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Alumni Awards List

PHILLIP SMITH has turned his lifelong interest in golf into a challenging career. Originally from Hutchinson, Kansas, Smith performed maintenance work during summers and after school at Prairie Dunes Country Club one of the top 25 courses in the country. He also spent a summer as Assistant Superintendent for the Wadsworth Golf Construction Company of Plainfield, Illinois, one of the top firms of its type in the world. After attending Hutchinson Community College from 1982-84, he transferred to KSU where he received a Bachelor in Landscape Architecture. Smith is remembered by the KSU faculty as an excellent and dedicated student who raised expectations for student achievement in a number of golf course design classes. In recognition of outstanding performance and professional promise as a landscape architecture student, Smith received the L. R. Quinlan Award. He also received an honors award from the American Society of Landscape Architects and was a member of Tau Sigma Delta architecture honorary fraternity. His award-winning, final-year design project was the Turkey Creek Golf Course in McPherson, Kansas, and Smith had the rare experience of seeing his student work actually built while assisting with construction and grading. After graduation from KSU, he worked for Edward D. Stone, Jr. and Associates of Fort Lauderdale, Florida, as a project landscape architect. In early 1990, Smith returned to golf by accepting a position with Golden Bear International/Nicklaus Design of North Palm Beach, Florida. As Golden Bear International's Production Manager for the Far East Region from 1990 to 1992, Smith managed and formulated plan production for more than 30 golf course projects in Thailand, China, Taiwan, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Phillipines, Burma, India, and Japan. Smith was also Design Coordinator from 1993 through 1994 for the Apache Golf Course at Desert Mountain in Scottsdale, Arizona. After six years with the company, Smith was promoted to Design Associate and has designed a number of 18-hole courses with Jack Nicklaus, as well as with his sons, Jack Nicklaus II and Gary Nicklaus. His current responsibilities include management of all aspects of golf course design, including research of prospective projects, client relations, design, construction and grow-in. Smith and his wife, Stacy, currently reside in Scottsdale, Arizona, where he oversees several Nicklaus Design projects in the western United States and Mexico. Smith is a registered landscape architect in the State of Kansas.