Matthew Schiffer is the founder of Greengrass Golf Design (GGD) and Greengrass Engineering (GGE), both established in 2012. Through GGD, Matt has applied his sustainable design principals and passion for accessibility to municipal and daily fee projects in Baku, Azerbaijan and Northern California. Through GGE, he works in a freelance capacity with colleagues around the world, helping them to realize and implement their design ideas by assisting with all aspects of golf course design, civil engineering, plan production, and hand-drawn and computer-rendered graphics.    

Matt is also working with the GEO Foundation as an Accredited Sustainability Verifier. GEO is the golf industry’s preeminent sustainability advocate, dedicated to inspire, support, and credibly share the golf industry’s commitment to nature, resources, and community.  

Matt is a Member of the European Institute of Golf Course Architects (EIGCA) and serves on its Sustainability Committee, helping to promote and encourage sustainability and stewardship of the environment within the golf course design industry. He has successfully completed the EIGCA’s comprehensive and innovative Sustainability Program, the only continuing professional development initiative of its kind, to become one of the few Sustainable Design Leaders in the golf industry. 

He holds a Master’s Degree in Golf Course Architecture from the University of Edinburgh. He graduated with distinction in 2004 after an intensive year of studying and traveling throughout the United Kingdom and Europe, where he was exposed to the European model of sustainable and integrated golf course design and maintenance. He was awarded the Toro Student Golf Course Architect of the Year award as the best of his graduating class.

Before founding GGE and GGD, Matt worked as a Design Associate with Golfplan, an internationally renowned firm that has been designing golf courses around the world since 1972. Between 2005 and 2012, Matt worked on more than one hundred public and private golf development projects, including two projects ranked by Golf Digest within the top-100 in the world: The Club at Nine Bridges and Haesley Nine Bridges.

From late 2004, Matt worked as an Assistant Site Superintendent, helping to build two new golf courses in eastern Maryland with GCBAA Certified Builder McDonald & Sons.

Matt graduated from Lehigh University (Bethlehem, PA) in 1996 with a B.S. in Civil Engineering and from Drexel University (Philadelphia, PA) in 2000 with an M.S. in Engineering Management. He worked primarily as a municipal Civil Engineer for more than seven years before transitioning to golf course design. He has been professionally licensed as an engineer since 2001 (licensed in California, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania).