BEN WHEELER
Senior Design Associate
EDUCATION/LICENSES
Ben Wheeler obtained a B.S. degree in Landscape Architecture from The Ohio State University, where he earned the Honor Award for Excellence in the Study of Landscape Architecture from the American Society of Landscape Architects, the highest such award bestowed to recent graduates. He spent one of his college summers studying Golf Course Design & Planning at the Harvard University Graduate School of Design, where he learned from some of the most respected golf course architects in the industry, such as Michael Hurdzan, Geoffrey Cornish, and Robert Muir Graves. Ben is a licensed Landscape Architect in Ohio, Connecticut, and Massachusetts, a Certified Landscape Architect by the Council of Landscape Architectural Registration Boards (CLARB), a member of the United States Golf Association (USGA), and a Tartan Program Participant in the American Society of Golf Course Architects (ASGCA).
BACKGROUND
Ben’s love for the game of golf began at an early age when he began playing before starting school. Very much a family affair, his father built a small putting and chipping green in their yard and his first club was a sawed-off 3 wood from his soon-to-be brother-in-law. It was during numerous family golf outings that his desire to become a golf course architect blossomed.
EXPERIENCE
While Ben was attending Ohio State, his home course in Northern Ohio was being transformed from a 9-hole course built in the early 1920s, where his father managed the pro shop decades before, to a modern, upscale 18-hole public golf course. He seized the opportunity to gain valuable knowledge by working on both the construction and maintenance crews during the summers. Following graduation, he worked for one of the largest civil engineering firms in the country where he was involved in the design of several large, master planned golf course communities. Ben combined this knowledge with the playing and design experience of former Senior PGA Tour player Denny Spencer to form a golf course design department within the firm. There, he worked on numerous projects including practice range renovations, remodeling master plans, and the master plan for a 1,500 acre community with a 27-hole championship golf course.
Ben also has extensive experience in the design of land development projects, often leading the permitting process with local, state, and federal regulatory agencies. Many of his projects included the design and permitting of environmentally sensitive wetland mitigation or recreation areas. His technical knowledge of grading, stormwater management, and erosion control measures coupled with his landscape architecture background creates a unique blend of form and function.
FRY/STRAKA CONTRIBUTIONS
In addition to his golf and site design experience, Ben uses his technological background as a valuable member of the Fry/Straka team, specifically Autodesk Civil 3D for design and plan production, and other various programs for creating realistic plan view and 3D renderings.
“The late, great Arnold Palmer once said, ‘Golf is deceptively simple and endlessly complicated.’ The same can be said of golf course design, with each site, each project offering its own unique opportunities and challenges. I consider it an honor and privilege to contribute to what Palmer called ‘the greatest game mankind has ever invented.’”