Philip Mackenzie Ross

Philip Mackenzie Ross (1890-1974) was a Scottish golf course architect who worked throughout Europe developing golf courses in France, Spain, and Portugal as well as the United Kingdom. 1971 Ross was elected the first president of the British Association of Golf Course Architects, such was the regard in which he was held at the end of his career.

Mackenzie Ross was fortunate enough to learn golf at Royal Musselburgh and after the First World War, he left the Army to pursue a career in golf, beginning, in 1920, as a construction supervisor and assistant to the eccentric golf course architect, Tom Simpson.

Simpson was then working alongside Herbert Fowler, but by the late 1920s they had split up and Mackenzie Ross effectively replaced Fowler as a full partner in the new firm Simpson and Mackenzie Ross. He remained with Simpson until the 1930s before setting up in business as an independent golf course architect in his own right.

Following the end of the Second World War, he carried out a great deal of remodeling and restoration work and gained wide recognition for his contribution to the design of the Ailsa Course at Turnberry in Ayr, Scotland. In 1949 Mackenzie completed Southerness, in southwest Scotland, which is probably his most respected work.

Image(s) courtesy of Top 100 Golf Courses.com