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One of the most bittersweet songs you will ever hear is "Keep Me In Your Heart," from Warren Zevon's album "The Wind," which debuted in late August of 2003, just two weeks before Zevon passed away from lung cancer. Knowing Zevon wrote the song with the full force of his mortality staring him in the face adds an almost overwhelming emotional component to it.
Golf's own artists' late works may not be so directly poignant, but for someone visiting and playing with a sense of the arc of their career, there is a little bit of that sense of sentimentality and melancholy. That feeling will be in the air this weekend as the PGA Tour visits Black Desert Resort for its inaugural Black Desert Championship.
Tournament host Black Desert Golf Course will forever hold the distinction of being the final design by Tom Weiskopf, the 1973 Open Champion who parlayed a successful playing career into second-acts both in the commentary booth and in the field, laying out some 70 golf courses in 10 countries over the last 30-plus years of his life alongside collaborators like Jay Morrish and, more recently, Phil Smith.
With help from Smith, Weiskopf fashioned an exciting and visually striking course at Black Desert, which, true to its name, winds through fields of jagged black lava tubes just north of St. George, Utah. The juxtaposition of black rock and red desert and mountain surroundings along with green fairways and white bunkers adds visual drama to a host of Weiskopf's clever design features, including two potentially drivable par 4s, a par 3 with a bunker in the middle of the green and another that is meant to remind golfers of the famous "Postage Stamp" short par-3 8th at Royal Troon, where Weiskopf won his lone major.
10 other legendary golf course architects and their noteworthy 'final designs'
Due to the lengthy and often variable timelines on which golf courses are built, there can be debate among golf architecture and history wonks about which course can fairly be regarded as an architect's final work. Things get murkier the farther back in time one goes, usually. In some cases, multiple courses can simultaneously claim to be an architect's last. We've made a few judgment calls and added occasional caveats to this list of select golf course architects' last designs.
Pete Dye (d. 2020): White Oak Golf Course and the Links at Perry Cabin
This ultra-private 18-holer near the Florida-Georgia border northwest of Jacksonville is part of a 17,000-acre wildlife preserve owned by Mark and Kimbra Walters, who are also part of the Los Angeles Dodgers ownership group. Play is limited to those invited by the Walters. Due to Dye's failing health, longtime golf course builder Allan MacCurrach and his team shaped much of the course, which was completed in 2018.
Unlike White Oak, willing visiting golfers can readily access the Links at Perry Cabin. Originally built by Dye's brother Roy in the 1970s, the course was bought by the nearby Inn at Perry Cabin, whose owners brought in Dye, his son P.B. and MacCurrach to remodel it. It reopened in 2018 and has ranked highly on GolfPass' annual Golfers' Choice list of top Maryland golf courses ever since.
Arnold Palmer (d. 2016): Royal Golf Club
The King's legacy lives on not just in highlight reels of his on-course exploits but in thousands of happy memories of golfers interacting with the man, who was known to be unfailingly genuine and friendly. He also lent his name and input to dozens of golf courses, the last of which is this layout east of the Twin Cities that was re-routed to make way for some home construction and formally reopened in 2017, after Palmer's passing the previous September. Annika Sorenstam also collaborated on the redesign, which was ranked among Minnesota's most popular courses on our Golfers' Choice rankings before becoming a private club.
Robert Trent Jones, Sr. (d. 2000): Southern Highlands Golf Club
Robert Trent Jones' globe-trotting career anchored golf design's midcentury-modern period, as his smooth, sleek designs influenced professional golf and retail players alike with large features and plenty of length. Located on the outskirts of Las Vegas, Southern Highlands is one of America's most intricately bunkered golf courses - a bold final statement by the elder Jones, whose son Robert Trent Jones, Jr. assisted on the design of this private members' course, which opened in 1999.
Dick Wilson (d. 1965): Bidermann Golf Club; Mystery Valley Golf Club
Though less prolific than his contemporary Robert Trent Jones, Sr., Wilson helped anchor golf's midcentury-modern period with several striking golf courses characterized by intricate bunkering; elevated, stage-like greens and long, arrow-straight "runway" tee boxes. Bidermann, which sits on the Winterthur estate of the DuPont family in northern Delaware, is one of the greater Philadelphia area's gems, exclusive though it is. It opened in 1965, the year Wilson died after falling out of a tree at one of his masterpieces, Pine Tree Golf Club in Boynton Beach, Fla.
Mystery Valley Golf Club opened in 1966, the year after Wilson passed away; it was laid out by Wilson but presumably his longtime collaborator Joe Lee finished it. It is an underrated public gem on the southeastern outskirts of Atlanta with an especially strong front nine that meanders up and down and around in a pleasant forest setting.
James Braid (d. 1950): Stranraer Golf Club
Braid was one of the most influential architects in England, Scotland and Ireland, building and remodeling dozens of courses to different extents. Stranraer, a 6,300-yard parkland layout, sits just inland from Scotland's west coast an hour south of Turnberry and opened in 1950, the year Braid died.
Donald Ross (d. 1948): Raleigh Country Club; New Smyrna Golf Club
One of the most important architects in American golf history, Ross criss-crossed the U.S. and even made stops in Canada and Cuba along the way spreading golf to new places. The private Raleigh Country Club, most recently renovated by architect Kyle Franz, is widely regarded as Ross' last new 18-hole design. It hosts the Korn Ferry Tour's UNC Health Championship presented by Stitch. Kaito Onishi won the 2024 edition.
On the public-course front, in Florida, New Smyrna Golf Club's first nine holes opened in 1947, the year before Ross' death, while the second nine was built according to Ross' plans in the mid-1950s. New Smyrna is city-owned, affordable to play and has the distinction of being the course where legendary caddie Jim "Bones" MacKay played golf in his early years. Not a bad spot to learn to be a great reader of greens, given all the subtle breaks at New Smyrna.
Alister MacKenzie (d. 1934): Augusta National Golf Club
The Good Doctor's influential career saw him help shape the golf cultures of the United Kingdom, Ireland, Australia and the United States; not bad for a man who lived barely half of his life in the 20th century. After masterpieces like Cypress Point in Pebble Beach and Royal Melbourne Down Under, MacKenzie's masterpiece, Augusta National, would ultimately become famous after the passing of its architect, who worked with Bobby Jones to build America's answer to the Old Course at St. Andrews.
C.B. Macdonald (d. 1939): Yale Golf Course
Although the no-longer-existent Palm Beach Winter Club was technically Macdonald's last design, opening in 1927, 1926's Yale course is the last of Macdonald's epic originals that is still around, though golfers won't likely play it again until its centenary year, due to an ongoing $25 million restoration effort led by architect Gil Hanse.
Seth Raynor (d. 1926): The Everglades Club
Located in the heart of Palm Beach and surrounded by some of America's most expensive real estate, The Everglades has a compact 18-hole routing, sitting on just 90 acres. It is one of America's most exclusive clubs as well. Raynor oversaw the first nine holes here in 1919 and 1920, but the second nine was not completed until 1930, four years after his death.
Old Tom Morris (d. 1908)
Morris was arguably golf's first Renaissance man. The do-it-all greenkeeper, teacher, club-builder and decorated competitor also laid out dozens of golf courses in his native Scotland and beyond, with his last design coming relatively close to home at Kirkcaldy Golf Club, which opened in 1904 about 25 miles southwest of St. Andrews. Reports from local newspapers report that Kirkcaldy is fighting for survival as costs rise and membership dwindles.
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