Meet the team at Ernie Els Design
“"The people we have at Ernie Els Design have been with me almost since the start of our firm's history. We're a proper team; everything we've achieved is a truly collaborative effort and I'm grateful to have them on board."”
Ernie Els
Greg Letsche is Partner & Senior Design Associate at Ernie Els Design. He has been a professional golf course architect for almost 40 years and first started working with Ernie in the early 2000s. Prior to that, Greg spent 16 years as Senior Design Associate with Jack Nicklaus, having began his career with the legendary architect Pete Dye in the mid-1980s.
On site or in the air (Greg has visited over 60 countries in his design career and still spends much of his time travelling internationally) golf course design is Greg’s passion and his profession. He has been instrumental in the design and renovation of over 30 courses, many of them award-winning. A large number have also hosted professional tour events. Today he oversees Ernie Els Design projects all around the world, working in the field with developers, construction teams, shapers, planners and environmentalists. It’s all part and parcel of the firm’s successful full-service design ethos.
Greg received his Bachelor of Science in Agronomy from The Ohio State University in 1980. He is an active member of the American Society of Golf Course Architects, the Golf Course Superintendent Association of America and has lectured at numerous PGA education seminars. He has also had the privilege of playing over 75 of the world’s top-100 golf courses. He now resides in Florida.
Thad has been a key member of the design team at Ernie Els Design since May 2006, when he implemented the award-winning Anahita Four Seasons golf course in Mauritius. Prior to joining Ernie Els Design, Thad worked with Nicklaus Design and Nugent Golf Associates.
As a graduate of the University of Georgia with a Bachelor of Landscape Architecture, Thad’s strategy on golf course design begins with enhancing the site context to realise the client’s vision. He brings more than three decades of experience to the golf course design industry and is a member of the American Society of Golf Course Architects (ASGCA). He is currently focused on the development of golf projects across Asia and has completed such landmark courses as the Els Clubs in Malaysia and the Els Performance Golf Academy par-3 course in Hanoi.
Ernie Els is golf’s true international ambassador, with a Hall of Fame playing career that includes four major championships (2002 & 2012 Open Championship, 1994 & 1997 US Open), two World Golf Championship events and a record seven World Matchplay titles. In his capacity as one of the game’s leading player architects, he has created award winning golf courses all over the world, too. Ernie has probably more experience of the countless different type golf courses found around the world than any other contemporary top player in the game. This worldly experience gives Ernie a broad vision of the various elements of golf course design and how they are best brought together to produce a golf course which is not only aesthetically pleasing, but also challenging and enjoyable for golfers of all standards. Ernie Els Design formulates unique relationships with the world’s finest developers in the creation of new golf courses and the renovation and modernisation of existing classics. These courses will be as much Ernie’s legacy as the numerous tournament wins in the record books. “The golf courses that we create will be here long after I’ve gone,” says Ernie. “That means something and it makes me feel very proud.”
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