Our People
A close-knit, highly experienced team that spans the globe.
Located in 6 countries on 3 continents, our team has a large and diverse set of skills.
Mike Clayton
Partner
After a very successful amateur career which included victory in the 1978 Australian Amateur and the 1977 and 1981 Victorian Amateurs, Mike turned professional in 1981 and played on the Australasian Tour until 2007, winning seven times. He was also a regular participant on the European Tour from 1982 to 2000.
He formed Michael Clayton Golf Design in 1995 in partnership with John Sloan and the late Bruce Grant. In 2010, that business morphed into Ogilvy Clayton, which later became OCCM.
He is a renowned writer, speaker and broadcaster whose views on the relevance of period architecture in the modern era are required reading and listening for anyone who is a student of golf and golf design. In addition to being an expert in course restoration and renovation, his new designs have won critical acclaim. His course at Royal Queensland will host the tournaments of the 2032 Olympiad.
Mike DeVries
Partner
With over 40 years of experience in the golf industry, Mike remains a true craftsman. He is personally involved in all design and construction aspects of golf course development. His grandfather introduced him to golf at an early age at Crystal Downs Country Club in Frankfort, Michigan, and he grew up working on the Downs, developing a deep respect and admiration for the work of Alister MacKenzie and Perry Maxwell.
After graduating from Lake Forest College, Illinois, he worked with Tom Doak before attending the University of Michigan, where he earned his Master’s degree in Landscape Architecture in 1994. There then followed a stint working as on-site design coordinator for Tom Fazio.
He is one of the leading exponents of the modern minimalist movement. In addition to restoring and renovating many Golden Age courses, his new designs have received much praise. Perhaps best known are Kingsley Club, which is ranked in the US’s top 100 by GOLF Magazine, and Cape Wickham Links in Tasmania.
Frank Pont
Partner
After qualifying as a civil engineer from Delft Technical University, Frank worked for Shell before earning an MBA from the University of Chicago. This was followed by a career in the consulting sector and investment banking, culminating in him overseeing Deutsche Bank’s global telecoms team in London.
In 2001, he left London to study golf course architecture at Heriot Watt University, Edinburgh, where his specialist studies were in the works of Harry Colt and Tom Simpson. Thereafter, he undertook apprenticeships with David McLay Kidd in Ireland and Hawaii. In 2003, he founded his own practice, which has steadily grown in stature ever since.
He is currently working with over thirty Colt, Simpson and Pennink designed courses across Europe in order to help restore their original strategies and styles. He has also designed several new courses, one of which, De Swinkelsche, is now ranked in the continent’s top 100 by Golf World. Another, The Links Valley, is rated in the world’s top 20 nine-holers by GOLF Magazine.
Hendrik Hilgert
Head of Continental Europe
Hendrik Hilgert has a Masters degree in Business and a Ph. D. in Economics from Hamburg University. After a successful investment banking career in Frankfurt and London, Hendrik set up a joint golf architecture practice with Frank Pont in 2014.
Hendrik has worked for many of the top courses in Germany. For example, he has been working with Hamburg Falkenstein, #1 in Germany and #10 in Continental Europe according to Golf World, since 2015. Currently, he is spending significant time with Gonzalo on our quickly expanding Spanish client base. Hendrik has also been active in Switzerland, Belgium, France, and Denmark and together with Frank he has been working with 4 of the Top 10 courses and 10 of the Top 100 courses on the Continent, according to Golf World.
Beyond Continental Europe, Hendrik is currently working with the two oldest golf clubs in Ireland, namely Royal Dublin and Royal Belfast. Hendrik is also leading the CDP team for the design of 4 new courses in Vietnam.
Lukas Michel
Associate, Australia
After completing a Masters degree in Engineering from the University of Melbourne, which included a semester at the University of St Andrews, in 2019, Lukas became the first international participant to win the US Mid-Amateur leading to invitations to the 2020 US Masters and US Opens.
He continues to play competitively and contributes to GOLF Magazine’s World Top 100 rankings as its youngest panellist. He assists with our projects in Australia and has also been involved with our activities elsewhere in the world. To that end, he was part of our team that restored Bloomfield Hills CC in Michigan.
Josh Pettit
Associate, USA
Based in San Francisco and with over 25 years of experience in the golf industry, Josh is both a course architect and historian. He holds a BSc in Landscape Architecture from the University of Massachusetts Amherst and studied Golf Course Architecture at Edinburgh University.
He has established himself as one of the world’s foremost experts on Dr. Alister MacKenzie and is the founder of the Alister MacKenzie Institute. He is editor of “The MacKenzie Reader”, a compendium of the Good Doctor’s texts which has become required reading for students of course design.
He supports the partnership’s activities in the United States and provides support to our teams in Europe and Australia as required.
Bill Longmuir
Associate, GB&I
Bill turned professional in 1968 and was a member of the European Tour from 1973 to 1993 playing in 10 Open Championships. He was part of the generation of golfers who also competed on the Safari, Sunshine, Australian, Asian and South American Tours.
He joined the European Seniors Tour in 2003, qualified for the US Champions Tour in 2006, and remains a playing member of the former. From 2015 to 2020, he was Head Professional at Royal Westmoreland, Barbados, and currently holds a consultancy position at Les Bordes Golf Club in France. He is heavily involved with our activities in the UK.
Gonzalo Fernandez-Castano
Associate, Iberia
Having completed his MBA, Gonzalo turned professional in 2004. Since then he has played on both the PGA and European Tours, where he is a seven-time winner. He has played over 450 courses on five continents and has long had a keen interest in golf course architecture since he grew up playing courses designed by Colt and Simpson.
He is our representative for the Iberian Peninsula.