Ron Garl

Ron Garl, born on November 22, 1944 in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, is an American golf course architect. The family moved to Lakeland, Florida when he was seven, and as a boy he worked on the maintenance of a par-3 course, thinking, as he tells it, about how the holes might be changed to make them more interesting. A scholarship from the Florida State Golf Association took him to the University of Florida, where he read turfgrass science. He played to scratch as a student and won tournaments around the state, and in 1979 he became the youngest president in the association’s history. In 2003 the University of Florida gave him its Distinguished Alumnus Award.

What set him on the design path was a job on Robert Trent Jones’s construction crew. He then spent about five years under Joe Lee, the noted Florida architect, learning how to raise a memorable course out of flat and featureless ground. He started out on his own in 1970, and has since designed or renovated more than 250 courses worldwide, over 100 of them in Florida. His best-known Florida work is Golden Ocala in Ocala, known as the first replica course in the world for its reproductions of famous holes from Augusta National, St Andrews, Royal Troon and Baltusrol, and credited with starting the whole field of replica design. He names Alister MacKenzie as the great influence on his work and, true to his line that Mother Nature is the greatest architect of all, he believes in layouts that sit lightly on the land and in adjusting difficulty through multiple tees and risk and reward rather than through length. He has long been a visiting professor at the University of Florida, and has taught in Costa Rica, Colombia and China as well. His present firm is Garl Nix Golf Design, in partnership with Ricky Nix.

Thailand is the centre of his work in Asia. Alpine Golf Club at Khlong Luang in Pathum Thani province, north of Bangkok, was dug out and built up from flat paddy land to create by hand a degree of movement rarely found around Bangkok, and it opened in 1996. The golf event of the 1998 Asian Games was played here, and the Johnnie Walker Classic came in 2000 and again in 2004. Tiger Woods won the 2000 edition with 263, 25 under par, and Miguel Ángel Jiménez took the 2004 title. Alpine Golf Resort Chiang Mai, at San Kamphaeng near Chiang Mai, opened in 2008 and threads through the natural woodland of a valley held between mountain ranges. The Royal Gems Golf City, also in Pathum Thani, opened in 2011 and is held to be the first replica course in Asia. The front nine carries the Church Pews bunker from the third at Oakmont, the island green of the 17th at TPC Sawgrass and the green of the Postage Stamp, the eighth at Royal Troon, while the back nine reproduces the second nine at Augusta National.

Among the courses listed on GoGolf, these three in Thailand are Garl designs. All three can be booked through GoGolf.

Garl courses you can book on GoGolf

• Alpine Golf Resort Chiang Mai (Chiang Mai, Thailand) — opened 2008. It follows the natural woodland of the valley at San Kamphaeng
• Alpine Golf Club (Pathum Thani, Thailand) — opened 1996. Movement built by hand out of paddy fields, and host of the Johnnie Walker Classic in 2000 and 2004
• The Royal Gems Golf City (Pathum Thani, Thailand) — opened 2011. The first replica course in Asia, reproducing famous holes from around the world

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.