Alex Russell

Alex Russell was born in 1892 in the port city of Geelong, Victoria, across the Port Phillip Bay from the state capital of Melbourne. At an early age, he and his family moved to England, where the young Alex attended school in Hindhead, Surrey, and then Glenalmond College, Perthshire. They returned to Australia in 1907, and Russell graduated from the Geelong Grammar School in 1911. His time at home was short-lived, however, as he moved back to the UK to read Engineering at Jesus College, Cambridge, in 1912, before serving four years in the Royal Garrison Artillery during World War I. Twice wounded, he received the Military Cross and was eventually promoted to acting major.

Having married an Englishwoman in 1917, Russell moved back to Australia after the war. He settled in Sandringham, a southern suburb of Melbourne that would soon become the center of a major boom of “Sandbelt” Golden Age golf architecture. At his home golf club, Royal Melbourne, he earned a medal in 1919 for his play. He went on to win a number of prestigious tournaments, including the Australian Open (1924), the South Australian Amateur and Victorian Amateur (both in 1925), and the Riversdale Cup (1929 and 1931). His wife Jess was also an accomplished player, finishing runner-up in three Australian Women’s Amateur championships.

Russell’s playing prowess gave him the opportunity to help build Royal Melbourne’s new courses at Black Rock alongside English architect Alister MacKenzie. Starting in 1926, Russell supervised the construction of the West Course with head greenkeeper Mick Morcom. He then designed the East Course on his own. The West opened in 1931, and the East a year later. Russell’s other commissions included Narrandera Golf Club (1927), Yarra Yarra Golf Club (1929), and Riversdale Golf Club (revision 1930) — all in Melbourne — as well as Lake Karrinyup Country Club in Western Australia (original design, 1928; twice revised in 1948 and 1952).

In 1932, Russell took a break from full-time golf course design to take care of his father’s sheep farm at Mawallok, 100 miles west of Melbourne. Away from the city, he became a dedicated sheep-breeder and grazier, later serving as president of the Australian Sheep Breeders' Association.

War called again in 1941, and Russell served this time in the Red Cross, traveling to Egypt, Palestine, Syria, Ceylon, India, and Burma. After the war, Russell had one last chance to lay out a new golf course, this time on prime links land at Paraparaumu Beach Golf Club near Wellington, New Zealand. After finishing Paraparaumu in 1940 and revising it in 1952, Russell retired to South Yarra, where he remained until his death in 1961.

Alex Russell’s body of architectural work is limited yet impressive — a key building block in the development of Sandbelt golf architecture. For the complete story of his life and work, we highly recommend Neil Crafter and John Green’s book Discovering Alex Russell, published in 2017.