Course Architect Arthur Hills Passes Away

The designer of Colorado’s Legacy Ridge, Heritage Eagle Bend, Ironbridge and others was 91.

By Jon Rizzi

Arthur Hills, who designed more than 200 new golf courses around the world and renovated more than 150 others, died May 18, 2021, in Florida. He was 91.

A Toledo, Ohio, native, Hills attended Michigan State University, where he excelled on the men’s golf team, and received his master’s in landscape architecture from the University of Michigan.

He formed his Toledo-based golf-course architecture firm in the 1960s, with his first layout, at Brandywine Country Club in nearby Maumee, opening in 1967. The firm continues today as Hills•Forrest•Smith Golf Course Architects and remains in Ohio.

Known mainly for his work in the Midwest (including Michigan’s Bay Harbor Golf Club and a renovation of Oakland Hills before the 2004 Ryder Cup) and Florida (Pete Dye called him the “mayor of Naples” because of the area’s preponderance of public and private Hills courses), Hills also laid out courses in Russia, Thailand, Portugal, Sweden and Spain.

Three resort courses in the U.S. bear his actual name: the Arthur Hills at Boyne Highlands Resort course in Michigan, and Hilton Head’s Arthur Hills at Palmetto Hall Plantation and Arthur Hills Golf Course at Palmetto Dunes Oceanfront Resort.

Todd Creek Golf Club in Thornton (Photograph by Durrance/Drinker Photography)

He designed seven courses in Colorado—including a 2003 overhaul of William Tucker’s design at Green Gables Country Club that no longer exists. His Centennial State canon comprises Heritage Eagle Bend Golf Club (Aurora), Ironbridge Golf Club (Glenwood Springs), Legacy Ridge Golf Course (Westminster), Todd Creek Golf Club (Thornton), Walking Stick Golf Course (Pueblo) and Glacier Club’s Valley Course (Durango).

Hills’ work in Durango at Tamarron, now known as Glacier Club’s Valley Course, inspired mountain-golf design. (Courtesy Glacier Club)

Then known as Tamarron, the Durango layout opened in 1976 and represented the architect’s first Colorado effort and one of the state’s first true “mountain” layouts.

“As a kid drawing golf holes and dreaming about becoming a designer, I would read the magazines and marvel at the articles about new courses,” American Society of Golf Course Architects (ASGCA) President Forrest Richardson recalled. “One was Tamarron in Colorado, a new course by Art Hills set in a rugged valley with steep cliffs. Eventually I got to see it firsthand, and it inspired me with its bold greens and creative routing.”

Ironbridge Golf Club in Glenwood Springs (Drinker/Durrance Photography)

Richardson isn’t alone in his admiration. Steve Forrest, with whom Hills worked for 42 years, called him “a distinguished professional practitioner and humble gentleman” and “a father-like figure…who was a mentor, an instructor, exhorter and admonisher while always trying to improve his own skills and increase his personal knowledge every day.”

An environmental pioneer, Hills designed the first Audubon Signature Sanctuary courses in the United States, Mexico and Europe. Haymaker Golf Course in Steamboat Springs, which in 2000 became the first Colorado course to be certified as an Audubon Signature Sanctuary, was designed by former Hills associate Keith Foster.

Hills, who preceded Richardson and Forrest as president of the ASGCSA, also committed himself to nurturing budding talent.

“Mr. Hills was among a handful of golf architects who subscribed to a newsletter I published about golf design in the 1970s, and he also took time to comment and contribute,” Richardson said. “While he left an incredible legacy of work across the world, for me I will always recall the kindness he showed a young aspiring student—a gift we should all pay forward.”

Hills’ 2004 redesign of Denver’s Green Gables course didn’t prevent the club from closing seven years later.

For a list of Arthur Hills designs, click here.


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Colorado AvidGolfer Magazine is the state’s leading resource for golf and the lifestyle that surrounds it. CAG publishes eight issues annually and delivers daily content via coloradoavidgolfer.com.

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