Ross's best known work includes, but is not limited to:

UNITED STATES (original designs):
Aronimink, PA (1928) / Biltmore, FL (1925) / Biltmore Forest, NC (1922) / CC of Birmingham, AL (1926, East & West courses) / Broadmoor, CO (1918) / Brookside CC, OH (1922) / Cedar Rapids CC, IA (1915) / Charles River, MA (1922) / Charlotte CC, NC (1915) / Daytona Beach, FL (1921, South course) / Dunedin, FL (1928) / Essex CC, MA (1917) / Fort Myers CC, FL (1917) / Franklin Hills, MI (1926) / French Lick, IN (1917, Ross course) / George Wright, MA (1938) / Glen Falls, NY (1912) / Granville, OH (1925) / Highlands, NC (1928) / Holston Hills, TN (1927) / Hyde Park, FL (1925) / Metacomet, RI (1925) / Mid Pines, NC (1921) / Oak Hill, NY (1923, East course) / Oakland Hills, MI (1916, North & South courses) / Pine Needles, NC (1927) / Pinehurst, NC (1901, No.1 course redesign; 1907, No.2 course; 1910, No.3 course; 1919, No.4 course) / Plainfield, NJ (1916) / Roaring Gap, NC (1925) / Salem, MA (1925) / Scioto, OH (1916) / Sedgefield, NC (1926) / Seminole, FL (1929) / Siwanoy, NY (1913) / Southern Pines, NC (1910) / Wannamoisett, RI (1914) / White Bear Yacht Club, MN (1915) / Worcester CC, MA (1913).

UNITED STATES (redesigns):
Augusta CC, GA (1926, major redesign of Hill course) / Congressional CC, MD (1930, Blue course modifications) / East Lake, GA (1913, redesign) / Grove Park Inn, NC (1924) / Interlachen, MN (1921, redesign) / Inverness, OH (1919, redesign) / Linville, NC (1924) / Wykagyl, NY (1919, redesign).

CANADA:
Banff Springs, Alb. (1924, expansion to 18 holes, subsequently redesigned by Stanley Thompson) / Mississaugua, Ont (1919, redesign) / St Charles CC, Winnipeg (1919, redesign).

Donald Ross and his younger brother Alec (who won the 1907 U.S. Open) were born in Dornoch in Scotland and both later emigrated to the USA. Donald Ross arrived in the United States aged 27, and soon after established his home in Pinehurst, North Carolina. From here he made his name as the most prolific golf course designer of his day, with a business that produced over 600 golf courses, and oversaw the work of thousands of people.

Ross's first venture out of his hometown of Dornoch was to St Andrews, where he served as an apprentice and learned much of his trade from Old Tom Morris. He returned to Dornoch to become the first professional and greenkeeper of the Dornoch Golf Club.

In 1899, at the suggestion of a Harvard professor named Robert Wilson, Ross invested his life savings in a trip to the United States. Wilson found him his first job at Oakley CC in Watertown, Massachusetts, but Ross was soon to move and take up an appointment as the golf professional at the Pinehurst Resort in North Carolina, where he began his course design career and eventually designed four courses. Ross was to design over 400 courses in the United States, some legendary names among them.

Of all the courses that bear his name, either as original designs or as renovation projects, he probably never saw even a third of them as finished projects, and another third he probably visited only once or twice. Given the constraints of train and car travel in those days, repeat visits were difficult to arrange. Although a voracious traveller, he did much of his design work from his home, a cottage behind Pinehurst No.2's third green. He worked from topographic maps, drew up blueprints, and wrote simple but sharply-worded instructions to his construction crews.

Few architects could match Ross's gift for designing a course that took the golfer on a wonderful tour of a property, while laying down a fair but challenging test of golf. Ross became a founding member and first president of the American Society of Golf Course Architects, a group that formed at Pinehurst in December 1947. Ross died while completing his final design at Raleigh CC in North Carolina in 1948.