With over thirty projects to his name, Jeremy Pern is one of Europe's most experienced golf course architects. His designs have been realised in over a dozen different countries and many are considered amongst Europe's finest. Fifteen are listed in the Peugeot Guide to Europe’s Best Golf Courses, three feature in the Rolex World's 1000 Best rankings.
Jeremy's road to success as a golf course architect began almost four decades ago. Starting out as a young golf course construction project manager, Jeremy had the good fortune to work with and to learn from some legendary names in the design field. It was with such world-renowned golf architects as Robert Trent Jones, John Harris, Cabell Robinson and Don Harradine that he first mastered the challenges of golf course construction, and in conditions as diverse as the UK, France, Austria, Germany, Switzerland, Morocco and Iran. Many of the courses he worked on in those years have since hosted prestigious events on the PGA European Tour.
In 1986 after ten years in golf course construction Jeremy moved to France joining a golf course development company as partner and principal golf course architect. By 1990 Jeremy's evolving ideas about golf course design led him to establish his own architectural practice, his approach rooted in the conviction that a golf course should be integrated into the surrounding landscape. His is a design philosophy firmly based on the notion that the finished course should look as if it has always been there.
A qualified agronomist (N.D.A. Harper Adams University) and with a masters degree (M.Sc. University of Wales, Aberystwyth) in Protected Landscape management, Jeremy is uniquely equipped to understand the difficulties confronting golf course developers. From the deserts of the Middle East to the long winters and short summers of Scandinavia, his unusually broad range of design experience make his advice on the complexities of environmental issues and permit acquisition particularly valuable. Ever mindful of the restrictions imposed by project budgets and ingenious in his search for solutions to the varied problems of construction and development, Jeremy is keenly aware that the priority for any golf course development has to be the integrity of course design. Working within the parameters of current economic and land-planning conditions he recognises that golfer satisfaction is the primary goal of any golf course architect.
In 1988 Jeremy qualified as a member of the British Institute of Golf Course Architects and in 1998 was elected Vice President. From his practice near the French city of Toulouse he played a key role in bringing together the British, French and European professional bodies within the European Institute of Golf Course Architects. He served on the Council of the EIGCA in 2003.
Jeremy's Masters degree thesis, 'The Nature of Golf', considered the role that golf courses can play in the protection of the environment in Europe. He has been a guest lecturer at The University of Edinburgh's MSc course in Golf Course Architecture and writes frequently for the European specialist press, while internationally he is a well-known conference speaker on course design and on the environmental aspects of golf course development.