Ross Watson

Ross Watson is an Australian golf course architect. He began as a draftsman working on road design, and came to golf between 1979 and 1980. The Australian magazine Inside Golf records that his first job was Windaroo Golf Club at Beenleigh, near the Gold Coast, done alongside the consulting engineers Geoff Burchill and Partners. He then rebuilt the 18 holes at Caloundra Golf Club on Queensland’s Sunshine Coast, and from there his career as an architect was properly under way.

Through the 1980s he ran a design practice with the tour professional Graham Marsh. The work of those years includes The Vines in Western Australia, Horizons and Terrey Hills in New South Wales, and Paradise Palms in Queensland. He went out on his own in the 1990s as Ross Watson Golf Course Design Services, and the commissions kept coming: Magenta Shores, built on sand north of Sydney, the 2006 renovation of Royal Sydney Golf Club, Kooindah Waters, Pacific Harbour, Palm Meadows and Indooroopilly. He is counted among the most prolific architects Australia has produced, and he served as the first president of SAGCA when it was formed in 1989, later becoming an honorary member.

He has also worked widely in Asia. Golf Australia magazine reports 19 courses in Malaysia, six in Japan and one each in Korea and Guam. Malaysia is where his reputation stands highest. Kota Permai Golf and Country Club, outside Kuala Lumpur, was built in the late 1990s and went on to host the Volvo Masters of Asia and the 2008 Malaysian Open; Watson has explained that he took the contours of what had been an oil palm plantation as he found them and used the stands of trees he kept to separate the holes. Horizon Hills Golf and Country Club in Johor opened in 2008, a layout that works with sharp changes in level and brings in waterfalls and lakes. It staged the Asian Tour’s Iskandar Johor Open from 2010 to 2012, won by Pádraig Harrington, Joost Luiten and Sergio García.

Among the courses listed on GoGolf, Watson has been involved with four, in Indonesia and Malaysia. Lido Golf Club Bogor, in Bogor, Indonesia, is credited to Watson by several golf information sites and given an opening date of 1994. It sat on high ground with views of Mount Salak, Mount Gede and Mount Pangrango. The site has since been redeveloped and, after a renovation by Ernie Els Design, has reopened as Trump International Golf Club Lido. None of these four courses is currently open for booking through GoGolf; they appear on the site as information pages only.

Courses listed for information only

The following four courses are not currently open for booking through GoGolf. They appear on the site as information pages only.

• Lido Golf Club Bogor (Bogor, Indonesia) — a course in the hills, given an opening date of 1994. It has since been renovated and is now Trump International Golf Club Lido
• Horizon Hills Golf and Country Club (Johor, Malaysia) — opened 2008. The 17th is an island green across water. Venue of the Iskandar Johor Open
• Kota Permai Golf and Country Club (Shah Alam, Malaysia) — opened in the late 1990s. Water comes into play on half the holes, and it hosted the 2008 Malaysian Open
• Staffield Country Resort (Negeri Sembilan, Malaysia) — 27 holes credited as a joint design with Graham Marsh, opened in 1994 on a former rubber plantation

See the other golf course architects here.