Ron Prichard (born 1945 or 1946) is an American

golf course A golf course is the grounds on which the sport of golf is played. It consists of a series of holes, each consisting of a tee box, a fairway, the rough and other hazards, and a green with a cylindrical hole in the ground, known as a "cup". The ...

designer and restorer. His original designs include the TPC at Southwind,

Memphis Memphis most commonly refers to: * Memphis, Egypt, a former capital of ancient Egypt * Memphis, Tennessee, a major American city Memphis may also refer to: Places United States * Memphis, Alabama * Memphis, Florida * Memphis, Indiana * Memp ...

Tennessee Tennessee ( , ), officially the State of Tennessee, is a landlocked state in the Southeastern region of the United States. Tennessee is the 36th-largest by area and the 15th-most populous of the 50 states. It is bordered by Kentucky to ...

, now home of the FedEx St. Jude Classic. However, he is perhaps better known for masterminding the restoration of courses originally created by the Scottish-American designer

Donald Ross Donald Ross may refer to: *Donald A. Ross (1857–1937), Canadian politician * Donald Ross (golfer) (1872–1948), Scottish-born American golfer and golf course designer *Donald P. Ross (1902–1973), American horse racetrack and racing stable owner ...

(1872 – 1948), among them

Aronimink Golf Club Aronimink Golf Club is a private country club in the eastern United States, located in Newtown Square, Pennsylvania, a suburb west of Philadelphia. Its championship layout is consistently rated among the nation's top golf courses. Aronimink is cur ...

in Newtown Township,

Pennsylvania Pennsylvania (; (Pennsylvania Dutch: )), officially the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, is a state spanning the Mid-Atlantic, Northeastern, Appalachian, and Great Lakes regions of the United States. It borders Delaware to its southeast, Ma ...

Career

Prichard decided on his career path while in college. "I'd ask myself back then what I wanted to be doing when I was 50," he recalled to one interviewer. "And the answer was a golf architect. I thought it would be nice to be known around the neighborhood." He started his business in the 1960s, and by May 2003 he had designed "nearly 20" courses and restored more than 30 others.

Original designs

Among his original projects, he was the lead architect for the

Tournament Players Club Tournament Players Club (TPC) is a chain of public and private golf courses operated by the PGA Tour. Most of the courses either are or have been hosts for PGA Tour events, with the remainder having frequently hosted events on the Korn Ferry Tour ...

golf course which opened in 1988 at Southwind, Memphis, with golfers

Hubert Green Hubert Myatt Green (December 28, 1946 – June 19, 2018) was an American professional golfer who won 29 professional golf tournaments, including two major championships: the 1977 U.S. Open and the 1985 PGA Championship. He was inducted into the ...

and

Fuzzy Zoeller Frank Urban "Fuzzy" Zoeller Jr. (; born November 11, 1951) is an American professional golfer who has won ten PGA Tour events including two major championships. He is one of three golfers to have won the Masters Tournament in his first appear ...

as co-consultants. This course has been the home of the FedEx St. Jude Classic (formerly called the Memphis Open) since 1989.

Restorations

Because of his reputation as a restorer of the works of classic golf course designers such as

, Prichard – then a resident of Montgomeryville – was appointed in the 1990s to restore

in Newtown Township,

. This was originally designed by Ross but underwent numerous modifications in the 1980s under

Robert Trent Jones Robert Trent Jones Sr. (June 20, 1906 – June 14, 2000) was a British–American golf course architect who designed or re-designed more than 500 golf courses in 45 U.S. states and 35 countries. In reference to this, Jones took pride in say ...

, an influential architect but one whose approach to golf course design was later felt to be incompatible with Ross's. The restorations achieved a higher profile when the course was selected to host the

Senior PGA Championship The Senior PGA Championship, established in 1937, is the oldest of the five major championships in men's senior golf. It is administered by the Professional Golfers' Association of America and is recognized as a major championship by both PGA ...

for 2003. Prichard's changes, only commenced after a year of planning during which he inspected the course and old photographs, included restoring Ross's original

bunkering Bunkering is the supplying of fuel for use by ships (such fuel is referred to as bunker), including the logistics of loading and distributing the fuel among available shipboard tanks. A person dealing in trade of bunker (fuel) is called a bunk ...

and expanding the fairways. Aronimink's rise on ''

Golf Digest ''Golf Digest'' is a monthly golf magazine published by Warner Bros. Discovery through its sports unit under its Warner Bros. Discovery Golf division. It is a generalist golf publication covering recreational golf and men's and women's compet ...

s list of the 100 greatest American courses rose from 98th position in 2001 to 52nd the following year was credited to Prichard's restoration work. A similar challenge – recovering a Ross design from beneath numerous later modifications – was posed by Jeffersonville Golf Club in

, requiring Prichard to make use of historical sources including 1930s aerial photographs. The restoration project he headed at The Minikahda Club in

Minneapolis Minneapolis () is the largest city in Minnesota, United States, and the county seat of Hennepin County. The city is abundant in water, with list of lakes in Minneapolis, thirteen lakes, wetlands, the Mississippi River, creeks and waterfalls. ...

Minnesota Minnesota () is a state in the upper midwestern region of the United States. It is the 12th largest U.S. state in area and the List of U.S. states and territories by population, 22nd most populous, with over 5.75 million residents. Minne ...

, another Ross original, was praised by the ''

Seattle Post-Intelligencer The ''Seattle Post-Intelligencer'' (popularly known as the ''Seattle P-I'', the ''Post-Intelligencer'', or simply the ''P-I'') is an online newspaper and former print newspaper based in Seattle, Washington (state), Washington, United States. Th ...

'' in 2007 as "a huge success, as the course now moves into the 21st century". One restoration project outside the United States was at Elmhurst Golf & Country Club at

Winnipeg Winnipeg () is the capital and largest city of the province of Manitoba in Canada. It is centred on the confluence of the Red and Assiniboine rivers, near the longitudinal centre of North America. , Winnipeg had a city population of 749 ...

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by tota ...

, which the club hoped would help to make it a venue for the Canadian Open. Ron Whitten, writing in ''GolfWorld'' in 2007, was critical of the attempts of many planners to return Donald Ross's courses to original designs, calling such restoration "the narrow-minded substitute for imagination". However, he listed Prichard as among " e best architects who specialize in Ross recoveries", understanding the need for course design to change with the times.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Prichard, Ron 1940s births Golf course architects American landscape architects Living people