 🇺🇸

Visionary Developer & Design Collaborator
🌊 Cypress Point (opened 1928), Pasatiempo (opened 1929), Augusta National (influence) (opened 1933)
“Golf as courage and imagination.”

Focus: Intuitive risk–reward strategy; turning landscapes into memorable tests.

Hollins transformed natural landscapes into masterpieces of strategic and emotional depth.

📸 Image: Marion Hollins at Pasatiempo (Wikimedia Commons)

1960s–2010s – Alice O’Neal Dye 🇺🇸

The First Lady of Golf Architecture
🏆 Co-created TPC Sawgrass (opened 1980), Crooked Stick
“Fairness and inclusion are design principles.”

Focus: Equity in play; making challenge fair and fun for everyone.

Introduced forward tees and equitable play; co-created the world-famous Island Green.

📸 Image: Alice Dye at TPC Sawgrass (Public Domain)

1980s–Present – Jan Beljan 🇺🇸

Playability and Environmental Balance
🌿 Bonita Bay, Raptor Bay, Pelican’s Nest
“Good design welcomes everyone.”

A leader in sustainable design and ASGCA vice president, Beljan blends strategy and stewardship.
📸 Image: Bonita Bay course landscape (press image)

2000s–Present – Amy Alcott 🇺🇸

Player’s Intuition Meets Design Flow
🎯 Indian Canyons Resort, global consulting
“Design is discovery.”

LPGA legend turned designer; brings a champion’s feel to course strategy and storytelling.
📸 Image: Amy Alcott on course (LPGA archives)

2000s–Present – Kari Haug 🇺🇸 / 🇳🇴

Inclusive, Research-Led Design
📐 Kari Haug Planning & Design
“Golf belongs to everyone who wants to play.”

Architect, researcher, and DEI advocate leading global inclusion in design practice.

📸 Image: Kari Haug at site visit (EIGCA press)

2010s–Present – Giulia Ferroni 🇮🇹 / 🇬🇧

Sustainable European Modernism
🍃 Nizels GC, Cirencester GC
“Elegance through restraint.”

Italian-born, UK-based architect shaping sustainability and inclusivity in European golf.

📸 Image: Giulia Ferroni, Leeds Golf Design (EIGCA)

2010s–Present – Christine Fraser 🇨🇦

Designing Golf for Everyone
🍁 Toronto Hunt Club, Chedoke Civic Golf
“Accessibility and belonging through design.”

Canadian architect leading a new era of inclusive, community-driven course design.
📸 Image: Christine Fraser portrait (Christine Fraser Design)

2010s–Present – Sharon Eales & Fiona Womack 🇬🇧

Playability Consultants
📊 Course audits and player-experience studies
“Making courses make sense.”

Specialists in data-led course evaluation and equitable setup, connecting architecture with real-world play.
📸 Image: Fieldwork photo or course analysis shot (Press or Club media)

2000s–Present — Cynthia Dye McGarey 🇺🇸

Founder, Dye Designs Group • ASGCA Member
🌍 Projects in Europe, Asia & Americas
Focus: Strategic accessibility • Global sustainability

Continues the Dye family legacy with inclusive routing and forward-thinking sustainability.

1970s–2017 — Vicki Martz 🇺🇸

Arnold Palmer Design Group • Founder, Victoria Martz Golf Design
🌿 Environmental restoration & resort courses
Focus: Environment-sensitive design • Joy in play

One of America’s first senior female design leaders; “brought fun back into the game.”

2000s–Present — Kristine Kerr 🇳🇿 / 🌏

Founder, Kura Golf Course Design
⛳ Asia-Pacific & Middle East projects
Focus: Strategic variety • Regional identity & inclusion

Pioneered female leadership in southern-hemisphere architecture.

2000s–Present — Lyne Morrison 🇦🇺

Founder, Lyne Morrison Golf Design • SAGCA Member
🏖️ Australian regional & resort courses
Focus: Inclusive strategy • Tee systems for all ages

Designs that make golf engaging and sustainable for local communities.

2010s–Present — Amanda Barbee 🇺🇸

Senior Design Associate, Beau Welling Design
🏗️ Community & resort projects
Focus: Landscape integration • Environmental resilience

Merges land planning and golf architecture for holistic, people-centred design.

2010s–Present — Angela Moser 🇩🇪 / 🌍

Architect & Shaper, Renaissance Golf Design (Tom Doak)
🏖️ St Patrick’s Links • Te Arai • Pinehurst No 10
Focus: Craft of shaping • Field innovation

Designs directly through shaping — turning artistry and precision into living terrain.

2020s–Emerging — Abril Ortiz 🇲🇽

Golf Architect, Total Golf Construction (Mexico)
🌎 Latin American projects in development
Focus: Landscape design • Entry-level architectural practice

Part of Latin America’s first generation of female golf architects.

1980s–Present — Nancy Lopez 🇺🇸

LPGA Champion • Designer & Ambassador
🏡 The Villages (FL) • Rio Colorado (TX)
Focus: Enjoyment • Playability • Player experience

Brings a champion’s empathy to course design; makes golf inspiring, not intimidating.

1990s–Present — Jan Stephenson 🇦🇺 / 🇺🇸

LPGA Star • Club Owner & Designer
🌿 Tarpon Woods GC (FL)
Focus: Community design • Charitable impact

Uses ownership and design to create inclusive, socially conscious golf spaces.

💫 Summary: A Global Architecture of Inclusion

From Ida Dixon’s pioneering fairways to Abril Ortiz’s emerging designs, women have shaped golf’s physical and cultural landscapes for over 120 years.
Their approaches differ — artistry, data, strategy, ecology — yet all orbit the same philosophy:

Playability is not a concession; it is creativity.

Together, these architects, consultants, and shapers form a living lineage — proving that golf’s most enduring beauty lies in how it welcomes us to play.

⛳  A Timeline of Playability and Purpose (1904 → Today)

Across more than a century, women have shaped golf’s landscapes with imagination, empathy, and innovation.
From early pioneers drawing course maps by hand to today’s sustainability-led professionals, their common foundation is playability — design that welcomes challenge without exclusion, fairness without compromise, and joy in every shot.

Each has added her own area of expertise, creating a rich and evolving architecture of play — one that connects artistry, ecology, equity, and experience.

💫 Reflection

From Ida Dixon’s first routing in 1904 to Christine Fraser’s digital master plans today, women have continually reimagined what makes a golf course great — not distance or difficulty, but connection.

They’ve taught the sport that design is a language of inclusion, and that playability is its poetry.

“Where men built monuments, women built invitations — courses that welcome you to play, not prove.”
— Women’s Golf History Project

Their legacy is not only the courses they created, but the perspective they gave the game:
that golf’s future, like its best holes, is designed to be shared.