Rowland Jones

Born on the Isle of Wight in 1872, Rowland Jones was a fine tournament golfer being runner-up in the Open Championship of 1905, to James Braid, and later winning the Belgian Open. He also represented England against Scotland on nine occasions. He was one of the outstanding professionals in the first two decades of the twentieth century.

He learned his club making on the Isle of Wight from possibly England's finest clubmaker, Ernest Beveridge, and began his professional career at Littlehampton in 1888, He moved to the Royal Guernsey club for a couple of years in 1891 before a second stint at Littlehampton between 1893 and 1897. He then became the professional at Wimbledon Park Golf Club for 37 years from the opening of the club in 1898 until his retirement in 1935.

Rowland Jones was not a prolific golf architect but there is evidence that he was involved in a number of courses at the turn of the last century. He re-joined Littlehampton in 1893 at a time when the course was being expanded from 9 to 18 holes. He was employed by the Wimbledon Park in 1897 to give advice on the layout of the new course. And in 1906 a deal was struck with Roland Jones to lay out a 9-hole course in Dunstable for a total outlay of £2. 8s 9d. With a total yardage of 2,826 yards, his plans stipulated that the course could be extended to 6,000 yards by developing it in the direction of Whipsnade on the Downs side of the road at an additional cost of one guinea. Jones design also included separate teeing areas for ladies.

Alliss and Thomas

Peter Alliss has a long history with Dunstable Downs Golf Club. His involvement with golf course architecture goes back more than 30 years. Working in tandem with partners Dave Thomas and latterly Clive Clark, he created over 50 courses, including The Belfry, The Marquess Course at Woburn, Brocket Hall, Cams Hall, The Links Course at Belle Mare Plage Hotel in Mauritius, Herons Reach at Blackpool, Blairgowrie, Kings Lynn, The 'Seve Club' in Japan, La Baule in Brittany, Old Thorns, Aston Wood, Yamasukra on the Ivory Coast plus many others both at home and abroad.

In December 1975, Peter Alliss and David Thomas Ltd were approached to tender for the work to carry out a preliminary survey and sketch plan to extend the course by a further nine holes.

They finally exercised their course architectural skills in 1987 when they started work on new alternative 8th and 9th greens at a cost to the club of £7,500.

Cameron Sinclair

Cameron Sinclair holds a BA (hons) degree in Landscape Architecture: Herriot Watt University, Edinburgh.

He was invited to the Club in 1997 to propose a new bunkering strategy. The bunker on the right-hand side of the 13th was extended by 5 metres into the fairway and a new bunker was built on the left-hand side. A number of other bunkers that had been made redundant by new technology were grassed over.

He is a member, and past Captain, of Northamptonshire County Golf Club. As well as designing and constructing the 3 new holes at NCGC, Cameron had been influential in lengthening and further improving the challenge of his home course. Up to 1987 Cameron was project golf course architect with Cotton, Pennink, Lawrie & Partners who, at that time, were probably the leading golf course architects in Europe. From 1987 to 1990 he was project golf course architect with Graham Marsh Golf Design, who are regarded as one of the world's leading Golf Course Architects and have been responsible for a number of the world's leading residential, resort, private and tournament golf courses.

As a Golf Course designer of international repute Cameron has designed, among others, Bedfordshire GC, Haydon Grange G & CC near Cambridge, Lamerwood GC in Hertfordshire, Whitekirk GC in East Lothian and 36 holes at Whittlebury Park in Northamptonshire. He has also undertaken modifications to Blankney GC in Lincolnshire, Huddersfield GC, Northamptonshire County GC and Royal Liverpool.

Since 1990 Cameron has operated as an independent golf course architect and has designed a number of golf courses in the UK and overseas, together with alterations and remodelling works to a number of UK golf courses, including British Open, British Ladies Open & British Amateur venues.

Peter Alliss