OTL / ON YOUR GAME
Tom Fazio
America’s great living architect STORY BY ART STRICKLIN
One of the more popular bumper stickers in these parts reads, ‘I wasn’t born in Texas, but I got here as soon as I could.’ Tom Fazio, 76, certainly wasn’t born here, growing up in the Philadelphia suburbs and going to work for his uncle, 10-PGA Tour winner George, in the 1960s in the family golf architecture business. He does not live in Texas (North Carolina in the summer and fall, Florida in the winter and spring), but has been here enough times to design highly rated courses, he could almost be considered an honorary Texan. Fazio first arrived in Texas in the mid1980s to build the first Barton Creek Golf Course in West Austin for Texas political legends John Connally and Ben Barnes. That’s where he first met Brent Buckman, then a recent graduate from the University of Texas, now the Director of Golf at the new Driftwood Golf Course, just south of Austin, and first became aware of the possibility of Texas golf.
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THE ‘O’ ISSUE 2021
The original Barton Creek Course along with Wayne and Norman’s Hurd Horseshoe Bay project jump-started the Hill Country golf boom which is still ongoing. Not only did Fazio do two courses at Barton Creek, but he also did the outstanding Escondido course at Horseshoe Bay and has recently been working on Driftwood in the small town of the same name which will open this fall. No non-Texas architect has done more original Lone Star courses than Fazio and very few architects of any kind have done as many courses in as many different Texas locations.
