Roger G. Rulewich
Golf course architect
Roger Rulewich (Class of 1958) arrived at Yale as a scholarship student and non-golfer. By the time he graduated, with a civil engineering degree, he had become “hooked on the game.” During those four years he had often gone to the “beautiful course” on his bicycle to play for the $1.00 greens fee or just to walk in his “retreat.”
Upon graduating Rulewich went to work for a large engineering and landscape design firm in New York City. After three years he decided to pursue his interest in architecture and submitted his resume to the alumni placement service. It arranged an interview with an architect who turned out to be Robert Trent Jones, Sr. Rulewich was surprised to learn that Jones designed golf courses, not buildings, but he took the position Jones offered him. One of his first assignments was to design and build several bridges at Laurence Rockefeller’s golf course in Woodstock, Vermont.
Over the next thirty-four years, Rulewich became an architect who, as Ron Whitten wrote, “produced stunning courses in the exact (and exacting) style of Robert Trent Jones.” From 1931 to 2000 more than 500 courses in forty states and thirty-five countries were attributed to Jones. Rulewich became his chief designer and in the 1980s and 1990s, became the “poster boy of unsung golf course architects.” Whitten wrote that in 2004, he watched Yale graduate, Heather Daly-Donofrio, win the LPGA Tournament of Champions, held at his favorite course on Alabama’s Robert Trent Jones Trail, in Mobile — the Crossing course at Magnolia Grove Golf Club, actually designed by Roger Rulewich.
From 1989 to 1992, Roger Rulewich designed and managed the largest golf construction project in US history. Dr. David Bronner, ceo of the Retirement System of Alabama, devised a plan to diversify the assets of the state pension fund and bring tourist dollars into the state by building seven, new, multi-course golf facilities (324 holes) — the RTJ Golf Trail. Very few know what Rulewich did for this project, and he says he “could care less. The people that need to know that I was heavily involved with the Trail know, and that is what is important. Those people are potential clients and my peers.” Jones was age eighty-six when it was completed and essentially served as a sounding board for Rulewich’s work. The Jones firm closed its offices in 1995, and Rulewich and a select group from the office formed The Roger Rulewich Group.
On the recommendation of David Paterson, the University hired Rulewich to renovate and restore all of the bunkers of the course. Using old construction photographs, aerial photographs, site reviews, and other documents, every existing bunker was returned to its original condition and properly drained. The leftside bunker on the first fairway was reshaped to bring it into play. Those greenside bunkers at the second, twelfth, thirteenth, sixteenth, and seventeenth holes that had been removed were restored with drainage. Only the hillside bunkers on the tenth and eighteenth fairways were not restored.
As Rulewich has noted, the only bunker work that remains is around the third green, the pond-side right half of which was eliminated in the 1940s. He has expressed the hope that the green itself can be restored to its original size and shape and that the bunkering can then be brought closer to the original.
As Rulewich has noted, the only bunker work that remains is around the third green, the pond-side right half of which was eliminated in the 1940s. He has expressed the hope that the green itself can be restored to its original size and shape and that the bunkering can then be brought closer to the original.