“I haven’t worked a day in my life,” Dana Fry tells me with unabashed enthusiasm.
Who is Dana Fry you ask? A quick google search conjures entries that read like the curriculum vitae of a very accomplished man. We meet for lunch on the clubhouse patio at Naples National Golf Club on a picture-perfect day. After talking for two and a half hours, I conclude that the first entry that answers my query proves to be a fitting description of the affable gentleman: “Fry is one of the most creative and successful golf course architects in the world.”
Born and raised in Kansas City, Missouri, Fry participated in the usual childhood sports, but freely admits: “I was the biggest nerd.” A dominant golf figure in the 1970s and early ’80s was Tom Watson, also from Kansas City, a sports hero Fry grew up idolizing. Fry played high school golf and earned a partial golf scholarship; he attended the University of Arizona (UA) for three years, from 1980 to 1983, studying business. He played on the university’s golf team and considered himself a mediocre player: “I knew I wasn’t good enough to play on tour,” he admits. However, while on UA’s men’s golf team, Fry shot an impressive 64 at Randolph Park Golf Course in Tucson. It was a course record. Press and publicity followed.
In August 1983, Andy Banfield, a lead designer for Tom Fazio, recognized Fry from a newspaper photo one night in a Tucson bar. The two engaged in conversation. (Fry admits he did not know who Tom Fazio was.) After introductions and discussions, Fry, who was about to start his senior year of college, decided to take a semester off and accepted a job.
In the following months, Fry spent days flagging cacti for transplanting and assisting Banfield in the construction of the Ventana Canyon Golf & Racquet Club in Tucson. Fry remembers the grunt work: “I was taught all facets of the business—I even painted bunkers.” Eventually, Fry came clean with his parents about his decision to quit school and pursue a career in golf course design. They were “very upset,” he recalls. “I never graduated from college, but boy did I get a great education.”
Fry seemed to be in the right place to meet the right people at the right time to gain experience in the world of golf course architecture.
His second job with Fazio was in South Carolina at Callawassie Island off Hilton Head, where Fry had the fortune of living next door to and working alongside Mike Strantz, the late golf course architect who worked with Tom Fazio from 1979 to 1987. Strantz was part of Fazio’s construction crew on Moss Creek in Hilton Head. From Strantz, Fry learned to drive a bulldozer, create shapes, and earthscape. “I learned to see what Mike saw,” Fry explains. “From Andy, I learned how to think big.”
During his five-year tenure with Fazio, Fry participated in designing courses such as Wade Hampton Golf Club in Cashiers, North Carolina; Barton Creek Country Club in Austin, Texas; and Lake Nona Golf and Country Club in Orlando, Florida. No longer content to move dirt and flag trees though, Fry decided he wanted to be the guy in charge. He began searching for new opportunities.
In 1988, while attending a national golf course superintendents show in Houston, Texas, Fry was chatting with late golf course designers Pete and Alice Dye about the possibility of a Fry and Dye alliance. Through a chance meeting on an escalator, the Dyes introduced Fry to Mike Hurdzan, a partner in the firm of Kidwell & Hurdzan, who had designed more than 100 courses across the Midwest.
When the Dyes exited, Hurdzan and Fry continued talking. Eventually Hurdzan asked Fry to put career decisions on hold and meet with Chris Haney and Scott Abbott, founders of the Trivial Pursuit board game, who were scouting designers to help create a golf course near Toronto, Canada.
Cost was not an issue for the newly minted Canadian trivia millionaires—music to the ears of any golf course designer intent on building his résumé. Fry decided to join Hurdzan’s firm and lead the charge on the Devil’s Pulpit project. When the owners wanted to build a second course—The Devil’s Paintbrush—Fry moved his young family to Canada, from Columbus, Ohio, for the duration of the project. Today, both courses are ranked among Canadian Golf Magazine’s top 100.
Fry first visited Naples in 1992 when Hurdzan’s Columbus-based firm was selected as the course architects of the private, member-owned Naples National Golf Club. The founder was attempting to get the course ready for the LPGA’s World Championship of Women’s Golf in October 1993. Frye recalls the stressful time: “To build a golf course, after permits are granted, you need up to 18 months—then you need at least three months for the vegetation to grow in.” Amazingly, the project was completed on time, and today, the private golf club in East Naples is touted as a challenging course designed for the serious golfer. Golf Digest designated it as runner-up for Best New Golf Course in 1993.
In 1997, Michael Hurdzan and Dana Fry entered an official partnership, calling their newly formed company Hurdzan/Fry Environmental Golf Design. Hurdzan, who holds three master’s degrees and a PhD in environmental plant physiology, became the technical expert. Fry contributed his ambition, growing business acumen, and imagination.
By 2000, Fry was spending most of his time in Naples. The Hurdzan/Fry team secured a contract to design The Old Collier Golf Club course but was replaced by Tom Fazio, Fry says, “because the owners thought they needed a bigger name.”
The Hurdzan/Fry team began adding prestigious assignments to its résumé and was steadily expanding its portfolio when it signed on to design Calusa Pines Golf Club course, an ultra-exclusive golf facility planned in North Naples. The Calusa Pines site had no natural topography; it was an opportunity for Hurdzan/Fry to exploit creativity on a project encompassing 300 acres.
In 1997, the firm completed the Sand Barrens Golf Club course in New Jersey, a course on Cape May that was largely built on flat ground. It was at Sand Barrens that the designers proved what they could do with flat land. And it was at the equally flat Calusa Pines site that Fry pushed for bigger and higher; a massive ridge was built on 15 acres of the property, meaning a small portion of the course lies at one of the highest land points in South Florida at around 50 feet above sea level. The course officially opened in November 2001 and dazzled golfers with its scale, complexity, and beauty. The course consistently ranks as one of the top 100 golf courses in America by Golf Digest.
Together, the partners dedicated their expertise to numerous other projects, most located in North America, with a couple of jobs completed early in the new millennium in southern Italy.
Jason Straka, a Cornell University graduate with a degree in landscape architecture and a master’s degree in agronomy, was an integral member of the team since 1995. He helped the company build landmark courses like Calusa Pines, Erin Hills in Wisconsin—site of the 2017 U.S. Open—and Shelter Harbor in Rhode Island.
“Getting work is the hardest part of our job,” Fry explains. Eager to continue making his mark, he focused on the global market. In 2006, contacts at Golf Magazine invited Fry to speak in Beijing, China. Two years later, Fry was living in Hong Kong, designing courses in Mainland China, and “having the best time of my life—I love adventure,” he says.
In 2012, the Hurdzan/Fry partnership ended. “The Hurdzans had become like family, and the breakup, although in hindsight was the right thing to do,” was, according to Fry, “the biggest struggle in my career.” That same year, after working together for 20 years, Fry and Straka combined their talents to form Fry/Straka Global Golf Course Design.
When I speak with Hurdzan about his former partner, he tells me “Dana is a rare and unique person.” He shares that Fry is more committed to golf than anyone he’s met in 75 years around the game. “Only his family and health are more highly valued,” Hurdzan says. “For Fry, every new golf course design is more of a masterpiece than the one he previously completed. Every project explores new territory, and Fry gives each one so much personal attention that is always spectacular, fresh, and often trend-setting.”
Straka lives in Dublin, Ohio, and has now worked with Fry for almost 30 years. “He is much more than a business partner to me,” Straka says. “He is part of my family, and I am part of his.”
“Dana is perhaps the most loyal and devoted person I know,” Straka continues. “This not only includes his family and friends but our business associates and clients too—with the vast majority becoming life-long friends. Much of that stems from Dana’s love of his craft, his love for golf and how it brings people together, and his passion for travel and meeting new people and exploring new cultures. Saying that Dana is passionate about what he does and how he does it would be a vast understatement.”
Fry moved back to the United States in 2013 and settled in Boca Raton, but he often visited Southwest Florida. One trip was particularly memorable when friends acted as matchmakers and introduced him to Trisha Kent, who became his second wife. He is the father of three children, grandfather to five, and stepfather to two.
Now, Fry estimates that 75 percent of new course construction is outside of the United States. There aren’t many countries in the world Fry hasn’t been. “So far, I’ve traveled to 122,” he remarks. “The job involves crazy amounts of travel,” he says, but Fry reminds me he loves the international business aspect of his job.
The firm boasts projects in Vietnam, Brazil, Mexico, and Dubai. It is, however, still in demand on U.S. soil: In 2018, it broke ground on its biggest project so far in the United States, the Union League National Golf Club located in southern New Jersey. In June of 2022, the Boca West Country Club in Boca Raton hired the Fry/Straka firm to redevelop four courses over the next six years.
And spoiler alert: There are rumors of a grandiose golf course coming soon to Southwest Florida—promising to be Fry’s biggest and best project yet. A developer who owns more than 1,000 acres of land on a property known as Big Cypress Ranch on the border of Collier and Hendry counties has a vision. Along with Fry’s passion, the proposed private golf club will push the Fry and Straka team to new heights. If so, Fry may finally find the time to play a few rounds on the many golf courses he has added his signature to.
Master Plans
Golf course designers plan and design every part of a golf course. Most start with nothing more than a love of the game. But, we asked three golf course designers to answer this question: Do you need to play golf to be a golf course designer?
Hurdzan grew up around golf. His father was a club teaching pro; still today he plays. So does his 99-year-old mother.
It is a myth that it makes you a better designer or that it gives you more insight. Someone might eat well and often, but that doesn’t make them a better cook, nor does driving a lot make one a better mechanic. Knowing and playing the game is important, but you also need to know about the mechanics of green construction, drainage, earthmoving, golf course safety, grasses, sand and soils, bunker liners, drawing plans, writing specifications, and even contractual law.
Straka has played golf since age 5. Most of his family and friends are avid golfers, and the game connects them.
I only know of one famous golf course architect who was not an avid golfer. He played casually, but not often. I believe that you do need to play golf to be a golf course designer. You rely not only upon your own experiences playing golf, but you watch everyone else who plays with you. You need to experience a course, its ebbs and flows, nuances, and so much more. Designing a golf course is far more than an engineering task.
I do believe you need to understand the game of golf and play it to be a golf course designer. Understanding golf’s history is one thing, but if you don’t play the game at all, how can you understand shot values, strategy to help make a great hole, creating the correct balance of holes going in all directions, and what a good flow of holes is?
To be a golf course architect you must also understand turfgrass issues, drainage, how to move dirt, hide cart paths from view while playing the hole, the permitting process, how to draft plans and documents, engineering issues, how to deal with complex sites, complex clients, egos, crazy amounts of travel, and so much more.
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