Golf has always elevated course architects to exalted status. From Mackenzie, Ross and Tillinghast to Fazio, Jones (Robert Jr. and Rees), Hanse and Coore-Crenshaw, golf’s version of rock stars make their name in the dirt and are lauded by writers and players worldwide.

Similarly, patrons of the game like Johnny Morris have ascended in the industry as they have translated their financial fortunes and love of golf to facilitate the creation of destinations like Big Cedar Lodge; they are the Medicis of golf’s new Golden Age. But I can only think of only a few who combine the skill and sensibility of a great designer with the vision and passion of a great patron. One who is well-known is Mike Keiser. Although lesser-known, Mark Parsinen was another.

I was introduced to Mark Parsinen by another good friend, Robert Trent Jones Jr. Bobby had worked with Mark at Granite Bay; he knew that Mark was in Washington, DC for a family event and thought that we should meet. I met Mark in the lobby of his hotel along with his wife Dede, his daughter Jenny and a bunch of their friends, including the actor Taye Diggs. Someone wanted to get a picture of the family and I moved over to the side to make way. As they were forming up, Mark called to me, “Hey Michael, come join the picture!”

I had known him for all of five minutes and he insisted that I be a part of a shared memory. That was our friendship. That was Mark Parsinen.

Mark grew up in Minnesota, the son of Finnish immigrants. He liked to joke that while there were many Nordic immigrants in Minnesota, the Finns were the lowest in the pecking order. He maintained a sense of humility from his parents’ immigrant roots, but he also inherited a work ethic that would enable him to accomplish things that others could or would not. Work was not work for Mark; he liked the idea of every moment being spent purposefully. If something took fifteen minutes to do properly, so be it. If it was fifteen hours, fine. His gift was the ability to envision an outcome and progress towards it with a combination of stamina and joy.

He went to the London School of Economics and went on to become a partner in the Boston Group, one of the nation’s leading consulting firms. In his role with the Boston Group he had a hand in guiding a wide range of companies and products to success. A little-known fact I that he was instrumental in the creation of light beer; he laughed when I told him that was nothing to be happy about.

An accomplished player, Mark was self-trained in course design. He moved to the West Coast and wanted to join a club but couldn’t get a spot in any club that he liked so he built his own, Granite Bay Golf Club near Sacramento, California. It was his first golf course project, a collaboration with Jones, Jr.  Said Bobby, “[Mark] didn’t know much about golf course design when we started working together, but I knew what he liked and wanted. The expertise came later.” Granite Bay won praise immediately and Mark was off and running.

Kingsbarns Golf Links

He is best known for his courses in Scotland, Kingsbarns (2000 with Kyle Phillips) and Castle Stuart (2009 with Gil Hanse). Both courses were heralded as among the world’s best courses virtually from the moment of their opening. After playing Castle Stuart, Phil Mickelson was so impressed that he said that it should be studied by anyone who is planning to build a golf course before they turned a shovel of earth.

Castle Stuart Golf Links

Mark’s genius was the ability to work with the best golf architects in the world and challenge them to greatness. He taught himself to be able to read topographical maps and to understand soil samples (skills he encouraged me to acquire). He came to master the art, science, logistics and the operations of a golf course; of course, he had quality people around him who specialized in their expertise, but Mark had a knack for taking something known, tilting it and saying “Could it be better this way?”. To Mark, the world was a big kaleidoscope, and he was fascinated by how you could make something beautiful just by looking at it differently.

His legacy, along with his family, will certainly be or the golf courses that he built. They are treasures that will only grow in stature very time. But what I know from the hours we spent talking about golf and golf courses is that he loved golfers even more than he loved golf courses. His primary influence for golf course design was the Old Course at St. Andrews, a course that he and played over 200 times in his life. He wrote eloquently about the Old Course:

“I have become a devotee of the Old Course where I’ve come to see the golf experience there as definitely not a sequence of tests, but rather a sequence of opportunities to decide whether or not to take risk to gain an advantage with a subsequent shot or to defer the risk by playing a safe shot thereby taking on a greater risk and challenge with a subsequent shot – AND at the same time, the Old Course seems to allow players the freedom to find their own path to the green to suit their own game and their own propensities.  I’ve come to cherish this type of experience in contrast with having to face a sequence of pre-determined tests where one’s game may or may not be suited to the challenge that must be confronted with little or no option or likelihood of success. Being the prisoner of a narrowly defined path can often feel quite oppressive compared with the freedom of a more open playing field with many avenues to the green available for evaluation and selection.”

The Old Course at St. Andrews

Mark wanted golf to be a challenge, not a double-dog dare. His courses represent his reverence for the principles of the Old Course and a genuine affection for the golfer and the quality of their experience. We had much fun one day with his theory that there were Catholic courses and Protestant courses. Catholic courses were like St. Andrews, where you could make huge mistakes but there was almost always a chance for redemption. Carnoustie was a Protestant course, where the path to success was straight and narrow, and mistakes were severely punished. It was the kind of intellectual exercise that Mark loved because there was no right or wrong, just a liberating exchange of ideas and information.

The last time I saw Mark was when I visited him at his home in Inverness on the 14th hole at Castle Stuart. We spent the final day of the trip surveying the work that was being done on the new 9-hole course at Castle Stuart, which had not yet been completed. We sifted through handfuls of sand to determine their density; like any good golf course designer, Mark loved dirt. He explained the dozens of flags that were placed in the ground to guide the bulldozers and shapers.

At one point, he was explaining the shape of the surrounds of a green when he turned to me and asked, “What do you think?” I was reluctant at first to give voice to a thought lest it be rejected or even ridiculed. After some prompting, I gave him my thoughts on the severity of slope on one side of a green. He looked at the green, then looked at me and smiled broadly. “You are right…that makes sense.” He flagged down one of the lads on a shaper and shared my thoughts. “Michael, we’ll have to get you on a tractor when we do the next eighteen.” I couldn’t have been prouder if I had won the Open Championship.

Construction on the 9-hole course at Castle Stuart

Mark was surrounded in his life by people who were devoted to him. Our final night in Scotland we made dinner at home and drank local gin (me) and red wine (him) along with Elspeth, the Food and beverage Manager at Castle Stuart who has become as essential to the course as the tee markers and flagsticks. We talked about everything from our favorite golf courses to the people that had shaped our lives. We laughed until the wee hours and next day, Mark and I made our way back to the States. We talked many times after that; just last week he had invited me to come spend time with him and the family at their vacation home in Nevada. “Dede and everyone would love to see you,” he said, “and we can go play some golf and talk about what we can do together.” We did have plans; for books, for films, for new courses. So many plans…

His study in Inverness

Mark was 70 years old and a very accomplished man, but he was in many ways just getting started. He built Granite Bay, Kingsbarns, and Castle Stuart. He was an intellectual, a visionary and a raging success at everything he did. He loved golf, but more importantly he loved golfers and did everything he could to make sure that his properties were fun on the course and off. He was a devoted husband to his beloved wife Dede and exemplary father to his children. He leaves behind a host of people in the golf industry who admired and respected him. He was my mentor and my friend. We saw golf and life in very much the same way. I am heartbroken. I will miss him so very much.