GOLF:

The world of golf lost a true innovator when Golf Course Architect Theodore (Ted) G. Robinson died recently at 84 of pancreatic cancer.

Robinson’s fingerprints are on several Southern California golf courses, including Mesa Verde Country Club.

Ironically the developer for that club hired Robinson to do the land planning for the entire area, including the golf course. When Robinson created the drawing by hand and gave it to the developer they thanked him, paid him, and then hired Billy Bell to do the golf course.

“They hired him to do the routing and planning for the entire community, which was going to be essentially a golf community,” said son Ted Robinson Jr., who continued the family business and has an office in Laguna Beach. “When it came down to doing the golf course itself he didn’t have the experience and they hired someone else.”

Robinson’s land planning won awards and he was a little upset that the original developer didn’t want him to do the golf course.

But when the project was faltering, the new developer, Raymond Watt, was familiar with Robinson’s work and hired him back to spruce up the golf course.

“The people weren’t buying the houses,” Watt said. “It just didn’t have the image. We concluded we had to upgrade the club. I liked his philosophy on design and we worked together on several projects.”

Robinson, added a couple of lakes to Mesa Verde, including the ones that border the ninth and 18th hole. Water was a big part of his design philosophy and he was dubbed “King of Waterscapes.”

Robinson endorsed the use of water as a defining hazard for course designs. He believed waterscapes gave putting greens maximum character and provided players with an appealing challenge.

The biggest aspect of Robinson’s career, though was his belief that golf courses were made for the average golfer.

“He never lost sight of who he was building a golf course for,” Ted Jr. said. “One of his good friends was Dave Stockton and Dave said ‘Why don’t you design more courses for the scratch golfer or tour player?’ my dad said, ‘How much did you pay for your last round of golf?’ Stockton said, ‘I don’t pay for golf.’ ‘Exactly’ my dad said.”

Robinson was widely recognized for his 26 separate golf course architecture projects in the Palm Springs/Palm Desert area alone, including Sunrise, Monterey, Palm Valley, The Lakes, Indian Wells, Ironwood, Tahquitz Creek and Desert Springs.

“One of his strengths and one of the reasons he was so well regarded was golf up to that point was in this growth phase,” Ted Jr. said. “It started taking off with television and watching Arnold Palmer. Developers were interested in how to integrate golf with a community. There weren’t a lot of rules. His expertise was in land planning, urban planning and so he just started in on that.”

The touches Robinson added to a community and a golf course were revolutionary at the time and concepts that are widely used by today’s architects.

“Ultimately, he exploded onto the scene, he became a developer’s architect,” Ted Jr. said. “They loved him, he created their concepts. He did things like peek-a-boos into the golf course to create more value away from the golf course itself. It was something he pioneered and very different at the time. Golf courses were usually shoved off into the corner and you couldn’t see them. He brought it into the forefront. You drive into a big gated entrance to a community and the first thing you see is the golf course. That is my dad’s idea.”

Robinson also designed Tustin Ranch and Tijeras Creek golf courses and each have staples he used in his early design work.

He was definitely a pioneer in golf course architecture and fortunately his work will be enjoyed by generations of not only golfers, but future architects and designers.

JOHN REGER’S golf column appears Thursdays.