Richard Humphreys

Architect Doug Carrick is designing a new golf course for Vinpearl’s latest development near Nha Trang in the southeast of Vietnam. “In December 2020, I was contacted by a business development consultant in Vietnam asking if I would be interested in bidding on some golf course design projects in Vietnam,” said Carrick. “After saying yes, I was invited to bid on four or five projects, and I was eventually awarded a project in July 2021 in the northeast part of Vietnam overlooking Ha Long...

The US Open will be played at Shinnecock Hills Golf Club on Long Island, New York, on 18-21 June 2026. It will be the sixth time the course has hosted the championship. James Foulis won the first, in 1896, just a year after the inaugural US Open at Newport CC in Rhode Island, and Brooks Koepka won the last, in 2018. Shinnecock Hills opened in 1891 with a 12-hole design by Willie Davis, before Willie Dunn Jr expanded it to 18 a few years later. In 1916, Charles Blair Macdonald and Seth...

Designers (pictured above, from left) Garrett Wasson, Vijit Nandrajog, and Pierfrancesco De Simone have formed NWD Golf, a new global golf course architecture firm. The trio have known each other since 2006, when they studied golf architecture at the University of Edinburgh, Scotland. “The collaboration started in 2025, when we bid on a 36-hole golf project in Vietnam, which we lost,” said De Simone. “However, given the size of the other international golf architecture firms, we were...

Carne Golf Links on the northwest coast of Ireland has reopened its front nine following renovation work by Ally McIntosh. The club is located on the Atlantic coast of County Mayo, with panoramic views across Blacksod Bay to the islands of Inis Gluaire and Inis Gé. Eddie Hackett designed the original 18-hole layout in the early 1990s before McIntosh added a new nine in 2013 which, together with Hackett’s back nine, forms the Wild Atlantic Dunes course. “As most will know, all 27 holes...

US President Donald Trump has announced, following a tour of the East Potomac Golf Links with interior secretary ​Doug Burgum and golf course architect Tom Fazio, that a renovation of the Washington DC golf facility will begin in September 2026. “It was determined that, on this fantastic site, with water and unparalleled views of DC’s monuments, we will build one of the greatest golf courses anywhere in the world which, importantly, will also be made available to the public,” Trump wrote...

MSC Cruises is to offer a new three-in-one Pan-Asian dining concept when it debuts in December 2026. The Pan-Asian restaurant will have relaxed a dining area, a bar and lounge serving Southeast Asian-inspired cocktails and a window where guests can access complimentary on-the-go food and drinks. There will be music playing and an open-plan kitchen so guests can see the chefs cooking their meals. The venue is being decorated with bold artwork, including a large dragon installation on the...

The first of two 18-hole golf courses in Sicily, Italy, that closed in 2020 is to reopen in spring 2027 as part of a relaunched facility called Costa Ragusa Golf. Located in Sicily’s historic south-east region, near the hilltop city of Ragusa, a Unesco World Heritage Site, the former Donnafugata Golf Resort & Spa originally opened in 2009. A short drive away was the Links course, a design by Franco Piras, who also helped Gary Player Design on the Parkland layout, which hosted the 2011...

Royal Birkdale, near Southport, England, is hosting the Open Championship on 16-19 July 2026. It will be the eleventh time the club has staged the event, with Peter Thomson winning the first, in 1954, and Jordan Spieth winning the last, in 2017. In 2021, Royal Birkdale asked Mackenzie & Ebert to advise on course changes in preparation for the championship, and work has been completed in two phases between 2023 and 2025. The brief provided from the club was: “to improve and develop the...

This time next week all eyes of the golfing world will be on Royal Birkdale in Southport, England, as it hosts the Open Championship for the eleventh time. Mackenzie & Ebert has advised on a host of changes in advance of this year’s event, including the addition of a completely new hole, substantial redesign work, and several smaller tweaks. Tom Mackenzie spoke with GCA about the work that he and colleague Mike Howard have overseen at Royal Birkdale. Here, we go through each hole and...

The July 2026 issue of Golf Course Architecture is out now. The cover of our new release features The Cliffs Kangaroo Island, photographed by Jacob Sjöman. Australia’s latest bucket-list layout was designed by Darius Oliver and built on a rugged landscape a short flight from Adelaide. We speak with the architect, plus developer Sam Atkins, about The Cliffs as it prepares to open in October 2026. “We needed to build it because you could just see where it was sitting on the ground,”...