Holding sole responsibility

Bryce Alderton

Casey O’Callaghan prefers to keep things simple, very simple.

The 38-year-old golf course designer and Costa Mesa resident has

his own company that has one employee: Him.

O’Callaghan likes the control -- he moved his offices to Newport

Beach, a little closer to his home from the former location near John

Wayne Airport -- and challenges that come with shaping a course from

the land.

“There is an upside and a downside,” said O’Callaghan of holding

all the responsibilities for Casey O’Callaghan Golf Course Design,

Inc. “The upside is I [am aware] of everything that comes out of the

office. But when it’s busy, I have to work nights and weekends and

make a lot of sacrifices.”

The husband and father of children ages 2 and 4 has been busy this

year, with two courses already opened -- Arroyo Trabuco Golf Club in

Mission Viejo and the Ranch Golf Club in San Jose -- with a third,

Indian Canyons Golf Club in Palm Springs, scheduled to debut Dec. 1.

The three will add to a list that includes 30 courses O’Callaghan

has either designed from scratch or remodeled during his 14 years in

the business, the last 11 on his own. O’Callaghan, who also

supervises construction on-site, learned the trade working alongside

noted course architect Cal Olson, who has designed courses both

domestically and internationally.

O’Callaghan’s influence is slowly spreading from local courses to

sites in Vail, Colo., Costa Rica and Mexico.

O’Callaghan, a former three-sport athlete in volleyball, soccer

and football at Laguna Beach High (Class of 1984), has modified holes

at Mesa Verde, Big Canyon and Santa Ana country clubs, which usually

involve adding or removing bunkers or altering contours of greens,

and has either performed or planned improvements to practice ranges

at all three venues.

Plans call for Big Canyon’s range to be lengthened along with the

addition of a chipping green, O’Callaghan said.

O’Callaghan said he spends more time on new course construction

than on renovations, which regularly exposes him to varying parcels

of land.

“We try to work with the land and not force a design,” said

O’Callaghan, who became more interested in golf while attending UC

Berkeley, where he was also setter on the men’s volleyball club team

that won a national championship in 1989. “The style of a course in

Palm Springs will not have the same feel as a course in Oregon.”

O’Callaghan earned a degree in environmental design from Berkeley

in 1989 and decided to combine his increasing interest in golf with

business.

“Just being out [on the golf course] with the technical side of

creating detailed plans and making a course work ... I fell in love

with it,” said O’Callaghan, who has to analyze such intricacies as

the height of a bunker lip.

O’Callaghan, a 9 handicap, doesn’t belong to a course or club --

he said he gets more course-design ideas playing as many places as

possible.

“I can glean from the courses that are great and courses that

people don’t think are spectacular with a bunkering style or the way

to work out a drainage problem,” O’Callaghan said. “I learn from the

golf courses I’ve played. That’s how I try to sell [wife Keri] on the

idea of going back to Scotland.”

Traveling is a regular part of O’Callaghan’s job.

He arrived at Industry Hills Golf Club, where he is consulting on

both Eisenhower and Zaharias courses, in the City of Industry at 6

a.m. Tuesday and then traveled to Mission Viejo for an

early-afternoon meeting to discuss additions to the practice range at

Arroyo Trabuco.

This morning, O’Callaghan will be one of the first to play Indian

Canyons in Palm Springs.

A notepad, most likely, won’t be too far from his golf clubs.

“I always try to get out and play a new course, see what the

people are doing, study them,” O’Callaghan said.

He has to. He’s the only one.