How Tripp Davis went from champion golfer to championship architect

A member of the 1989 Oklahoma Sooners national championship golf team, Tripp Davis, a member of the American Society of Golf Course Architects, has been around the game all his life. While growing up in Atlanta, he was a three-time American Junior Golf Association All-American. After graduating from OU with a degree in marketing and advertising, he returned a few years later to get his masters in landscape architecture.

Following a brief stint working for Charles Howard, Davis formed Tripp Davis and Associates. A lifelong student of golf course architecture, Davis combines his passion for architecture with his insights as a lifelong elite golfer. The company’s projects include The Tribute, The Colony, Texas; Coldwater Golf Links, Ames, Iowa; and the restoration of Engineers CC, Roslyn, N.Y. Currently, Davis is working on The Rose, a new build near Athens, Ga.

Golfdom: Tripp, thanks for taking some time for Golfdom.

Tripp Davis: You bet, I’m always interested in talking golf, and especially with the readers and people who pay attention to your stuff.

Golfdom: I want to talk about The Rose, but before we go there, I see you did a bunker renovation at FarmLinks at Pursell Farms in Sylacauga, Ala., recently. That’s a course that’s near and dear to a lot of our readers. Tell me about that project.

Davis: So, a company named Escalante, — they’re an ownership group out of Fort Worth — they came in and are part owners with the Pursell family of the golf course. I don’t know all the specifics of how it all works, but they were in need of a bunker renovation, and we went down and looked at it.

It’s an incredible property. With Dana Fry’s blessing, we told them that we were going to go in and try to make things a little more efficient in places. Remember, the golf course was somewhat of an experimental place. There’s a lot of different types of grasses. We got them on a program to move forward with less grasses, because it’s less of an experimental place now and more of a really cool resort to hang out at.

We also wanted to get the bunkers in a shape where they could be more manageable. There was a lot of sand out there. We tried to efficiently reduce some of that, get it to where the bunkering was more strategic, a little bit less visual. It was a project where they said, “Minimize the bunkering so it’s more efficient.” It would have been a shame to strip away some of what Dana and his guys had done, it was such a good job visually. It was largely an infrastructure project.

Golfdom: Any time you improve bunker maintenance, that’s a win. How do you accomplish that?

Davis: There’s a couple of things as it relates to bunkers and the cost of maintaining them. One is the type of system you put in relative to your climate, and the type of sand you’re using. Those are the two main things.

The way the game is trending, we’re getting a lot more players who are not as good out of bunkers — fairway bunkers or greenside bunkers. In a lot of our work, we are reducing the amount of bunkering for a couple reasons. One is maintenance, and then the other is just playing quality.

Golfdom: I would never ask you to endorse a bunker system, but I’m curious if there are any systems you’re particularly interested in or new systems that you’re looking forward to learning more about?

Davis: It goes back to the type of sand you’re using and the climate you’re in. And one thing I left out is the style of the bunker. We’ve done something interesting at The Rose, and we also did it at Wichita (Kan.) Country Club, in that we’re using Better Billy Bunker on the fairway bunkers, because that system tends to keep the sand firmer, and you’re not as worried about balls plugging in faces. And we’re using Zline on the greenside bunkers, because it’s going to hold the sand in the face better when we tend to have higher, steeper sand. We’re also looking for that sand to be capable of being maintained, not as firm, a little softer. And so, by doing two different types of bunker liners on one golf course, with fairways getting one type and greensides getting another, you’re easing the maintenance because it’s easier to keep them firm and flat on the fairway, and it’s easier to keep them a little softer around the greens.

Golfdom: You mentioned The Rose. You’re out in Athens, Ga., right now, a great college town. I know this is still in the construction phase, and you’re working with Bubba Watson, but what else can you tell me about The Rose?

Davis: The two founding guys were Nick Cassini and his brother Dimitri Cassini, and they are members at Atlanta Athletic Club. I had known Nick from back when I was playing amateur golf. He’s about 10 years younger than me. After I finished my playing career at Oklahoma and went to grad school and got my master’s degree in landscape architecture, I started trying to put food on the table. I started playing a little amateur golf again, and I played with Nick in the final round of the Porter Cup up at Niagara Falls Country Club. And we were, like, the second or third group from the last group. I think I got around in 70, maybe 71, and finished about 10th, and he shoots 63 or 64 and wins the tournament.

We kept in touch, and when we did Atlanta Athletic Club, right after it opened, he came to me and said he and Dimitri were looking at doing a project, and they wanted to do it in Athens.

They wanted to be a little bit out, something less than 20 minutes back to the football stadium. We looked at two sites — one was too hilly; the other one was too flat. Then a third one came into consideration. They sent me the topo maps, and it just looked like it had a nice roll to it. There are places that actually get kind of steep, but it’s such an interesting site.

So, they put together a group of founding members, Bubba Watson being one of them. Chris Kirk and Brendon Todd, who both play on the Tour, are also founding members. There’s a bunch of former Georgia players that have ended up getting involved. And it’s not affiliated with the University of Georgia, but I’m quite sure that if you go out there most any day, you’re going to see a Georgia bag.

It’ll be a fairly small private club. It’s all about golf, and it’s just an incredible site to work with. And we’re hopefully getting everything grassed here in the next two, three months, and opening on, I don’t know what the first home football game is. They may wait for a really good game, but it’ll be September of 2026 when it opens.

<p>The post How Tripp Davis went from champion golfer to championship architect first appeared on Golfdom.</p>