When Bob and Greg Norman split ways in October 2009, Norman Design lost the architect responsible for their three best courses to date (National Moonah, Nirwana Bali, and Ellerston) and within seven months, Norman Design had shut down their Australasia office. That's a crushing blow for a design firm whose best work is located in that part of the world (which by the way, is the part of the world where new course construction is still occurring).
Good luck to Norman Design but Ben and I are much more interested in following the exploits of Bob Harrison going forward as he has a proven track record of delivering. In fact, he is one of less than ~ ten living architects who has proven himself capable of building several courses that rank in the world top two hundred. We hope that under his own name, he gets sites that will allow him to continue to do so.
As a seasoned campaigner, Bob has built big, bruising courses (The Glades) and crafty courses (The Grand) and worked on Golden Age courses (New South Wales GC). He has worked on severe sites in Japan and uninteresting ones in Queensland but always finds ways to bring forward interesting golf. Based on his resume, he isn't as well known as he should be as the bulk of his work is found in Australasia. Even then, a stunner like Ellerston that he built for the Australian legend Packer gets next to no visibility.
What should have been a big moment publicity-wise occurred when the Australian Open was held at The Grand in 2001 but the pros did a relatively poor job in handling some of the finesse and 1/2 par holes and whined and whined. They tried overpowering the course and didn't like it when some of the holes snarled back. It was great lesson in how a (relatively) modest length course could hold the pros at bay.
Like most really good architects, Bob isn't a really good golfer. In fact, he is one of the few people in the world that I don't harangue for strokes
I once saw him scatter the range at Royal Sydney from the eighteenth tee, an epic howling hook of great majesty and distance that made us all envious. Regardless of his play, he is one of the easiest people to spend time around with his Australian charm and wit always in full force (except when his rugby team loses). The point is that Bob has the sort of personality that works well with 99% of the owners out there, which is a crucial ingredient to successful projects these days.
Please refer to his first interview on this site (April 2000) and to his web site
www.harrisongolf.com.au for more information.
Cheers,