OLD WESTBURY, N.Y. — A new-and-improved Old Westbury Country Club has reopened here on Long Island, where the course architects at Silva & Johnson have completed a strategic, quite elegant 27-hole renovation — in record time.
Formed in 2025, Silva & Johnson, Ltd., is the course design partnership comprising veteran Golden Age craftsman Brian Silva and his long-time protégé Brian Johnson. The team has two more comprehensive renovations poised to reopen this fall: at 119-year-old San Antonio CC and Boca Raton G&CC on Florida’s east coast.
The two Brians have worked together for more than 25 years, but Old Westbury is the first official collaboration to open or reopen under the Silva & Johnson banner. According to the club’s board president, Mark Rosen, “We had a good golf course on a great piece of property. Now we have a great golf course on a great piece of property.”
The original 27 holes here were designed in 1962, by William Mitchell, on hilly property between some of the highest points in Nassau County. The central remit was to redesign and reconstruct the greens, tees and bunkers. The putting surfaces specifically had been the subject of several renovation efforts through the years. None had done the trick.
“Course architecture after World War II has come under some criticism in this century, and I do think Old Westbury was representative of a period when courses were engineered as much as they were designed,” says Silva, a former USGA agronomist whose portfolio includes dozens of layouts from the so-called Golden Age of Course Design.
“By the same token, because of where and when it was built, a mid-century course like Old Westbury had tremendous unmet potential. As part of the redesign, we took the opportunity to establish here a whole host of vintage architectural concepts. Our new fairway bunker patterns, for example:
“On several individual holes, they create new obstacles, new mowing patterns and multiple routes of play. Were those strategies pioneered between the World Wars? Yes, but the vast percentage of clubs in America were notdesigned by Golden Age greats.
“It’s true that some designs from the 1960s and ‘70s don’t present so well today. We believe they are redeemable. They, too, have tremendous unmet potential. And we feel pretty strongly that injecting classic design principles is the best way to maximize that potential.”
Silva & Johnson teamed with NMP Golf Construction to redesign and rebuild all 27 greens at Old Westbury to USGA specifications, then replant them with 007XL bentgrass.
The project also included reconstruction of all 27 tee complexes and 70 bunkers, a new irrigation system and pump station, plus additional course-wide refinements to the Woods, Bluegrass and Overlook nines.
“As it happened,” Silva notes, “the superintendent at Old Westbury, Tom McAvoy, is a former turf student of mine. He keeps the course in such remarkable shape — a fact that underlines what, today, are some dramatically improved golf holes.”
All this work was completed in an accelerated 3-month construction window. The project came in more than $2 million under budget.
“A lot has been made — and will continue to be made, I suppose — about the time frame on this job. But ultimately,” Brian Johnson asserts, “it came down to a matter of will. The club had been told over and over that all 27 holes could not be finished in a single building season, i.e. between the fall of 2025 and spring 2026.
“But we met that deadline because Brian Silva was there three or four days a week for four months — and NMP consistently devoted a crew of 60-70 people to this project. I think it’s safe to say the naysayers weren’t prepared to make the same commitments.”
Silva, for his part, singled out his new partner as another, off-site agent of efficiency: “As has been the case for decades, everyone’s execution was made more efficient thanks to the work Brian Johnson did with these plans, especially the grading plans for greens and surrounds, a hyper-critical element on such a steep site.
“While Brian did play a big role here at Old Westbury, he was far more involved in the redesign of San Antonio and especially Boca Raton.”
In San Antonio, where Silva authored a less sweeping renovation back in 2002, a grand reopening is planned for this fall.
At Boca Raton G&CC, it was Johnson who oversaw a complete regrading and rebuilding of the entire property — all 18 holes, on just 70 acres. The new track will open in December.
“Only 70 acres! And the course is 5,900 yards long!” Silva enthused. “Brian Johnson did all that: permitting and set up, a massive regrading of the entire site. It should be against the law for a course to be that long, and that good, on 70 acres. But the layout is safe and sound, bold and inventive. Yard for yard, it will stand with any course down there. Brian truly unlocked the potential of that golf course.”
Johnson may remain a protege but he’s no greenhorn. He’s 48 years old and has worked in course design for 25 years. He’s also a certified Class A golf course superintendent.
He’s based out of Houston, Texas, while Silva works from Ogunquit, Maine. According to Johnson, practicing course design in Texas and Florida — alongside a Golden Age specialist like Silva — has proved an architectural eye-opener.
“Florida has the most golf courses of any U.S. state, and I believe Texas ranks third in course stock, behind California,” Johnson says. “There are some great vintage tracks in Florida and Texas, but the vast majority were built after World War II and those designers paid very little attention to Golden Age principles. It’s those courses — some of them 60-70 years old today — that need the injection of vintage principles the most!
“At the same time, working with Brian Silva at so many layouts from the Golden Age does allow me to be innovative and resourceful in adapting those principles to mid-century designs. It’s not unlike what C.B. Macdonald himself made clear: His goal was not the absolute topographic reproduction of his templates, but rather the adaptation of classic hole concepts to a wide range of topography.
“As a firm, we feel very comfortable retooling a ‘modern’ course with classic features and strategies — and making those holes look and play right, in their specific settings. I don’t think it’s boastful to point out that not just anyone can do that.”