58 executing each restoration effort was huge in developing my process and the appreciation/communication details that are key to success.” In 2014, after 14 years with McDonald & Sons, Green took the momentous decision to leave the mother ship and set up as an independent architect. Although the industry was not in a particularly good place then, in retrospect it was probably an opportune moment, as golf recovered slowly from the recession. “I don’t know that there was ever a moment when I felt completely certain it was the right time,” he says. “At some point, I simply realised that if I wanted to find out what I could do on my own, I needed to take the chance. I looked around and saw an ageing group of lead architects in the industry, and the economic downturn of 2008 had washed most folks my age out of the business. I knew a lot of golf courses (built or renovated between 1980 and 2008) would need work in the next 10 to 20 years… and said, ‘Hey, why not me?’ Starting my own firm was not really about leaving something behind. It was about finding out where I could take those ideas if I was completely responsible for the result. There was certainly risk involved, but I felt I had enough experience at that point to bet on myself. My company is formally named Green Golf & Turf – because I wasn’t sure if I’d need the diversity to do landscaping work!” A few years after starting his business, Green received the commission that would change his life, at Inverness Club in Ohio, designed in 1916 by Donald Ross. Inverness is one of the most storied championship venues in America; it has hosted four US Opens, an Amateur and two PGAs. But Paul Azinger’s PGA Championship win in 1993 was the course’s last Major, until Green got his hands on it, replacing three holes designed in 1979 by Tom and George Fazio, removing trees to restore corridors to something nearer their original width, and recapturing green space. “Inverness changed the trajectory of my career,” says Green. “I had received the commission at Oak Hill prior, but Inverness happened first. The interview process was pretty detailed. I came in and walked the property with the chairman and superintendent. I was super nervous but was blown away by the potential. I stood at the chain-link fence right of what was the third hole, looking into a cornfield and saw the opportunity to use this ground in some special ways. My formal presentation to the committee included the new holes I saw that day. It connected the original golf course by building two new par threes (inspired by Ross’s eighth and thirteenth) and a new par four (Ross’s seventh). It was crazy how we could take the design principles of Ross’s lost holes and apply them to this space. Today, I think many golfers can’t tell which ones are new and that’s a huge success for me. “What made the project even more special was the opportunity to really study the history of the golf course and understand what Donald Ross had intended, rather than simply trying to make an old golf course look old again. There was tremendous information available through photographs, plans and the physical evidence that remained on the property. Their archive is the most thorough I’ve come across. The work became an exercise in discovery. We were trying to understand what had been lost and determine what deserved to come back, while also recognising that the golf course needed to function in the modern game. So much had changed on the property and with the game. A lot of the work was done very deliberately in the field. That’s where my construction background became incredibly valuable. I was comfortable making decisions in the dirt and adjusting things as we uncovered more information. Photo: Austin Peckham/Firefly ANDREW GREEN
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