1 The closure of the Arnold Palmer Design Company marks the end of an era in golf course architecture. Founded in 1972, APDC, along with Nicklaus Design, essentially created the concept of the marquee professional golfer signature design. It was a model that worked very well for many years. Many thousands of people bought a membership or a house at an Arnold Palmer club; the association with the King, for decades the most popular golfer in the world, convinced them that they were getting something desirable. By the time Arnold died in 2016, the golf design market had changed. Overbuilding in the years around the millennium, followed by the crash of 2007-08, essentially put paid to large scale development of new golf courses. When building started to come back, it was of a very different type, centred around a small number of projects, most of which aimed to build something truly special. Whatever you thought of Palmer courses, it’s unarguable that such a model was not what made the company great. Since Arnold’s death, architects Brandon Johnson and Thad Layton, both very talented designers and fine men, have kept the name alive, and done some excellent work in doing so. But it has always seemed a strange situation. Golf design, probably because it is such a small business, has always been a personalised affair. Clients expect to see the person whose name is above the door, perhaps not every visit, but certainly at critical times during the project. The post-Arnold version of APDC was an attempt to create something new, more akin to traditional professional services businesses. If you hire KPMG to audit your company, you don’t expect Klynveld, Peat, Marwick or Goerdeler to show up with a calculator; if you choose Foster + Partners to build you a new tower block, nobody expects to see an 88-year-old Lord Norman appear with surveying equipment to view the site. But golf design is different. Now, Thad and Brandon will, presumably, go on to run more traditional design businesses. We at GCA wish them well, trust they will succeed, and look forward to reporting on their work. The end of a legend WELCOME ADAM LAWRENCE
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