This roster comes from a study unearthed by Jonathan R. Laing, and it rates the architects not by their popularity among golfers but by the economic value they add to the courses they design. The ranking, which comes to us from the Golf Research Group in Martinez, California, calculates the present value of the future stream of income that will be collected in the form of green fees and membership dues. Also, further below, there's a ranking of architects according to the present value of homes sold alongside their courses. Name designers may cost more, but their courses pull in higher membership and green fees. Look at the yawning gap between the net present value of courses designed by top architects and those designed by non-architects.
All figures are in millions.
For the study, the group surveyed the economic performance of every new US course opened between 1990 and June of last year. They tallied membership fees and green fees, and where a residential community was associated with the new course, they surveyed real-estate sales. From these data, the study determined the average net present value of their various projects. Next were Robert Trent Jones II, Palmer and Rees Jones. The Value Of Real Estate Nicklaus heads the leaderboard when it comes to homes along the fairway.