In 1965, Peter Thomson commenced his career in golf course design when he joined up with John Harris and Michael Wolveridge. Initially the firm was called South Pacific Golf Pty Ltd but soon became Harris Thomson and Wolveridge.

Early projects included Wairakei in New Zealand, Royal Hong Kong GC, Bali Handara in Indonesia and the renovation of both Delhi and Royal Calcutta in India. In the 1960s and 1970s Thomson was pioneering the Asian Tour by playing across the Asia Pacific, which helped the company prosper.

Wolveridge set up the Melbourne office whilst Harris concentrated on the European market from London. In 1981, Wolveridge met a young architect named Ross Perrett who was completing a Masters thesis on Golf Architecture at Melbourne University but six years passed before Ross started consulting for Thomson Wolveridge.

After a hectic few years servicing the Asian Golf Boom, Perrett was invited to join the business so in 1990 the company changed to Thomson Wolveridge and Perrett. When Mike Wolveridge eventually retired in 2004, the company became Thomson Perrett.

The following year, Melbourne-born architect Tim Lobb joined the firm to service the European, Middle East and African markets so the company was renamed Thomson Perrett and Lobb. When Peter Thomson retired in 2016, Tim formed Lobb + Partners, with Ross looking after TP Golf.

Karrie Webb joined Ross in a new design partnership at the end of 2018, with the establishment of Perrett Webb Pty Ltd. Having worked together on a bid for the 2016 Rio Olympics, it felt right to team up again and so the combination of seasoned architect and one of Australia's greatest players is now set to lead the way forward, starting with the company's first appointment at Indooroopilly Golf Club.

Career highlights for Perrett include designing and building the Duke’s in St Andrews; completing the Mt Merapi course in Indonesia on the world’s most active volcano; designing The Capital in Melbourne and Ayodhya Links in Bangkok; as well as creating more than twenty courses in China on all types of sites including abandoned fish farms, rubbish tips and reclaimed coastal sites.

New millennium projects of note include The National Moonah Links, Sandhurst and Hamilton Island, which is the first course to ever be built within a World Heritage Marine Park.

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Ross Perrett joined the prolific Thomson & Wolveridge design team in the 1980s, becoming a partner a few years later and then company principal with Peter Thomson when Mike Wolveridge left the firm. There was a period in the 1980s and 90s when this company seemed to win every major design contract in Australia. With little genuine competition and a marketable ‘signature’ the firm prospered, and it wasn’t really until the arrival of Greg Norman Golf Course Design and the team at Michael Clayton Design that Australian business started to slow for Thomson and Perrett. planetgolf.com

Bibliography:

Golf Courses of the Mornington Peninsula by Ross Perrett, Paul Daley and Kimbal Baker (2005)