Leader of the club: Tom Fazio creates great golf courses and great programs for children

Golf Digest, May, 2001 by Nick Seitz

The kids--in varied sizes, shapes and colors--have arrived from all over the county at the Boys & Girls Club in rustic Hendersonville, N.C., gathering around Tom and Susan Fazio for a team photo before plunging into activities that range from a Power Hour for homework and tutoring to programs in art, music and computers to basketball games and nature study. "Go wild!" they're told, which is like asking Dennis Miller to crack wise or NASCAR drivers to keep turning left.

The gym was built, like the other three buildings in the campus setting, through Fazio's efforts as club founder, chairman of the board, chief fund-raiser and emergency rescue philanthropist when more money is needed.

The tallest tree in the golf design forest, Fazio calls working on children's charities his "habit," but his involvement with young people across cultural divides comes with an occasional dark side. The week before, he accepted collect calls daily from a former club member in jail for dealing crack cocaine and unable to make bail. Fazio had bailed him out several times before, and was being advised by the police and even the young man's mother not to help him again. Fazio was emotionally torn by the prospect.

"He's a great kid who's had a tough time," the architect says earnestly. "My own kids are privileged. We need to help others who aren't as fortunate."

Fazio's humanitarian impulse sparked in the mid-1980s because he owed a friend a favor. The friend wanted to collect by taking him to a national Boys & Girls Club luncheon in New York City. Fazio declined, saying he'd send a check and lend his name to the cause. Replied the friend, "I'll take your money and I'll take your name--and I'll take you to lunch." Fazio was impressed enough by what he heard at the lunch to go back to a meeting the next day, agree to serve on a regional board, and eventually start a local club. "The movement's over a hundred years old and serves 3 million young people," he says. "Michael Jordan grew up with the club. Alex Rodriguez, whose father had left home, says it was the greatest influence in his life. If there are 12 million at-risk children in this country, I don't see why we can't turn that around and give them a positive focus. All of us, whatever we think we should be doing, should be doing more."

A dual goal

"My goal," says Fazio, "is to create great courses and get clients and friends to help support children's charities. I have a lot of wealthy friends."

Fazio, 56, is making heady progress. His 10 credits on this year's list of America's 100 Greatest Golf Courses are the most of any living architect. Highest ranked at No. 31 is Shadow Creek, Steve Wynn's lavish Las Vegas oasis where Fazio spent an estimated $37 million transforming a desolate desert locale.

He exerts further influence by working with and modernizing historic top-10 clubs Pine Valley, Winged Foot, Augusta National and Merion. "The true issue for all of us is to keep the classics alive," he says. "But keep in mind that they've all evolved and been changed over the years."

Golf's answer to Ralph Lauren has won 10 first prizes in this magazine's annual Best New Courses Awards, and is the only designer to sweep Best New top honors for Public, Private and Resort courses in one year. A poll to determine the leading architect was discontinued because Fazio dominated it so predictably.

Why is he so acclaimed and sought after?

James Simonini is a Golf Digest selection panelist who expresses the consensus. "Fazio seems to have that flair to wow you every time," Simonini says. "His courses are visually spectacular, fair to play and enjoyable for all levels of players. Interestingly, there are not a lot of Fazio tournament courses. He understands his main audience--the high-end club players--and knows how to exceed their expectations. His brand carries so much clout he doesn't have to accept a project unless he likes the client, the site and the budget."

Fazio strives to build enough flexibility into the design that the course setup can determine the degree of difficulty on any given day.

"I've always bought into that old belief in playability in a big way, giving the greatest pleasure to the greatest number," Fazio says. "That's why you won't find a lot of trouble to the right on my courses, where most people slice. Lefthanders hate me."

You would expect to find dissenting opinions about the leader in any field, and you find a few among panelists about Fazio, if only a few. Says one long-time observer from Florida: "I think he's spread too thin. He avoids controversy, and is so preoccupied with beauty he's become too bland in shotmaking values, which you could never say about Tillinghast, Ross and Mackenzie. His earlier stuff, like Lake Nona and the first course at Black Diamond Ranch, pushed the envelope much more than anything he did in the 1990s."

Says another veteran critic, "If Fazio and these other modern guys are so damned good, how come a retired banker goes out and does Southern Hills, and nothing remotely approaches it in that part of the world?" He alludes to Perry Maxwell's 1936 design of this year's U.S. Open venue in Oklahoma.