Brian Schneider

Hometown: Oshkosh, Wisconsin

Education: B.A. in Biochemistry and B.A. in Molecular Biology, The University of Wisconsin

Previous Experience:

• Worked on maintenance crews at places like Pine Valley, Augusta National, Shinnecock Hills, Merion, Riviera and The Old Course at St. Andrews, 1997-2000.
• Shaper with Goalby Golf Design, 2001.

About
Our youngest associate, Brian Schneider is also the most travelled of the group. Starting long before joining the company and continuing to this day, he never misses a chance to visit an interesting golf course in search of unique features. As a result, he is always quick with a design idea. No surprise he has had a hand in some of our boldest work to date.

How did you come to work with Tom?

“After graduating from college with a pair of science degrees, I did the obvious thing and decided I wanted to design and build golf courses for a living. I had bought and read Tom’s books, The Anatomy of a Golf Course and The Confidential Guide, and connected with what he’d written, so I wrote him a letter asking for a job. Apparently, my total lack of qualifications or experience wasn’t enough to earn a position with RGD, so he recommended that I educate myself by studying great courses and sorting out what made them great. For the next five years, that’s what I did.

Throughout that time, I frequently pestered Tom with phone calls and letters, asking if he was ready to hire me yet. I finally got my chance in the summer of 2002. I was living in Philadelphia at the same time work started on the second course at Stonewall Golf Club in eastern PA. It was my shot to jump on a bulldozer and put my years of study into action. I became a full-time RGD associate that fall.”

What has been your favorite learning experience in golf?

“Rather than just travel around looking at golf courses, I decided to travel and work as a green-keeper, to study design from a maintenance perspective. Many a thoughtful and generous superintendent took me in and I secured a string of positions at some of America’s finest clubs, like Merion, Pine Valley, Shinnecock Hills and others, absorbing the nuances of the famous places I worked. I made my way around the country this way, working at one club while visiting other local courses of interest.”

See Brians Work.

Education: 

• BS in Architecture from The University of Virginia, ‘94
• Graduate w/honors, 2-year Turfgrass Management Program at Michigan State University, ‘98

Previous Experience:

• 1994–95: Greenkeeper, Glenmore CC (Keswick, VA)
• 1995–96: Greenkeeper, Oakland Hills CC (Bloomfield Hills, MI)
  • Worked on 1996 U.S. Open prep
  • Accepted into Michigan State turf program
    
• MSU Internship: Construction work at Beechtree (MD) with Renaissance Golf Design
• Worked on multiple RGD projects
• Construction experience with Chip MacDonald & Sons:
  • Atlantic City CC (NJ)
  • Lighthouse Sound (MD)
• Shaping work at The Kingsley Club (MI)
• 1999: Named full-time design associate during Pacific Dunes construction

About

The first RGD intern to hang on long enough to become an associate, Brian Slawnik’s career in golf began as a curiosity but developed, under the light of opportunity, into a dedication to golf design as an art form. Brian puts a premium on craftsmanship at all stages of a project, always seeking an elegant and seamless result.

What is the most enjoyable part about your job?

“Connecting with new land and a different community with every project. Our work is so site-specific and we spend so much time on our sites that I often become emotionally vested in the area in which we live during a gig. I’ll bring my family along whenever I get the chance, too. My son took his first dip in the ocean in Australia and turned three with a Scottish accent. Over the years, we have been fortunate to collect many homes away from home. “

What is the most underrated part of design?

“The character actors. Greens and bunkers get all the attention and rightly so since they are the stars of the movie. But they don’t shine as brightly if the rest of the work is indifferent. Tees, fairway contours, rough tie-ins and the general no- man’s-land areas are just as important to the overall success of a design, intuitively affecting the players’ experience. The best of this type of work is unnoticeable… because it just fits.

Our work tends to have a ‘found’ look, as though we just planted grass and nothing more. In fact, when we do our best work, it doesn’t look like we worked very hard at all. I get great satisfaction from the anonymous work that covers the tracks.”

Work with Renaissance Golf Design Inc.

See Brian’s Work.

Hometown: Lakewood, Colorado

Education: B.A. in Environmental Design / Landscape Architecture,
University of Colorado – Boulder (Eisenhower-Evans caddie scholarship)

Previous Experience: Dye Designs, Inc., 1991-96

About
Don Placek joined the company in 1997 to run the day-to-day operations in the office but soon was making valuable contributions in the field as a lead associate. The most talented graphic artist in the group, Don is still primarily responsible for drawing the plans for our new designs while keeping track of Tom and the rest of the company. He is the first contact most clients have with us and as a result is involved in the planning phases on many of our projects.

What has been your favorite learning experience in golf?

“My time as a caddie really shaped how I view the game because I learned how varied people’s personalities and golf swings can be. The best caddies learn to navigate players around the golf course in a manner that best suits each player’s abilities. The best golf designers do the same. Dr. Alistair Mackenzie wrote of creating opportunities for “pleasurable excitement” during a round. These moments – striking a confidant drive over a bunker, watching a running shot scurry toward the hole or making a long, breaking putt – leave a positive mark on a golfer and keep him coming back for more.

“I have always felt that successful caddies and golf architects, at the core, should have a fundamental element in common, that their highest priority is making golf FUN!”

What is an aspect of design most people don’t consider?

“How much the cost of building new courses has affected the accessibility of the game. Regardless of whether a course is public, private or somewhere in between, unnecessary earth-moving and the cost of repairing the disturbance significantly increases the construction budget. Ultimately this debt is serviced by golfers – members, vacationers or daily fee players . When designers spend more time in the beginning, configuring the holes so they adhere naturally to a property, more resources remain for artistic elements while huge savings are realized on line items like drainage, irrigation, and landscaping. Unnecessary earthwork, drainage and irrigation costs golfers more in green fees, dues and assessments over the lifetime of their playing days than they will ever know.”

See Don’s Work.

Hometown: Denver, Colorado

Education: 

Previous Experience:

• Shaper/Design Associate for Dye Designs, Inc. in USA and Japan, 1985- 94;
• Principal, Iverson Placek Golf Design, 1995-98;
• In-house designer for Golf Services Group, 1999-2001.
• Designer of Staley Farms GC, Kansas City, MO

About

One would be hard pressed to find anyone with more construction experience than Eric Iverson… he got his first taste of the business as a teenager. From irrigation installation to shaping all over Japan for Dye Designs and ultimately designing a course, Staley Farms in Kansas City, on his own, Eric has done it all. He joined us in 2001 and has since taken the lead on some of the most technically challenging projects we have faced, making them look easy.

If RGD had a mission statement, what would it be?

“Every course we build should raise the ‘golf I.Q.’ of the people who play there, helping them appreciate the game at a new level. That is a goal we can apply to any project… anywhere.”

What is the most underrated part of golf design?

“Most golfers, even those keenly interested in architecture, don’t fully understand the ‘mental labor’ we put into the final product. From Tom’s first thoughts on a new site down to the intern grinding on the final edge of a bunker, the constant scrutiny we apply to our designs and each other sets our work apart. Right up until the seed hits the ground we never stop searching for something to add, or sometimes subtract, to make our work unique. We also try to get everyone involved in some way, sharing ideas and opinions that would otherwise go unheard if left to conventional means of construction. I enjoy and learn from the on-site debate and make every effort to help those less experienced realize their ideas in the ground. Sometimes these ideas work, other times not, but it is the process that matters.”

See Eric’s Work.