Keeping it 100 in Scotland

Jeff Stein, a golf course architect from Port Chester, New York, is the recipient of the first World 100 Club scholarship. Stein will travel next spring to study the great golf courses of Scotland, recreating the trip made during the late 1800s by Charles Blair Macdonald.  

World 100, a private international golfing society founded with the goal of playing each of the World's Top 100 courses, partnered with the American Society of Golf Course Architects to create and fund an annual fellowship for a golf course architect early in their career.

The World 100 Club developed the program to support the architecture profession by recreating McDonald's famous Scotland trip that have inspired the likes of Alister Mackenzie, Henry Colt, Pete Dye, ASGCA Fellow, and so many others.

Working with ASGCA staff, World 100 Club members developed the application, which was completed by a dozen qualified and passionate young professionals. The list was narrowed to three finalists. Stein, an ASGCA Tartan Program participant, was selected following a formal interview, in an announcement made by David Wecker of World 100.

The fellowship will provide Stein airfare, lodging for three weeks in and around St. Andrews, and a stipend for meals and local travel. Meetings with club historians, superintendents, the R&A, and golf architects working in Scotland will be arranged. Upon return, Stein will present a summary of what was learned. After a year of studying the Old Course, Mackenzie remarked that, “I thought I knew the course thoroughly. … I found my knowledge was of the slightest, and the subtleties which I discovered have always been a source of amazement to me.”