Arthur Hills

Arthur Hills was an American golf course architect, born in 1930 in Toledo, Ohio. He took up golf at the age of seven on the public courses of his home town, studied at Michigan State University and the University of Michigan, and took his degree in 1953; at university he was a member of the golf team. After graduating he learned design while working in course maintenance at a country club, and set up his own practice in the late 1950s. The first course he designed was Brandywine Country Club (1967) in Toledo, his home town.

His career as an architect ran for more than 55 years, and the American Society of Golf Course Architects (ASGCA) credits him with more than 200 new courses and roughly the same number of remodelling master plans. He joined the ASGCA in 1971, served as its president in 1992–93 and was made a Fellow in 2003. He was also named the society’s Architect of the Year in 1991 and 1998. Among his best-known work are Bonita Bay in Florida, The Golf Club of Georgia in Atlanta, Bighorn Golf Club in Palm Desert, California, and Bay Harbor Golf Club in Michigan. His courses have been described as beautiful, enjoyable to play and classical in their strategy, and he is said to have set himself the goal of building courses that golfers of any standard could play.

From the 1990s Steve Forrest and later Shawn Smith became his design partners, and the firm continues today as Hills Forrest Smith Golf Course Architects. His work was not confined to the United States: there is Oitavos Dunes in Portugal, and courses in Croatia, Sweden, Mexico and Thailand.

Among the courses GoGolf lists, one is his work: The Vintage Golf Club in Samut Prakan province, Thailand, which can be booked through GoGolf. It is an 18-hole, par-72 parkland course close to Suvarnabhumi International Airport, and the Thai golf information site Golfasian describes it as the only course Hills built in Thailand. Some sources give the opening as January 1996 and others as 1995. The greens are small and the layout asks for accuracy rather than length, and it has been used as a tournament venue by the Thai PGA and the Thai LPGA.

Hills courses you can book on GoGolf

• The Vintage Golf Club (Samut Prakan, Thailand) — 18 holes, par 72. Said to be the only course Hills built in Thailand

Tee times and rates for a given day can be checked on each course page or in the GoGolf app.

See the other golf course architects here.