Catie Craig: From Collegiate Golfer to Design Assistant
Alex Elias
Following a storied amateur career in which she won five individual collegiate titles, including the 2023 Conference USA Championship at Western Kentucky University, and competed in the 2025 Augusta National Women’s Amateur and several USGA Championships—two U.S. Women's Amateur Championships (2023 and 2024) and the U.S. Women’s Amateur Four-Ball Golf Championship (setting a U.S. Women’s Amateur Four-Ball Championship record of 14-under par after 36 holes of stroke play)—Catie Craig joined the Epson Tour in 2025.
Since then, she has also joined Spence Golf Design as a Design Assistant.
“I’ve always had an interest in golf course architecture ever since I was in elementary school. I would draw routings of my own golf courses, including the clubhouse, practice facilities, houses, parking lot, etc.,” said Craig. “They weren’t the best designs, obviously, but I loved creating wild golf holes. I do give credit to TPC Sawgrass as an eye-opener—my family would go there every year for The Players, and the course always fascinated me. I grew up on a public course in Florida and played in local events since I was 5, so my exposure to golf architecture was minimal other than TPC. My true passion took off in high school when I realized I could make a career out of it, so I bought books, studied classic architecture, researched new builds, and refined my own conceptual hole drawings.”
With an unquestionable passion for golf course architecture for quite some time, Craig’s introduction to the field came when she decided to work for Bob McLean, Superintendent at Indian Hills Country Club in Bowling Green, Kentucky, for her Horticulture major internship.
“What began as a summer internship, working maintenance and helping with a short-game construction project, led to Bob inviting me to speak at the Tennessee Turfgrass Association Conference in January of 2025 about my experience and passion in golf course architecture,” said Craig. “Little did I know, I would run into Dave Ragan, and he would introduce me to Kris Spence via phone call, as he had just left the conference.”
Asked to draw up plans for the short-game area at Jackson Country Club (Jackson, TN), and eventually visit Spence on property, Craig did just that, immediately following her 2025 Conference USA Championship.
“Immediately after I won the Conference USA Championship, I drove 4 hours to Jackson to meet Kris and share my design,” said Craig. “He was impressed with my design as it nearly matched his plan. As I was still in college, planning to play on the EPSON Tour that summer, he offered me an internship and was a sponsor of mine when I turned pro.”
Officially working for Spence Golf Design as of October 2025, Craig is beyond grateful, particularly as Spence Golf Design is working on a new-build—High Side Golf Club in Kannapolis, NC.
“I joined the team after the masterplan was created, so I was not heavily involved in the design of the course, but I have helped suggest edits,” said Craig. “We are currently in Phase 1 of the project, which includes constructing the practice facility and some of the all-Par-3 front nine holes. I have been going on the property to tag trees to keep while the crew is working on installing silt fences and clearing the property for us to start shaping soon—to be able to see every little detail that goes into a project is something I never thought I’d be a part of this early in my career.”
