Eddie B. Connaughton is a renowned Irish Golf Architect that began his career as a trainee Greenkeeper at Royal Dublin Golf Club and at Elm Park Golf Club where he attained first City & Guilds of London Certificate awarded in Ireland. He then went on to study Agronomy, specialising in Turfgrass Management, at Purdue University, Indiana, USA where he graduated with a B.Sc. in 1985.
Following graduation he worked in Scotland with a sportsturf company gaining valuable experience in the golf course and sportsfield area. He set up Grass Technology International with a partner in 1989 to offer technical and construction advice to golf courses and sportsfields throughout the UK, Ireland and Europe. He concentrated on offering specialist agronomy advice to golf courses including designing or re-designing over 20 courses with a further 100-150 courses using the company on an on-going basis for agronomic consultancies.
Declan Branigan holds an Honours Degree in General Agriculture, qualifying from University College Dublin in 1974 and also holds a M.Agr.Sc. in Soil Science, publishing his thesis in 1977. He has 30 years professional experience as an agriculturist and soil scientist.
Born in 1850 at Musselburgh, Scotland, Tom Dunn was the son Willie Dunn, who along with his twin brother Jamie Dunn played a series of historic matches with Allan Robertson and Old Tom Morris. Tom Dunn’s early life was spent at Blackheath in London were his father was custodian of the links. In 1864 Old Willie and family returned to Scotland taking a position at Leith. Tom remained at Leith until 1870 when he moved to North Berwick to start a club-making operation. Later that year he was appointed professional of the London Scottish Club at Wimbledon, and occupied that post for eleven years. In 1882 he returned to North Berwick taking charge of the links. This lasted until 1889 when he returned to London and the Tooting Bec Golf Club. It was during his tenure at Tooting Bec that the game’s popularity exploded in the south, as did the demand for new golf courses, and Tom Dunn was poised to meet that demand.
William W. Amick (a.ka. Bill Amick) is an a noted golf course design architect, born in the USA his passion for the golf started very early. As a teenager and already a low handicap golfer, Bill always dreamed of becoming a golf course architect. He earned a BA degree and was a Graduate Assistant under a USGA Green Section Scholarship. After his graduating and as an Air Force officer he supervised the maintenance and operation of a base golf course. Back to civil life he then gained experience in formal golf course design as an assistant to golf course architects in Indianapolis and Atlanta.
Bruce William Devlin (born 10 October 1937) is an Australian professional golfer, sportscaster and golf course designer. Devlin was born in Armidale, Australia. He turned pro in 1961 and joined the PGA Tour in 1962 after an amateur career in Australia which included a win at the Australian Amateur in 1959. During his PGA Tour career, he had eight victories all of which occurred between 1964 and 1972. On the Senior PGA Tour, Devlin won one tournament, the 1995 FHP Health Care Classic. At the end of the 1998 golf season, Devlin decided to retire from the Senior PGA Tour to concentrate on his 
Born September 2, 1868, in Aberdeen, Scotland, Tom Bendelow nicknamed “The Johnny Appleseed of American Golf”, was a prolific Scottish American golf course architect during the first half of the twentieth century. He is credited with having designed some 600 courses in a 35-year span. Bendelow was one of nine children, his parents owned a popular pie shop in the city, and were known for their religious piety. His father taught him the game of golf; however he was trained as a typesetter. There were no careers in golf course design in that era. After his marriage in 1892 he immigrated to the United States and his family followed in 1893. His first job in the States was at the New York Herald.
David McLay Kidd was born and raised in the Scottish lowlands; you might say golfing is in Kidd’s blood. As a child he would listen to his father, Jimmy (a greenkeeper at iconic Scottish courses such as St. Andrews and Turnberry) wax poetic about course maintenance with like-minded golfers into wee hours of the morning. David’s formal education came at Writtle College, the largest Land Sciences college in the UK. He completed an internship with Southern Golf, a leading golf construction company, then joined a small architectural firm called Swan Golf Designs as a designer/project manager. In 1991, at the age of 24, David Kidd returned home to work as Director of Design for Gleneagles Golf Developments (GGD), a post he would hold until 1999.
Richard A. Beril graduated from the University of Idaho with a degree in Landscape Architecture in 1981. Rick worked at a Landscape Architectural design/build firm during college and following graduation. In 1982 he accepted a position with Robert von Hagge. Becoming a Registered Landscape Architect in 1983, Rick simultaneously assumed increased responsibilities with various U.S. and Mexico projects.
Since learning to play golf at age eleven, Mike Smelek has been fascinated by both the complexity of the game and the diverse beauty of the environment in which it is played. This appreciation for the outdoors and an emerging talent for art led him to pursue a career in Landscape Architecture. While attending the University of Idaho, he set a goal of specializing in golf course design and shortly after graduating in 1980, was given an opportunity to fulfill this passion. In March 1981, he moved to Texas and began his apprenticeship with Robert von Hagge.
