Mark Hollinger, ASGCA, dies at 70

Golf course architect Mark Hollinger, who worked for more than a decade in landscape management before designing his first golf course, and whose work can be found around the globe, including notable tracks in China, died Dec. 24, 2024, near his home in Winter Garden, Florida. He was 70.

A Pennsylvania native raised in Warner Robins, Georgia, Hollinger earned a bachelor’s in landscape architecture from the University of Georgia and practiced landscape architecture, resort development and planning for 13 years on Hilton Head Island, South Carolina. At Hilton Head, Hollinger developed an interest in golf architecture, and he went to work with Willard Byrd & Associates in 1986 before joining JMP Golf Design Group in 1990.

Hollinger would serve as a partner and principal at JMP, serving clients in the United States and internationally. With JMP, he focused on environmental responsibility and designs that respond to site conditions and existing landforms. The firm became known for creating extraordinarily beautiful courses that featured strategic design principles.

When his design at Juizhaigou Golf Club in Sichuan Province, China, opened in 2014, Hollinger said, “This site is the culmination of my career designing golf courses throughout China. We carefully constructed this project within very difficult terrain and under difficult circumstances, but did it in a way as to protect, embellish and emulate the rugged mountain theme of the golf course.”

Other noteworthy designs from Hollinger, a longtime member of the American Society of Golf Course Architects, include: Dongzhuang Beach Golf Club, Shanghai, China; Jian Lake Blue Bay Golf Club, Hainan Island, China; Wildhawk Golf Club, Sacramento, California; Iwate Numakunai Golf Club, Iwate, Japan; and Las Lomas Golf & Habitat, Guadalajara, Mexico.

ASGCA president Brian Costello, a former partner with Hollinger, said, “Mark retired from JMP in 2021, but his legacy will live on, in particular, with the significant number of highly regarded golf courses that he designed for the firm in China.”

The American Society of Landscape Architects, who named Hollinger a Fellow in 2014, said, “Mark’s golf courses are notable for high standards of land planning and the best landscape architecture principles of environmental stewardship.”

Hollinger became an ASGCA member in 1999 and served a term on the ASGCA Board of Governors. He is survived by his wife, Kimbo, and two daughters.