Ted Robinson

Ted Robinson, in full Theodore G. Robinson, was an American golf course architect, born on May 17, 1923 in Long Beach, California. He studied at the University of California, Berkeley, and took a master’s degree in urban planning at the University of Southern California in 1948. He opened his own design office in 1954 and went on designing for more than fifty years. He died of pancreatic cancer on March 2, 2008 in Laguna Beach, California, at the age of 84.

No account of Robinson gets far without the name he was given: the King of Waterscapes. The American Society of Golf Course Architects describes him as one of the first designers to use water boldly as a major hazard, bringing waterfalls and broad sheets of water around the greens into his courses. That he did so at a time when the approach was anything but usual is what earned him the title. He joined the ASGCA in 1973, served as its president in 1983–84, and became a Fellow in 1995. He worked on more than 160 courses, among them Sahalee Country Club in Washington, which staged the 1998 PGA Championship, Tijeras Creek and Tustin Ranch in California, The Experience at Koele on Lanai, Hawaii, and Robinson Ranch. In the Palm Springs and Palm Desert area alone he designed 26 courses. The practice was supported for many years by his wife, Bobbie, and from 1991 his son, Ted Robinson Jr., joined him in the design work.

His work was centred on the American West and Hawaii, but there are courses of his in Mexico, Central America and Asia as well. In Japan there are the Lakewood courses in Kanagawa, Yamanashi and Gunma; in Korea, Pinx Country Club on Jeju Island (1999); and he left a course in Indonesia too.

Among the courses GoGolf lists, one is his: Rancamaya Golf & Country Club in Bogor, West Java, Indonesia, and it can be booked through GoGolf. It opened in 1995 as 18 holes, par 72. It lies on high ground at around 450 metres, about an hour and a half by car from Jakarta. The ponds and small waterfalls worked into it are Robinson at his most characteristic, and the fall of the land together with the placing of the bunkers gives the course both its looks and its lines of attack.

Robinson courses you can book on GoGolf

• Rancamaya Golf & Country Club (Bogor, West Java, Indonesia) — opened 1995. 18 holes on high ground at around 450 metres

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.