David Graham

David Graham is an Australian professional golfer, born on May 23, 1946. He came across the game riding past a course on his bicycle, and sharpened it as a teenager while working in a golf shop. He played left-handed at first and switched to the right at fourteen. After building a record on the Australian and Asian tours he joined the PGA Tour in 1972. At the 1979 PGA Championship he won a play-off against Ben Crenshaw, and at the 1981 U.S. Open he closed with a 67 to make up three shots on the final day, making him the only Australian man to have won two different majors. He finished with 38 professional wins, eight of them on the PGA Tour, and took the Piccadilly World Match Play Championship in 1976. In 1994 he captained the International team at the Presidents Cup, and in 2015 he entered the World Golf Hall of Fame.

As an architect, Graham is known for his work with the American designer Gary Panks. The two founded Graham & Panks International (GPI) in Phoenix, Arizona in 1988 and put out ten courses in the decade that followed, up to 1997. The partnership ended as Graham turned his attention to the senior tour, and Panks carried on designing afterwards. Their best-known work includes the Talon course at Grayhawk Golf Club in Scottsdale, The Raven at South Mountain in Phoenix, Chaparral Pines in Payson, Arizona, Turtle Point (Laguna Quays) in Queensland, Australia, and Burapha in Thailand.

Gary Panks, his partner in the firm, was an architect born in Michigan. He studied landscape architecture at Michigan State University, graduating in 1964, and captained the golf team there. After spells in municipal government and parks departments he went out on his own in 1971, and in 1978 he set up Gary Panks Associates to work solely on golf course design. He joined the American Society of Golf Course Architects in 1995 and became a Fellow in 2012, and he is a member of the Arizona Golf Hall of Fame. Whirlwind Golf Club in Arizona and Twin Warriors Golf Club in New Mexico are also his. He died on March 19, 2024 at the age of 82. Between them, then, Graham brought the eye of a tournament player and Panks the craft of a designer.

Among the courses GoGolf lists, one is theirs: Burapha Golf and Resort in Si Racha, Chonburi, Thailand, and it can be booked through GoGolf. The facility has two 18-hole courses, East and West, for 36 holes in all. GolfPass dates the construction to 1993 and gives the design to Gary Panks and David Graham, together with Weller Designs, Peter McEvoy and Gary Stephenson. It sits north of Pattaya, close to Laem Chabang port, within reach of both Bangkok and Pattaya.

Graham and Panks courses you can book on GoGolf

• Burapha Golf and Resort (Si Racha, Chonburi, Thailand) — 36 holes across the East and West courses, built in 1993

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.