Mike Davis, the current CEO of the USGA, will leave the organisation by the end of 2021 and team up with Tom Fazio II to form a new golf architecture firm called Fazio & Davis Golf Design.

Davis, who joined the USGA in 1990, became the association’s first chief executive officer in 2016. “Leading the USGA has been such an honour, and I’m grateful for the many wonderful years I have had with this great organisation,” said Davis.

“Mike’s vision helped create four new USGA championships, while at the same time ensuring a renowned line-up of golf courses for all of the USGA’s championships,” said USGA president Stu Francis. “He has also been a strong advocate for the selection of public golf courses as US Open sites.”

Davis and Fazio have already started working together on a new master plan at Chambersburg Country Club in Pennsylvania, which was Davis’ boyhood home course. “We just clicked,” Davis said about working with Fazio.

“For about a dozen years I have been helping them out a little bit, and I’ve really enjoyed it,” Davis told Golf Digest. “Then they asked me to do a master plan, so I brought Tom in, and I’m doing it pro bono, but he and I just really work together well.”

Davis was recently a guest on the American Society of Golf Course Architects’ Insights podcast series. He said: “Since I was a junior golfer, I used to doodle holes and think about architecture. Even at a young age, I just noticed things. I have probably had more interest in that [golf course architecture] than the high-level elite game.

“The part of the job at the USGA I love the most is being around the golf course. I have huge respect for golf course architects. I have met so many of the great living architects and I consider many of them friends and I’ve learned a lot from them.”