Justin Leonard

Justin Leonard is an American professional golfer and golf course designer, born on June 15, 1972 in Dallas, Texas. He played his college golf at the University of Texas and won the U.S. Amateur in 1992. In 1994 he took the individual title at the NCAA championship as well, and later that same year he turned professional, going straight from college onto the PGA Tour without passing through qualifying school. He has won 12 times on the PGA Tour. In 1997 he took his major, The Open Championship at Royal Troon, and in 1998 he won the Players Championship. He played in the Ryder Cup three times, in 1997, 1999 and 2008, and at the 1999 match he holed a birdie putt of some 45 feet at the 17th on the final day that settled the American comeback. Since 2015 he has also worked as an analyst for the Golf Channel, and in 2025, past the age of 50, he won the Chubb Classic on the senior tour in the United States.

In course design he worked with the golf course architect Tripp Davis on Old American Golf Club at The Colony, north of Dallas in Texas, an eighteen-hole course on the shore of Lake Lewisville that opened in 2010. The club’s website presents it as a course “designed by golf course architect Tripp Davis and 12-time PGA Tour winner Justin Leonard”, built in the spirit of the golden age of course architecture of the 1920s and 1930s and taking courses such as Shinnecock and Prairie Dunes as its models. In 2018 it was the venue for the LPGA Tour’s Volunteers of America Texas Classic.

His connection with Asia comes by way of the 2023 Pure Insurance Championship on the senior tour in the United States, where he lost a play-off to Thongchai Jaidee of Thailand and finished second. GoGolf does not at present list any course designed by Leonard.

See the other golf course architects here.

Photo: Steven Newton（Flickr） / CC BY 2.0