MorrowTikkanen

MorrowTikkanen is a golf course design practice set up in 2004 by Jon Morrow and Al Tikkanen. The company profile on their official site explains that the two started the firm after working together on the design and construction of Red Mountain Golf Club in Phuket. They are based in Thailand and have worked mainly in Southeast Asia. Rather than simply drawing plans, they stay with a project through construction, and their website points to their ability to bridge the gap between international design companies and local contractors as their particular strength.

Jon Morrow (Jonathan Morrow) is a designer from Wales. He took up golf at the age of nine, played for Wales by the time he was 18, and went on to represent Great Britain internationally at junior, youth and senior level. He spent four years at Florida State University in the United States on a golf scholarship, then returned to Britain to compete and to coach. Between 1994 and 2002 he set up and ran the first golf academy in Asia to carry the name of Gary Player, at Blue Canyon Country Club in Phuket. He has said that the experience of coaching golfers of every standard is what shaped his view of how playability should be built into a design. Within the firm he handles design and project management.

Al Tikkanen is a construction specialist who has been building golf courses for some 35 years. According to the firm’s website he has worked on more than 40 courses in 10 countries, including projects for major names such as the design company of Robert Trent Jones Jr. His role in the practice is head shaper — the person who actually carves the ground into shape — as well as designer. He argues that a franchise approach, applying the same formula to every site, can only produce mediocre golf courses, and puts the emphasis on reading the conditions of each particular piece of land.

The firm’s first project was Red Mountain Golf Club in the Kathu district of Phuket. The site had been worked as a tin mine for many years and was left with sheer red rock faces, water-filled ravines and deep undulation. The two chose to work with that terrain rather than flatten it, and the course opened in 2007. Top 100 Golf Courses describes it as Morrow’s first 18-hole design, and the local outlet Phuket101 reports that in its opening year it was named one of the top three new courses in Asia. From March 2025 Morrow himself has been involved in rebuilding six holes in line with the club’s new plan, telling the trade magazine Golf Course Trades that they are cutting new tees, fairways, greens and cart paths into the jungle hillside. The practice also carried out renovation and construction work on several holes at Loch Palm Golf Club, also in Phuket.

Among the courses GoGolf lists, the firm designed two in Thailand, and both can be booked through GoGolf. Riverdale Golf Club, outside Bangkok, is an 18-hole layout routed through a valley in the Chao Phraya delta; its operator, MBK Golf, credits the design to the Welsh architect Jonathan Morrow and his partner Al Tikkanen, a veteran of course construction. It opened in 2010 and measures around 7,000 yards from the back tees and 5,880 yards from the front. In the flat country around Bangkok, a round with this much elevation change is a rarity.

MorrowTikkanen courses you can book on GoGolf

• Red Mountain Golf Club Phuket (Phuket, Thailand) — opened in 2007 on the site of a former tin mine. Par 72, 6,781 yards
• Riverdale Golf Club (Pathum Thani, Thailand) — opened 2010. An 18-hole layout using the valley terrain, around 7,000 yards from the back tees

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.