The Green Story
Andrew Green is President and Principal Architect of A.H. Green Design and is widely recognized for his restoration and renovation work at some of America’s most historic golf clubs.
After 14 years working for McDonald & Sons Golf Course Builders, he gained national attention with his award-winning restoration of Inverness Club, named Golfweek’s Restoration of the Year in 2018.
That success led to transformative projects at Congressional Country Club (Blue Course), Oak Hill Country Club (East Course), Scioto Country Club, Wannamoisett Country Club, Interlachen Country Club, and most recently East Lake Golf Club ahead of the 2024 TOUR Championship. In addition to his restoration work, Green is currently shaping original designs, including Firefly Golf Club in Nashville. Kawonu Golf Club represents one of his most significant ground-up projects to date — an opportunity to craft a course entirely around the movement, scale, and natural character of the land.
The Green Journey
I was born in the mountains of southwest Virginia, where the land itself leaves a lasting impression on how you see the world. The rolling hills and quiet valleys were my first classroom. That is where I first learned the game of golf, often simply observing how the ball moved across the ground and how the natural landscape influenced play.
Those early experiences shaped a belief that the best golf courses grow naturally from the land. The architect’s role is not to overpower the terrain, but to understand it and bring out its best qualities.
My time at Virginia Tech helped give structure to those instincts. Studying turfgrass management alongside landscape architecture provided both the scientific and design foundations for my work. Agronomy, soils, drainage, and plant systems are just as important to a golf course as strategy and aesthetics.
Golf courses are living landscapes that must function well every day. That education reinforced the importance of designing courses that are both visually compelling and practical to maintain.
Before starting my own firm, I spent years working as a greenskeeper and later as a golf course builder. Those experiences offered a deeper understanding of the game and the land. Maintaining turf each morning teaches attention to detail, while building greens, bunkers, and infrastructure reveals how every design decision affects playability and maintenance. Learning the craft from the ground up created a lasting respect for the people who build and care for golf courses, and that perspective continues to guide my work today.
When I founded my firm, the goal was to bring those experiences together into a clear design approach. Golf architecture, to me, should be expressive but grounded in the land and its history. Each project becomes part of an ongoing evolution, where lessons from previous courses inform the next. The influence of the great architects who shaped the game remains an important guide, but each property ultimately tells its own story.
Looking ahead, the future of golf architecture lies in exploring new ways for the game and the landscape to work together. As environmental awareness and course management continue to evolve, there are new opportunities to shape courses that feel natural, strategic, and enduring.
When the land, the strategy, and the experience of the player all come together, the result is a golf course that feels unique to its setting and memorable for generations.
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You wake up in the morning — what’s the driving passion?
The energy of every sunrise offers a new day with new challenges, new opportunities, and the chance to build something no one has ever seen before. I want to push the limits and find great golf in the dirt.
I want to build something that is my favorite thing I have ever created. The day I don’t wake up feeling this way, will be the day I hang it up.
Was there a specific turning point for you in going from one side of the business to now being in the architectural lane?
There were often times I was incredibly frustrated that I had not had the breaks to design this project, or that one. With 25 years in the rearview mirror, I now see the value in all the stress of learning and finding my way.
The journey I have had I would not change for one minute, the struggles to find success and job offers, has now turned into the most wonderful appreciation for each project and an absolute love of my craft. It would not be that way if the path had been easy.
What fascinated you with Kawonu prior to coming on board as architect?
At Kawonu, the land does the talking…it is one of a kind! The routing moves naturally across broad ridges, quiet valleys, and long views that reveal the scale and character of the property.
Each hole draws its identity from the ground it occupies, whether climbing gently to a crest, turning along the edge of water, or settling into a natural hollow.
The power of Kawonu lies in this relationship between golf and terrain. The contours shape strategy, guide the movement of the ball, and frame moments of discovery throughout the round.
Rather than forcing ideas onto the landscape, the course allows the strength of the land to lead, creating golf that feels inevitable, connected, and lasting.
What specific aspects of Kawonu’s design do you see being compelling for golfers of varying handicap levels?
At Kawonu, the power of the land creates meaningful angles of play that shape how each hole is approached. The natural movement of the ground rewards players who find the proper side of the fairway, opening clear paths to certain hole locations while leaving more demanding approaches from others.
As hole locations shift, so do the preferred angles, allowing the course to present a constantly changing test. Strong players are rewarded for thoughtful placement and strategy, while wider corridors still provide playable routes for others.
The land itself creates this balance, allowing Kawonu to challenge and be forgiving at the same time, without ever feeling forced.
Kawonu is planned as a private club. Given that designation what type of architectural emphasis permits you to do certain things when opposed to a daily-fee public course or one connected to a resort?
A private club allows the architecture to lean more heavily into strategy and nuance because the course is played repeatedly by a membership that grows to understand it over time.
Rather than needing every hole to reveal itself immediately to a first time visitor, the design can emphasize angles of play, varied hole locations, and strategic positioning that reward thoughtful placement.
Local knowledge becomes part of the experience. Members begin to understand how certain slopes influence the ball, which side of the fairway opens the best approach, and how different hole locations change the challenge from day to day.
This allows the course to reveal itself gradually, offering deeper strategy and interest the more it is played.
It’s been said there are those in the architectural lane who are talented in updating a course but may not be able to do on an original property. Thoughts?
Creativity is the key to golf architecture, and the idea that someone could understand how to improve great courses but not create one from original ground overlooks how closely those skills are connected.
The process of restoring and updating the world’s best golf courses is one of the greatest educations an architect can have. Studying the work of the masters, understanding why their holes function so well, and carefully bringing those ideas back to life only reinforces the core principles of great golf.
Working on historic courses forces you to look closely at landforms, strategy, and scale. You learn why certain angles matter, how greens relate to fairways, and how subtle contours shape the movement of the ball.
Those lessons sharpen your instincts and deepen your understanding of the game. Rather than limiting creativity, that experience strengthens it.
When it comes time to work on original ground, that knowledge becomes a foundation. New courses are not created in isolation; they are built upon decades of studying what has worked best in golf architecture.
In my case, new work reflects more than two and a half decades spent learning from the greatest courses in the world and applying those lessons to fresh land in thoughtful and original ways.
Are there any present architects whose work you respect immensely? What makes their finished efforts so impactful on what you contemplate with your design projects?
I’ve always had a deep appreciation for the architects who came before us, particularly those from golf’s Golden Age. Their work continues to shape how we think about design, scale, and the relationship between architecture and the land.
Donald Ross is someone I’ve studied closely. His ability to route a course across the land in a way that feels natural, walkable, and strategically engaging is remarkable.
William Flynn is another architect I admire, partly because he came to the profession through course maintenance—a path somewhat similar to my own. The articles he wrote in the late 1920s remain some of the most insightful writing on golf architecture and do a wonderful job of distilling the fundamentals of the game.
George Thomas also had a tremendous influence. His book Golf Architecture in America and the principles he outlined for courses like Bel-Air still offer valuable guidance for architects today.
If you could change one thing in golf unilaterally – what would it be and why?
It would be how we think about bunkers.
Bunkers are hazards and should play that way. Not to overly punish a player, but to introduce variety and challenge. In the US, we tend to put a tremendous amount of effort into maintaining perfectly consistent bunker conditions, and in doing so we lose some of what makes them interesting.
The real challenge should be judging how the ball sits, understanding how the sand is playing in that particular spot, and then executing the shot the situation calls for.
What’s the most important attribute any golf course architect needs to have?
A balance of commitment, restraint, and boldness.
The real skill lies in understanding when each is required and how much of it the land and the design call for.
Best advice you ever received – what was it and who was it from?
I’m not sure I can point to a single person who taught me this—it may simply be something life has reinforced over time.
“The destination isn’t what’s important — it’s the journey. Respecting this will get you far in life in so many ways.”
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