Matt Schiffer founded Greengrass Engineering in 2012.  We have now worked in a freelance capacity with more than two dozen golf course architects 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 a Member of the European Institute of Golf Course Architects and holds a Masters 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. He was awarded the Toro Student Golf Course Architect Award of the Year as the best of his bi-annual graduating class. 

Matt is currently serving on the Sustainability Committee of the EIGCA, helping to promote and encourage sustainability and stewardship of the environment within the golf design industry. He has reached Stage 3 of the EIGCA’s Raising the Standard of Sustainable Golf Course Development professional development program and is able to use the knowledge he has gained to deliver environmentally sustainable designs that will provide commercial advantage and a positive legacy for clients.

Also a strong advocate of publicly accessible golf, Matt recently presented his ideas about the future of municipal golf, called “The Comeback of the Commons”, to an international assembly of golf course architects in Adelaide, Australia.

Between 2005 and 2012, Matt worked as a Design Associate with Golfplan, an internationally renowned golf course architecture firm that was founded by Ron Fream and has been designing golf courses around the world since 1972. While there, Matt worked on more than one hundred 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 golf courses in eastern Maryland with GCBAA Certified Builder McDonald & Sons.   

Matt graduated from Lehigh University (Bethlehem, PA) with a B.S. of Civil Engineering and from Drexel University (Philadelphia, PA) 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 a civil engineer since 2001 (licensed in California, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania).

Matt and his wife live and play in Philadelphia, PA, within a stone's throw of many of America's most historic and iconic golf courses.