If the ‘Most Interesting Man in the World’ from the famous Dos Equis advertisements ever truly existed, his name would likely be Beau Welling. Welling studied Irish literature at Trinity College and holds a degree in physics. He started his career as a golf architect, eventually becoming Tiger Woods‘s business ally. And then his journey then took an unexpected turn.

He formed a growing obsession with the Winter Olympic sport of curling, which propelled him to the presidency of the World Curling Federation in 2022. Today, in the winter of 2026, he stands on the world stage in Milan and Cortina, distributing gold medals to Olympic champions.

Welling’s ascent in the curling world was born from ‘science nerd’ curiosity. While he grew up in South Carolina (a place where, as he puts it, “we just put ice in our drinks”), he became captivated by the sport while watching the 2002 Salt Lake City Olympics.

“The more I watched, the more fascinated I got,” Welling told Golfweek.  “It fits my brain. It’s strategic. And it’s a Scottish game that shares many qualities with golf. Both games are steeped in integrity and honor. In both games, you call your own fouls, and there’s a degree of physics. So the science of it all just fascinated me. The friction and trajectories. There was a lot for me to chew on.”

It didn’t take much time to grow that passion from a passive interest into a full-blown fanaticism. By the 2006 Turin Games, Welling was consuming nearly all 80 hours of NBC’s coverage, even taking vacation time from his architecture projects to learn every nuance of the sport. He realized that the American team was comprised almost entirely of one small town: Bemidji, Minnesota. So when a scheduled work assignment overseas was fortuitously canceled, Welling felt a ‘calling’ to see the U.S. National Championships for himself in Bemidji.

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Tickets were long gone; so Welling had his longtime assistant plead his case. She told the organizers that her boss just loves curling, and he’d love to come up there. Charmed by the idea of a fanatic from South Carolina, they found him a seat.

Welling arrived in the middle of a blizzard, only to be greeted by a handwritten sign with his name on it placed right against the glass. The small-town fans loved his energy, and he quickly ingratiated himself with friends, family, and coaches.

“I wasn’t sure if I was going to get bored, so I had only planned to stay for a day or two, and I ended up staying nine days. People took me ice fishing and out for dinners and drinking. The town even threw me a birthday party,” Welling shared.

By the time he left, the president of USA Curling had named him the official ‘Southern Ambassador’ for the sport. This trip led to a board seat at USA Curling and, eventually, his election as president of the World Curling Federation in September 2022.

And while Welling was climbing the ranks of international curling governance, he never stopped his full-time work as a premier golf architect, helping Tiger Woods.

The architect and the ambassador

Welling successfully juggles his role as WCF president with his full-time career as the founder and CEO of Beau Welling Design (BWD). His firm has overseen over 50 projects, from master planning for Augusta National to world-class projects like Fields Ranch West (the new home of the PGA of America), Pelican Golf Club (Tampa, Florida), The 27 Club (Tianjin, China), etc.

When Welling first started watching curling, he was still working under the famous Tom Fazio’s course design firm. Then, when he first started his own firm, Tiger Woods was his first client. The Woods-Welling collaboration later created masterpieces such as Bluejack National in Texas and Payne’s Valley in Missouri.

And then Welling’s most futuristic contribution to the sport comes when he helped a massive technical overhaul of the ‘GreenZone’ inside the SoFi Center and transformed it into a ‘prime-time theater’ for next-gen golf in TGL’s second act.

Back to the ice, as the 2026 Milan-Cortina Games end, the World Curling Federation will turn its attention to organizing its elections in Bratislava, from September 3rd to 6th. It will select three board members, as well as its next president, the position for which Welling was selected in 2022. Regarding his intention to run for a second term, Welling has made it clear that his work is far from over.

“I am one of those people who are never satisfied, who always want to do better. So I want to continue what has been started….We have created our own streaming platform, Curling Channel, and we’re succeeding in monetizing it and engaging the public in different ways. I’m proud of the evolution of our leagues… I’m proud of our efforts to help develop infrastructure—and there is still much to be done,” Welling confirmed.