A COLWYN Bay golf course designer celebrated two significant milestones earlier this year.

International golf architect David Williams’ company celebrated its 30th anniversary recently, just a few shorts weeks prior to the man himself hitting his 70th birthday.

This resulted in a special gift given to Mr Williams from his son Thomas and daughter Ffion, which was a printed book of all 30 new courses designed by him throughout the United Kingdom and Europe.

The publication in the late 1980s of the R&A’s “The Way Forward” demanded the building of more than 800 new courses in the UK to meet interest in the game. David Williams Golf Design was at the forefront of the project, which also included the implementation of championship courses across the country.

The qualified chartered building architect, said: “My introduction to golf architecture was in the early 1980s when meeting Brian Huggett and Neil Coles at my home club of Conwy Golf Club, who, as Huggett Coles & Associates, had been appointed golf architects for a re-design project at the club caused by the building of the A55 North Wales Expressway.

“After I came up with essentially the same design solution to the loss of the two holes, I was appointed as their consultant golf architect.

“In this time we have built together ten excellent courses, including two at PGA Catalunya in Spain (also with Angel Gallardo), at Chateau de Preische in France, and including Chartham Park, Castle Royle and the Karsten Course at Gainsborough GC in this country.”

“At that time, with golf design work all over the UK and Europe, we employed not only golf architects, but also chartered architects, landscape architects, IT professionals and engineers, enabling us not only to design the actual courses, but also their clubhouses and importantly create the overall masterplan on which the complete development was based.”

Many projects fell foul of the 2008 financial crash, including two in Spain, co-designed with Angel Gallardo, one at Guadix near Granada, and the other at Excaray in the La Rioja region.

As well as the new courses constructed, DWGD have been involved for the whole of its 30-year history in providing advice and consultancy to more than 200 golf clubs throughout the UK.

This has also seen the firm expand to projects in north African countries such as Libya and Algeria.