Trey Kemp and John Colligan have started work at Crown Colony Country Club in Lufkin to restore greens plus much more.
Golf course architects Trey Kemp and John Colligan have started a project to restore the playing conditions at Crown Colony Country Club in Lufkin in eastern Texas.
Originally designed by Bruce Devlin and Robert Von Hagge, Crown Colony opened in 1979. The semi-private club offers stay-and-play packages.
“The course has been kept in great shape over the years, but the greens have gotten smaller, the bunkers have lost their original shapes and the time has come for many of the components to be updated,” Kemp said in a media release announcing the news.
Work will include expanding the greens, which have shrunk, as most greens do over time. Kemp and Colligan have enlisted Sanders Golf Course Construction to help rebuild the greens and the bunkers. Other work will focus on the course’s bridges, tree trimming, tees and drainage.
“The renovation will address aesthetics, playability and maintenance elements of the course in an effort to take it back to its original grandeur,” Colligan said in the media release. “Trey and I are very honored to have this opportunity to restore such a great piece of Texas golf history.”
Kemp and Colligan’s renovation began April 1 and is scheduled to be completed in October.
Kemp and Colligan have teamed up on past projects such as Brackenridge Park Golf Course in San Antonio, Stevens Park Golf Course in Dallas and Texas Rangers Golf Club in Arlington, Texas.
Jerry Pate Design will upgrade the playing surfaces and bunkers at a massive Dominican Republic resort.
Casa de Campo, the sprawling destination in the Dominican Republic with three resort golf courses, has announced plans to restore its Pete Dye-designed Teeth of the Dog layout starting in January of 2025.
Teeth of the Dog – named for the small, sharp rocks along the shore – is widely considered one of the best courses in the Caribbean. Opened in 1971, the layout features seven dramatic holes that play tight enough to the ocean to get a player’s socks wet. The course not only was built by the legendary Dye, he lived there with his wife, Alice, for years, and some of his ashes were spread on No. 8 of Teeth of the Dog after he died in 2020.
The restoration will be done by Jerry Pate Design, the company owned by the winner of the 1976 U.S. Open and the 1982 Players Championship. After that latter victory, Pate threw Dye into the water on the new Players Stadium Course at TPC Sawgrass that Dye had recently designed.
The Pete Dye-designed Teeth of the Dog course at Casa de Campo in the Dominican Republic (Courtesy of Casa de Campo/Matthew Majka)
Much of the work to be done at Teeth of the Dog is cosmetic. All tees, fairways and greens will be re-grassed with Dynasty Paspalum, which is ideal for seaside courses, especially one like Teeth of the Dog where ocean spray easily can blow onto the golf holes. The fairways will be sand-capped three inches deep, which promotes firm and bouncy turf ideal for golf.
Pate’s team also will expand the current greens back to their original sizes, with some slight recontouring. All greenside bunkers will be reshaped and expanded to flat bottoms with enhanced faces for a sharper, more dramatic look. Other work includes renovating the cart paths.
Work is expected to be completed by November 2025.
“I have long admired Pete Dye, as he was a creative genius who transformed the modern game of golf with his immense talent and imagination, and no course typifies that more than Teeth of the Dog,” Pate said in a media release announcing the restoration. “The layout is truly one of the best in the world, and our job is to preserve Pete’s lifeworks and put a bit more bite back into Teeth of the Dog.”
Casa de Campo’s Teeth of the Dog in the Dominican Republic (Jason Lusk/Golfweek)
The resort’s other two Dye-designed courses will remain open to guests. The 27-hole Dye Fore course features many holes along incredible jungle cliffs above a river with long views down toward the ocean, while the 18-hole Links course plays through the center of the 7,000-acre property with wider fairways and tricky greens.
The resort as a whole is massive with a world-class marina, a smorgasbord of dining options, a wide assortment of activities ranging from shooting sports to the beach and one of the best beach bars in the world. The property includes an assortment of accommodations ranging from hotel rooms to luxury villas frequently rented by top celebrities.
The updates to Teeth of the Dog will be the first large-scale work to the course since it opened.
“We will miss Teeth of the Dog for most of 2025, but we are excited and honored to take Pete’s masterpiece to a new level and completely restore the integrity of his legendary course to new heights,“ Gilles Gagon, longtime friend of Dye and the golf director emeritus and senior director of golf sales at the resort, said in the media release. “With all the many years Pete and I worked together, I know he would be beyond pleased with the upcoming work to be done on the course that ignited his stellar career and legacy as one of the world’s premier golf architects.”
An 18-hole course will be built alongside an already existing short course by Tiger Woods.
Nicklaus Design has started construction on an 18-hole course at Jack’s Bay Club in Eleuthera, The Bahamas.
Jack’s Bay Club is a 1,200-acre resort club and community that already features a 10-hole short course named Playground that was designed by Tiger Woods’ TGR Design firm. The Nicklaus Design course will be the 18-hole, full-size counterpart to Woods’ short course.
The new layout is scheduled to open in 2025 and will be branded as the first Jack Nicklaus Heritage course. Jack’s Bay Club also will be the only Nicklaus-branded community in the Bahamas.
Jack Nicklaus himself is not involved in the project. Instead, Chad Goetz, a senior design associate at Nicklaus Design, will oversee the creation of the layout. Doug Maslo, director of development and construction for Jack’s Bay, will oversee the construction.
The course will feature several oceanside holes while interior holes will cover land said to include rolling terrain, lakes and blue holes that connect with the ocean.
“This may be the most spectacular piece of land that I have been blessed to work with in my career – this is the opportunity of a lifetime,” Goetz, who has designed courses around the world for Nicklaus Design over the past 25 years, said in a media release announcing that construction has started. “We want to create a course at Jack’s Bay that harmonizes with the environment and features strategic shot-making opportunities. Most of all, we want to create a course that is fun for all types of players and immerses them in the natural splendor of this remarkable piece of land.”
The routing and site plan by Nicklaus Design for an 18-hole course at Jack’s Bay Club in the Bahamas (Courtesy of Jack’s Bay Club)
Nicklaus Design is part of Nicklaus Companies, which Jack Nicklaus founded but is now controlled by American businessman Howard Milstein, who owns 8AM Golf. That family of companies includes Golf Magazine, Golf.com, Miura Golf and other golf brands.
Jack’s Bay Club is being developed by Eleuthera Properties Ltd. The club includes four miles of oceanfront property and a wide assortment of high-end amenities.
Check out the photos of the renovated host site for the 2024 men’s and women’s NCAA Championships.
Omni La Costa Resort and Spa in Carlsbad, California, has announced June 1 as the full reopening date of its Championship Course, which has been rebranded the North Course after an extensive renovation by the architectural team of Gil Hanse and Jim Wagner.
The opening to resort guests and members follows the NCAA Division I Women’s (May 17-22) and Men’s (May 24-29) Championships on the North Course. The layout is also slated to host those college championships in 2025 and 2026.
Hanse and Wagner implemented significant changes to the North layout. Among the renovations: A new drivable par-4 11th was built, the green of the par-3 16th was repositioned in a fashion reminiscent of Augusta National Golf Club’s No. 12, and the par-5 18th was stretched to more than 600 yards with water on both sides of the fairway.
Omni La Costa Resort and Spa in Carlsbad, California (Courtesy of Omni La Costa Resort and Spa)
The revised layout will feature six sets of tees that play from 4,500 to 7,500 yards. Other changes include transitioning irrigation lines that will continue to use reclaimed water, the removal of several man-made ponds and the reintroduction of natural barrancas that feature drought-tolerant and native species of plants.
“The North Course is now positioned to return to its stature as one of the top venues for championship golf in Southern California,” Hanse said in a media release announcing the opening date and completion of work. “We were able to combine a respect for the natural contours, landforms and vegetation with an emphasis on strategic design. This combination of beauty and interest should prove enjoyable for everyday play by members and resort guests, while asking compelling questions to be answered by the best players in the world during championship events.”
Originally designed by Dick Wilson and opened in 1965, the North layout had been renovated previously several times. It was part of a resort with a tournament pedigree that includes hosting the PGA Tour’s Mercedes Championship from 1969 to 1998, the inaugural WGC-Accenture Match Play in 1999 and the LPGA’s Kia Classic in 2010 and 2012.
The resort also announced its Legends Course has been rebranded to South Course. Both the North and South were the courses’ original names before being changed to Champions and Legends.
A renovated guest room at Omni La Costa Resort and Spa in Carlsbad, California (Courtesy of Omni La Costa Resort and Spa)
The resort also will feature a reimagined practice facility designed by Beau Welling that will include Toptracer technology. It’s all part of an extensive multi-year renovation to the entire resort that stretches from guest rooms and villas to the spa, lobby bar and meeting spaces.
“Working with the ‘best of the best’ course architects like Gil Hanse and his design team is a prime example of our continued commitment and investment to be in the highest echelons of U.S. golf destinations,” the resort’s managing director, Craig Martin, said in the media release. “This transformation signals a full return to championship glory at Omni La Costa and joins the now-completed renovation of the property as a whole resulting in an elevated experience for our members and resort guests to enjoy for decades to come.”
Trev Dormer plans to do some “different, quirky things” in his renovation of a Nebraska nine-holer.
Canadian golf architect Trev Dormer, perhaps best known in the industry for his work as an associate for the team of Bill Coore and Ben Crenshaw, has signed on for his first solo project.
Working with the farming family behind the development of the popular new Landmand Golf Club in eastern Nebraska, Dormer will completely renovate the family’s nearby nine-hole course at Old Dane Golf Club in Dakota City, Nebraska.
The Andersen family bought an 18-hole course in 2007 and converted it to nine holes, the current Old Dane. Dormer’s plan is to tear out the entire course and introduce a 12-hole routing that can be played as loops of six, nine or 12 holes across 93 acres of what is currently flat ground. Dormer’s team will build a lake that will provide fill to introduce elevation changes.
“There will be different ways to play the course – I just wanted to get as much golf on the property as I could,” Dormer, who recently completed his work at the new Point Hardy Golf Club at Cabot Saint Lucia in the Caribbean, said in a media release announcing the renovation of Old Dane. “It’s a dead flat site, so I’m trying to do some different, quirky things – a tee shot over the previous green for example. I think it will be significantly more fun and more interesting, and I hope it raises some questions among those who play it.”
Trev Dormer’s routing plans for the soon-to-be-remodeled Old Dane Golf Club in Dakota City, Nebraska (Courtesy of Old Dane Golf Club/Trev Dormer)
The current version of Old Dane will shut down in October, with Dormer and his crew immediately beginning the renovation, which will include the removal of the current driving range. Dormer expects the new, walking-only version of Old Dane to open in 2026.
The operators expect the green fees to remain substantially near the current $15 for nine holes and $25 for a double-loop of 18 holes. Dormer said he hopes to attract new players, especially children and families, to what will be an entirely new course.
“There will not be a single square yard of ground on the property that is untouched by the plow,” Dormer said.
The Andersen family has been in the golf news in recent years after employing King-Collins Golf Course Design to build the large-scale Landmand, which opened in 2022 to become the Golfweek’s Best No. 1 public-access layout in Nebraska and tie for No. 26 among all modern courses in the U.S.
Old Dane sits even closer to the Iowa border, about an 8-mile drive to the northeast of Landmand. Old Dane is about a 15-minute drive from Sioux City, Iowa, and is close to Sioux Gateway Airport.
“This project is about finishing what we didn’t completely do when we built the course originally,” owner Will Andersen said in the media release. “We bought the course because my dad wanted a place to go and hang out with his friends, and we achieved that, but we didn’t do that much with the golf course. The irrigation system is 23 years old, and it’s falling apart.”
Trev Dormer, right, speaks with Bill Coore, center, and Ben Crenshaw during construction of the recently completed Point Hardy Golf Club at Cabot Saint Lucia. (Jason Lusk/Golfweek)
Dormer worked briefly with King-Collins on Landmand, and Andersen was impressed with Dormer’s efforts. Dormer started his career in the early 2000s and has worked with several top architects including Ron Prichard, Rod Whitman, Nicklaus Design and Gil Hanse.
“When I thought about rebuilding Old Dane, I had a chat with Rob Collins (of King-Collins), and he confirmed my thought that Trevor would be the right candidate to do the job,” Andersen said.
Cabot Highlands in Scotland reveals the name and logo for its new Tom Doak-designed layout.
Cabot Highlands in Inverness, Scotland, has chosen a name for its new Tom Doak-designed course that is now scheduled to open for preview play in 2025: Old Petty.
The name is a nod to the Old Petty Church, which was built in 1839 and sits off what will become the 16th green. The now-unused church is believed to sit at the site of an even older church, and the Old Petty Church is reported to have hosted an unusual custom: Mourners in the early 1800s would run to the church’s graveyard during funerals while carrying the coffin.
The logo for the new Old Petty course will be the highland cow, or “Hairy Coo” as the locals call them.
Cabot revealed the logo, based on a highland cow, for Old Petty, the new course being built by Tom Doak in Scotland. (Courtesy of Cabot)
Cabot revealed Doak’s planned routing for Old Petty last summer, with holes passing a 400-year-old castle that provided the previous name for the property, Castle Stuart, before the Canadian-based Cabot bought it and rebranded the northern Scottish resort in 2022.
Old Petty will be on the southwest side of the property’s original Castle Stuart Golf Links built by Mark Parsinen and Gil Hanse, which ranks as the No. 4 modern course in Great Britain and Ireland. Built on land that was previously farmed, Old Petty will wrap down and around an estuary, offering stunning views and a layout that crisscrosses in a huge shared fairway for Nos. 1 and 18.
Cabot also plans to extend the unique white clubhouse to include a new whiskey and cigar bar, a clubhouse grill bar and a chophouse restaurant.
Check out several recent illustrations that provide a glimpse at how Old Petty might look.
Check out the photos of architect Beau Welling’s renovation to Atlanta Country Club.
Atlanta Country Club in Marietta, Georgia, has completed a renovation of its golf course that was originally designed by Willard Byrd and opened in 1966.
Beau Welling and his firm undertook the multi-faceted work that included new grass, rebuilt greens, extensive bunker renovations and more as the club attempts to attract top-tier tournaments.
The club hosted the Atlanta Classic on the PGA Tour from 1967 to 1996. It also was home to the 1968 U.S. Senior Amateur, the 1971 U.S. Women’s Amateur and was the site of the first Players Championship on the PGA Tour in 1974, which was won by Jack Nicklaus.
Welling and senior designer Scott Benson’s goal was to increase playability and foster a communal golf experience while modernizing the layout.
No. 18 of Atlanta Country club after the recent renovation by Beau Welling (Courtesy of PGA Tour)
“Our team is very proud of the work we’ve done to reinvigorate both the golf course and the larger campus while preserving the long-standing ideals of which Atlanta Country Club is rightfully proud,” Welling said in a media release announcing completion of the project. “For many years Byrd’s design challenged the game’s greats as a prominent venue for championship golf. With this renovation, Atlanta Country Club will no doubt continue to be a true test for the elite player, but I’m even more excited about what this will do for the membership and their guests who will enjoy the elevated playability and sense of community that we hope to inspire with all of our designs.”
Of particular note, the par-3 third and par-5 11th holes were extensively redesigned. Other work included:
All the greens were rebuilt with new 007XL Bentgrass.
Hydronics temperature control systems were placed under each of the greens, through which water can be pumped to cool down the greens in the hot Atlanta summers.
The fairways were switched from Bermuda grass to Zorro Zoysia, which should provide firmer playing conditions.
Thirteen forward tees were added.
Several fairway and greenside bunkers were adjusted to recalibrate strategy, and the traps received Bunker Solutions technology to increase drainage and improve appearance.
All the irrigation and drainage systems were replaced.
Several cart paths were rerouted.
The practice area was reworked to include a range that is 40 percent larger, and a multi-green short-game area was added.
A patio was added to the back of the clubhouse overlooking the 18th
“As a membership, we are excited that the exceptional golf and overall experience at Atlanta Country Club is getting even better,” World Golf Hall-of-Famer and three-time major champion Larry Nelson, a club member, said in the media release. “We recognized now is the right time to look toward the future and how this renovation can help us achieve our goals as a club, and we could not be happier with the work Beau and his team have done to cement our legacy as stewards of the game for generations to come.”
Bill Coore and Ben Crenshaw turn up the volume with The Chain at Streamsong.
BOWLING GREEN, Fla. – There are expectations for architects as they design a golf hole. Length, width, severity of contours, difficulty, placement of the green – there’s room for creativity, sure, but stray too far from tradition and a few eyebrows certainly will be raised.
Except for short par 3s. Great architects have long let their imaginations wander with the most miniature of holes on many acclaimed courses.
“It seems that’s there a theme that every wonderful, great course I’ve ever seen always includes a little short par 3 somewhere,” said Ben Crenshaw, the two-time Masters champion, golf historian and design partner with Bill Coore. “Short par 3s are pretty tantalizing for a lot of people. There’s so many brilliant examples of that. It just adds spice.”
Coore and Crenshaw have included many such holes on the dozens of golf courses they have designed together. Often not much over 120 yards or even shorter, these pint-sized par 3s are famed for offering intrigue as players plan for birdies but often pencil in bogeys or worse on their scorecards.
Soon comes a new chance to play a string of such holes as Streamsong opens all of its newest short course, The Chain, to preview play March 31. Until then, the resort is allowing limited preview play on less than the full course as it continues to grow in. The Chain is expected to fully open to resort play later this year.
The new par-3 course, The Chain, at Streamsong in Florida (Courtesy of Streamsong/Matt Hahn)
Built by Coore and Crenshaw, The Chain will offer 19 holes ranging from 41 to 293 yards, each offering a vast teeing area that allows players to pick a length. Want to play No. 8 with a driver? Step back to the huge metal chain link sunk into the ground and swing away. Want to play the same hole at 170? Go for it. It’s totally up to each group, or even each player. No. 1 can be 57 yards or 110, all the way to No. 19 at that ranges from 115 to 145.
The resort never refers to par for any hole, though the vast majority of them will require just one full shot for most players. Call them par 3s, or call them whatever you like – the resort’s operators don’t really care as long as players are having a blast.
The course was laid out in such a way that players can take a six-hole or a 13-hole loop, but resort operators expect most to play all 19. The Chain is a short walk from The Lodge at Streamsong, so late-afternoon tee times will be at a premium after many players tackle one of the resort’s highly acclaimed full-size courses – Red, Blue and Black – in the mornings. The Chain should prove especially popular during Streamsong’s peak winter season, when curtailed daylight might prevent a second 18-hole loop, and among players arriving to the resort mid-afternoon or simply those who just don’t want to stretch their golf to 36 traditional holes a day.
Nos. 18 and 19 of the new short course, The Chain, at Streamsong in Florida (Courtesy of Streamsong/Matt Hahn)
Also expect to encounter plenty of fun shots on The Chain. Coore and Crenshaw were granted a feast of freedom in designing the layout that maxes out at 3,026 yards, and they dreamed up plenty of internal contours and ground features that will only improve as the greens and their sandy surrounds continue to mature and become even more firm and bouncy.
“We can do things with a shorter course, where players are hitting shorter shots and you can be a bit more aggressive with the greens and some of the things,” Coore said recently after a tour of the layout alongside Crenshaw. “Things are in more of a reduced scale, and you can take more liberties and a few more risks to do greens and surrounds with interesting things that you might not be able to do with a regulation course. …
“For years, people have said (about full-size courses), ‘You can’t do that, it won’t be accepted, that’s too radical.’ With a par-3 course, you can kind of dispense with that a little and say, ‘It’s a par-3 course; we can do that.’ If you’re in our profession, it gives you freedom to work.”
The Chain includes a bunker in the middle of a green at No. 6, the aforementioned No. 8 that can play for many as a short par 4, and several trips across water and quarries at the former phosphate mining site. There are plenty of slopes that will help feed golf balls onto the putting surfaces and more devious contours that can sweep a ball off a green.
The tee markers at The Chain at Streamsong are huge chain links left over from mining. But instead of markers on each side of the tee, these links mark the front and back positions for each tee, which can stretch for dozens of yards, allowing players to select the yardage they will play each hole. (Jason Lusk/Golfweek)
The hole most likely to be relived over post-round beverages is the 209-yard (max) 11th, where a punchbowl green awaits on the opposite side of a pond, just a thin slit in the nearly vertical bank showing the putting surface from the tee. Players can try to just crest the forward mounds with their tee shots, or they can intentionally take it deep past the flag and trust that the ball will roll backward onto the green – this might be the safest route, and it’s a blast to watch balls scamper back toward the putting surface as if pulled by a string.
“Probably most people would point to that hole,” Coore said when asked what he anticipates will be the biggest talker among the 19 holes. “You play over the beautiful lake. It used to be a flat piece of ground out there, and we just mined a bunch of sand out of it and made a big hole.”
But don’t expect No. 11 to be a pushover, even with slopes on all sides of the green to feed the ball toward the hole – especially for players who flirt with the water short or right in trying to play a shot to the yardage instead of just hitting it long. Streamsong Black, the 18-hole design by Gil Hanse, already offers a famous punchbowl green, but The Chain’s variation is much smaller and tighter in scope, fitting with Coore and Crenshaw’s focus on right-sized targets for the par-3 course.
“I think the long punchbowl hole, in this little family of holes, will probably be maybe the toughest hole because it’s a long carry,” Crenshaw said. “It’s basically an old idea if you have a long shot across something, that you have a gathering green, a punchbowl. That may be one at the top of the list” that players remember.
The new Bucket putting course at Streamsong in Florida (Courtesy of Streamsong/Scott Powers)
Before or after a loop around The Chain, players can tackle The Bucket, the 2.6-acre putting course that sits within the par-3 course. Drinks and snacks also will be available onsite with the resort planning to add a clubhouse later, surely making the new complex a preferred hangout for resort guests.
Coore and Crenshaw also designed the Red Course at Streamsong, which opened in 2012 and ranks as the No. 2 Golfweek’s Best public-access layout in Florida and ties for No. 16 among all resort courses in the United States. The resort’s Blue Course by Tom Doak also opened in 2012 and ranks No. 3 among Florida’s public layouts and No. 20 among all U.S. resort courses, while the Black by Hanse opened in 2017 to become No. 4 in Florida and No. 23 on Golfweek’s Best resort list.
Coore said he’s always loved the allure of the site, where sand was piled high for decades as part of phosphate mining operations. The name of The Chain references the dragline chains used by miners, and The Bucket is so named because of the massive scoops once used to move earth at the mining site, one of which has been placed at the new putting course.
“People love it when they get here,” he said. “It’s a little mysterious the first time, but when they see it, they say ‘I’ve never seen anything like this in Florida.’ It has been so much fun to be a part of it.”
Crenshaw summed it up: “We do believe the Chain will be a positive extension of the journey.”
StrackaLine offers a hole-by-hole course guide to Bay Hill and the Arnold Palmer Invitational presented by Mastercard.
Bay Hill Club & Lodge in Orlando, site of the 2024 Arnold Palmer Invitational Presented by Mastercard on the PGA Tour, opened in 1961 with a design by Dick Wilson. Arnold Palmer took over the property on lease in 1970, bought it in 1975 and made adjustments to the course multiple times over the following decades.
Bay Hill will play to 7,466 yards with a par of 72. The layout is one of the toughest on the PGA Tour each year.
Thanks to yardage books provided by StrackaLine – the maker of detailed yardage books for thousands of courses around the world – we can see exactly the challenges the pros face this week at Bay Hill.
StrackaLine takes you through the Bear Trap and the rest of PGA National’s Champion Course.
The Champion Course at PGA National – site of this week’s Cognizant Classic in The Palm Beaches on the PGA Tour – was designed by the team of Tom Fazio and George Fazio and opened in 1981. The course has been renovated by Jack Nicklaus over the past two decades.
Located in Palm Beach Gardens, Florida, and home to a stretch of holes dubbed the Bear Trap – Nos. 15, 16 and 17 – the Champion has major history. It was host to the 1983 Ryder Cup, in which the United States beat Europe 14 ½-13 ½, and it hosted the 1987 PGA Championship won by Larry Nelson in a playoff over Lanny Wadkins. Now PGA National is the first stop on the PGA Tour’s annual Florida Swing.
The course will play to 7,147 yards with a par of 71 for the Cognizant Classic. No. 6 plays as a par 5 for resort guests (and is marked as such on the following yardage map), but it counts as a par 4 for the PGA Tour pros.
PGA National Resort is home to six courses, including two nontraditional layouts that include the new Match Course by Andy Staples, which features holes that can be played from a multitude of lengths with no set par, and the new nine-hole, par-3 Staple Course.
Thanks to yardage books provided by StrackaLine – the maker of detailed yardage books for thousands of courses around the world – we can see exactly the challenges the pros face this week at PGA National.
