Ault, Clark & Associates: Maryland's Golf Design Engine

Two principals, one long partnership

Brian T. Ault and Thomas E. Clark have been designing golf courses together since the early 1970s. Both run Ault, Clark & Associates as principals, both have served as president of the American Society of Golf Course Architects, and both are responsible for a firm portfolio that now exceeds 1,000 projects worldwide. On Stymie, 51 of their courses are open and playing across 10 states, from Arkansas resort communities to municipal layouts in New Jersey and Maryland.

Tom Clark grew up in Broomall, Pennsylvania, earned a landscape architecture degree from Penn State in 1971, and joined Edmund B. Ault, Ltd. the same year. In 1984 he became a full partner with Edmund and Brian Ault, and the firm was reorganized as Ault, Clark & Associates, Ltd. Edmund Ault died in 1989 at age 81 after a 200-course career, but by then the next generation had already taken charge of one of the most active firms on the Eastern Seaboard.

Public golf, done seriously

If there is a thread running through the Ault, Clark catalog, it is that they take public and municipal projects as seriously as private commissions. Their portfolio leans heavily toward daily-fee courses, county-run facilities, military golf, and resort communities. The kind of work where budgets are tight and the architecture has to defend itself on playability and durability rather than star power.

That orientation shows up in the data. Their Falls Road Golf Course in Bethesda is a 1962 municipal layout in one of the most expensive suburbs in America, still humming after six decades. Clustered Spires in Frederick is the city's municipal course. Cross Creek in Beltsville, opened in 2002, is another county-run Maryland facility. Hyatt Hills in Union County, New Jersey is a municipal complex built on a reclaimed landfill.

The firm's tougher tests

Don't mistake the public-golf focus for soft architecture. Heron Glen Golf Course in Ringoes, New Jersey is a Hunterdon County daily-fee that stretches to 7,065 yards with a 138 slope from the tips. Hayfields Country Club in Towson, Maryland, opened in 1998, reaches 7,041 yards with a 137 slope. These are real tests, designed to stand up to good players while staying within reach of the member or public golfer who shows up on a Saturday morning.

Resort and community work

The firm's resort and golf-community work has been just as steady. They designed the multi-course complex at Bella Vista Village in northwest Arkansas, four 36-hole layouts (Berksdale, Branchwood, Highlands, and Kingswood) inside one of the largest gated golf communities in the country, along with the Balboa Course at Hot Springs Village. In West Virginia they built the Lakeview Resort Mountainview Course in Morgantown. In Virginia, the firm has work at Country Club of Culpeper and International Country Club in Fairfax.

Why the firm has lasted

Ault, Clark has stayed busy for half a century in a profession that has buried more big-name firms than it has built. A few reasons. First, neither principal owns or operates courses, so they have no conflicting interest in keeping a client's costs under control. Second, the partnership has always handled every phase of a project, site evaluation, cost estimating, design, construction documents, and construction administration, which appeals to municipal clients who want one point of accountability. Third, the work travels. The firm has built or renovated courses in dozens of states and a string of international markets, and the bulk of new business arrives by referral.

The firm's catalog on Stymie spans Maryland, Virginia, West Virginia, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Tennessee, Georgia, Arkansas, Missouri, and Texas, with 18-hole, 27-hole, and 36-hole facilities all represented. The newest opened in 2003 and the oldest predates the firm itself, almost certainly a course Ault, Clark renovated rather than originally designed. View all courses by Ault, Clark & Associates on Stymie.