Designing Drives

And there is also Greg Norman Golf Course Design, which he established in 1987 in Sydney, Australia. Later, he opened a second office in Jupiter. Now, Norman has courses and projects on four continents. His courses have received acclaim from world-class players because they are home to big golf events. One is the TPC at Sugarloaf in Duluth, Ga., site of the PGA Tour's BellSouth Classic. There is the Grand Golf Club in Queensland, Australia, site of the 2001 Australian Open.

And there is Tiburón Golf Club in Naples, home to the PGA Tour-sanctioned Franklin Templeton Shootout. Tiburón is unique in Florida: The course has virtually no rough. Fairways are bordered by waste areas. Almost all of the tee boxes are elevated and the greens are crowned, meaning shots that hit on the edges tend to roll off. It is a stern test.

"Our design team puts a lot of time and effort into finding the most desirable natural features of a site and incorporates them into the routing," Norman says. "Streams, rock features, vegetation and undulating topography are a few natural elements that can provide a golf course with its own unique feel when incorporated into the playing experience."

Tiburón is 36 holes and part of a residential development and resort that includes the Ritz-Carlton.

Unlike the others, Fazio's entire career has been golf course design, and there are many who believe he is the best in the business.

Fazio won all three Golf Digest polls that named a Best Modern Day Golf Course Architect (1991, 1993 and 1995)the honor. In 1999, the magazine recognized two Fazio layouts as the number-one and number-two Best New Private Courses. Eight of his designs were named in Golf Digest's Top 100, and Golfweek included 20 of his courses in its list of America's Best Modern Courses. A brief list of some world-class Fazio designs: Black Diamond in Lecanto, Fla.; Shadow Creek in Las Vegas; Wade Hampton in Cashiers, N.C.; The Quarry at LaQuinta, Calif.; Victoria National Golf Club in Newburgh, Ind. Fazio has designed these courses in Southwest Florida: the Cypress Course at Bonita Bay and the Sabal Course at Bonita Bay in Bonita Springs; the Gateway Club in Fort Myers, Pelican's Nest in Bonita Springs, Windstar Country Club in Naples and his latest, called Mediterra, a 36-hole complex in Naples. "I would play those courses every day of my life," says Bob Burris, tournament director for Naples' ACE Group Classic. "You would never get tired of playing those courses. They are wonderfully manicured."

The accolades go on for Fazio, 58, a father of six whose home base is in Hendersville, N.C., and who commands up to $1 million per project.

All of this, of course, brings a good a good bit of pressure. Fazio jokes that he is often blamed for the price of golf courses going up, mainly because he is asked to design them in places that require much effort. And his clients have come to expect that each new design will be as significant as the others. That can be daunting.

"The directive doesn't come, 'We want you to design an expensive golf course,'" Fazio says. "It's, 'We want you to produce a golf course that's as good as anything in the world-on opening day."

"In the '60s, we went out and looked for the best piece of land," Fazio says. "When it was finished, the standard was that when it matures, it will be a good golf course. Today, that's not enough. Because of the rankings and the lists, people want to be compared to the best in the world. So you're basically creating an environment."

Bob Harig covers golf for the St. Petersburg Times and ESPN.com.