{"id":410680,"date":"2026-01-13T19:50:22","date_gmt":"2026-01-13T19:50:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/410680\/"},"modified":"2026-01-13T19:50:22","modified_gmt":"2026-01-13T19:50:22","slug":"golf-business-news-silva-johnson-form-new-course-design-partnership","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/410680\/","title":{"rendered":"Golf Business News – Silva & Johnson form new course design partnership"},"content":{"rendered":"

Veteran course architect Brian Silva has invited longtime colleague Brian Johnson to partner in a new design firm, Silva & Johnson Ltd<\/a>, whose roots, ethos and client list each reach back to the golden age of course design.<\/p>\n

\u201cMore than 40 years ago, Geoffrey Cornish \u2014 who got his start as an agronomist working for Stanley Thompson in the 1930s \u2014 extended to me the same sort of partnership opportunity,\u201d says 72-year-old Silva. \u201cI\u2019ve worked alongside Brian Johnson for 25 years now. He\u2019s as good a strategist as there is working today, but I might not have recommended this move 10 or 15 years ago. There wasn\u2019t enough work out there. But today there is. <\/p>\n

\u201cThis move means Brian, who brings so much to the table, can really spread his wings \u2014 and we can accept commissions that previously did not make sense, not for a lone ranger with grandkids. I\u2019m excited to pass the torch while there\u2019s still time to work together in earnest.\u201d<\/p>\n

Three high-profile renovations, what the new partners prefer to term \u2018transformations\u2019, will dominate the 2026 calendar. In December, Silva & Johnson broke ground at San Antonio Country Club, laid out 112 years ago by Alex Findlay. AW Tillinghast revamped the course during the 1930s, and Silva executed equally sweeping work there in 2005. He and the Houston-based Johnson return to complete the project this winter.<\/p>\n

The new partners are already underway on a similarly comprehensive refurbishment at 27-hole Old Westbury G&CC (William Mitchell\/Gil Hanse) on Long Island. In the spring, they will begin the transformation of Boca Raton Golf & Country Club (Donald Ross\/William Flynn) on the east coast of Florida.<\/p>\n

Johnson, 48, has been working with Silva since 2009, providing hole strategies, AutoCad plan production, grading and drainage development, turf specifications and the detailed hole renderings that enable the master plan process. As such, he worked closely with Silva in developing those masterplans soon to be realized at San Antonio and Old Westbury, along with dozens of others from the golden age that Silva has revitalized and transformed.<\/p>\n

\u201cBrian has been a such a generous mentor to me through the years,\u201d Johnson says. \u201cHe and his partners gave me my first job in the design business, but the last 15 years have been different. It\u2019s been a privilege and education to see how he has planned and executed the renovation work at places like Seth Raynor\u2019s Country Club of Charleston, the Ross courses at Interlachen and Brookside, in Canton, Ohio, and original designs like The Renaissance Club and Great Horse in Massachusetts. To be out front a bit more, as a lead designer and partner, is pretty much a dream come true.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"Silva Johnson Design\u2019s philosophy is writ large on the company\u2019s new website <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Veteran course architect Brian Silva has invited longtime colleague Brian Johnson to partner in a new design firm,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":410681,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[566],"tags":[64,63,755,85],"class_list":["post-410680","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-golf","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-golf","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/410680","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=410680"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/410680\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/410681"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=410680"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=410680"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=410680"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}