Tag: Ben Crenshaw

Photos: Point Hardy Golf Club at Cabot Saint Lucia nears completion, and you need to see it to believe it

See the photos of some of the most visually dramatic oceanside golf holes ever built.

What do you get when you hire the famed design team of Bill Coore and Ben Crenshaw to build a course on one of the most dramatic meetings of land and sea imaginable? Ben Cowan-Dewar, co-founder and CEO of the Canadian-based Cabot Collection, has his answer in the Caribbean nation of St. Lucia.

Scheduled to open in December, Point Hardy Golf Club at Cabot Saint Lucia is perched above the Atlantic Ocean on cliffs that offer a simply ridiculous set of visuals on more than half the club’s 18 holes. Picture any of the most scenic holes anywhere – Bandon Dunes Golf Resort in Oregon, Pebble Beach Golf Links or Cypress Point in California, even the original Cabot courses in Nova Scotia as famous examples – and Point Hardy matches them all for you-gotta-be-joking views, proximity to the ocean and pulse-raising golf shots over cauldrons of salt spray.

All the holes at Point Hardy, including the inland holes atop a ridge or playing through a valley, are within sight of the ocean, and eight of them offer a chance to rinse a golf ball in salt water. On a day when the trade winds kick it up a notch, golfers will feel ocean spray at several points along the routing.

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The hard part wasn’t building a dramatic course on the steep ground at the northern tip of the volcanic island. On a recent walk around the course as construction of Point Hardy nears completion, Coore said the toughest part was building golf holes on which the fun factor at least approaches the level of the visuals.

“Playability, playability, playability,” said Coore, who has routed some of the best courses to be constructed in the world over the past 30 years. “It would have been very easy to build a course where the views are incredible but that just wasn’t any fun to play, because the terrain is so steep. The challenge was to make it fun, to make people want to play it again.”

Did the team succeed on that front? Time will tell, and Golfweek will have plenty more on Cabot Saint Lucia in the coming months. In the meantime, just take in the incredible photos below of the two strings of golf holes closest to the ocean at Point Hardy.

Keep in mind with the following photos that the course is still in grow-in and that several holes haven’t been grassed yet, so brown areas on greens and fairways seen in these photos are completely expected as the grass takes root. The bunkers have not yet been filled with sand and appear as natural scrapes in the photos. This is still very much a work in progress.

And to answer a few questions we know are coming:

  • Point Hardy will allow some versions of public-access play early on as its membership role is filled, with details still being determined. Eventually the course will be at least mostly private.
  • Yes, it will be expensive compared to most U.S. daily-fee prices. Green fees and stay-and-play options have yet to be set, but don’t expect it to be cheap on a site like this. A vehicular analogy: This course is a Lamborghini full of bravado and pulse-racing moments, not a four-cylinder Kia that simply gets the job done, and the pricing will be along those lines.
  • Will it be among the best courses in the world? There’s no way to know where it will sit on Golfweek’s Best rankings of top courses in the Caribbean, Mexico, Central America and the Atlantic Islands until our raters visit and offer their scores. But don’t be surprised to see Point Hardy very near the top of that list.
  • Cabot Saint Lucia includes a housing development, ranging from fairway villas all the way up to mansions priced at millions of dollars. Besides the golf, there will be a beach club in a gorgeous bay and a full slate of luxury amenities. There are no plans for a traditional hotel. Accommodations will be available as rental luxury residences and villas.
  • Point Hardy Golf Club will play to 6,616 yards with a par of 71.

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Streamsong in Florida to begin construction on The Chain, a non-traditional short course, in March

The Chain by Bill Coore and Ben Crenshaw will feature holes ranging in length from 90 to 275 yards when it opens this year.

Streamsong Resort in Florida – already home to three highly regarded courses – will begin construction on its short course, The Chain, in early March this year, with a few recent tweaks and a new routing that has been extended to 19 holes.

Plans for The Chain were announced in 2022, with the architecture team of Bill Coore and Ben Crenshaw designing what was going to be 18 holes that could be divided into a six-hole loop, a 12-hole loop or the full 18. Streamsong officials expect to open The Chain this fall.

Environmental considerations led Coore to tweak the original routing, slightly moving a few sites of tees and greens. The new routing also provided room for another hole, with the six-hole loop the same and the changes coming to the freshly altered 13-hole loop. The Chain also will feature a two-acre putting green and its own clubhouse, plus food and drink options.

Streamsong Chain Bucket
The Bucket putting course for The Chain short course at Streamsong in Florida was named for the dragline buckets used in former mining operations at the site. A 22,000-pound namesake bucket was recently installed at the site and will be a feature of the 2-acre putting course. (Courtesy of Streamsong)

Holes on The Chain will range from 90 to more than 275 yards. The entire layout will be about 3,000 yards.

The Chain will sit on roughly 100 acres directly across from Streamsong’s Lodge, allowing players to stroll over for more golf either before or after a round on one of the resort’s full-size courses. Streamsong’s Red Course ranks No. 2 in Florida on Golfweek’s Best list of public-access courses, with the Black No. 3 on that list and the Blue in the No. 4 spot. Each of those courses also rank inside the top 60 on Golfweek’s Best list of top modern courses in the U.S.

Streamsong Resort was founded just over a decade ago by mining company Mosaic, and the resort was purchased earlier this month by KemperSports, a nationwide owner and operator of 140 courses.

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KemperSports buys Streamsong in Florida; Could a fourth full-size course be on the way?

In a wide-ranging Q&A, the CEO of KemperSports discusses the sale and the possibility of a fourth course.

Streamsong Resort in Florida opened in 2012, and aside from its original two golf courses and the addition of a lodge and a third course, a major talking point has always been its owner, Mosaic Company.

One of the world’s largest phosphate producers, Mosaic had for decades mined the remote Central Florida site where Streamsong was constructed, about an hour’s drive southeast of Tampa and 90 minutes southwest of Orlando. Those past mining activities defined the land, leaving huge piles of sand that over time had turned into surreal dunes. The landscape makes the three courses at Streamsong very different than just about anything else in Florida.

But Mosaic was still first and foremost a mining company. It hired golf management company KemperSports of Illinois to operate the golf courses from the start, and two years ago KemperSports took over management of the entire resort, including hospitality. For several years there was speculation that Mosaic would sell the resort at some time.

That time has come, as Mosaic has sold Streamsong Resort to its longtime management partner, KemperSports. As first reported by the Fire Pit Collective, the sale price was $160 million, confirmed by Mosaic in a news release Friday. The acquisition included three golf courses, two clubhouses, the Streamsong Lodge and other amenities, all on 7,000 acres as part of the deal. Just over 2,000 of those acres are in use now as part of the resort.

The Lodge at Streamsong in Florida (Courtesy of Streamsong)

Each of Streamsong’s three courses – the Red by designers Bill Coore and Ben Crenshaw, the Blue by Tom Doak and the Black by Gil Hanse and Jim Wagner – ranks in the top 60 on Golfweek’s Best list of top modern courses in the United States. The Red ranks No. 2 on Golfweek’s Best list of public-access layouts in Florida, with the Black No. 3 and the Blue No. 4 on that list. Streamsong is one of just a handful of resorts to have so many highly ranked courses.

“We’re very excited,” Steve Skinner, the CEO of KemperSports, told Golfweek on Friday. “As you know, we’ve been involved with this property since almost Day 1, for over 10 years. It’s such a special project and such a special property, we’re just really excited. It’s a rare place in golf and just really iconic.”

Skinner – a trained lawyer who has worked at KemperSports since 1998 – described the acquisition as having been competitive with several other potential buyers looking to take advantage of golf’s resurgent popularity since the start of the COVID pandemic in 2020. He said there aren’t many properties like Streamsong with its three courses, and interest was high.

KemperSports has 140 properties in its management stable, Skinner said, including 15 courses it owns and another dozen it leases. Those properties under management include both private clubs and public-access layouts, and the company also operates a division focused on youth and recreational sports venues. KemperSports was founded in 1978 by Steve Lesnick, who still serves as its chairman, and in 2022 the company took on several new investors who provided capital for expansion, including the Streamsong acquisition.

Having managed Streamsong’s golf for a decade and the entire resort in recent years, there isn’t a tremendous learning curve for KemperSports as it takes over the resort. KemperSports doesn’t plan any changes to the staff, and Skinner said he has faith in the people working at the resort to keep a focus on customers and continuous improvements. Skinner spoke to Golfweek of several plans for the resort, both in the short and long-term.

The biggest change coming soon will be the development of The Chain, a non-traditional, short, 18-hole course by the team of Coore and Crenshaw to be built directly across from the resort’s 228-room hotel. Streamsong announced the plans to build The Chain a year ago.

Is even more golf on the horizon for Streamsong? Read on for that and more from Skinner. This discussion has been edited for length.

Check the yardage book: Kapalua’s Plantation Course for the PGA Tour’s 2023 Sentry Tournament of Champions

StrackaLine offers hole-by-hole maps for the Hawaiian host of the 2023 Sentry Tournament of Champions.

Kapalua’s Plantation Course, site of this week’s 2023 Sentry Tournament of Champions on the PGA Tour, was built in 1991 – the first course designed by the now-famous architecture duo of Bill Coore and Ben Crenshaw.

The mountainous layout is ranked by Golfweek’s Best as the No. 2 public-access layout in Hawaii and ties for No. 37 among all modern courses built since 1960 in the United States. The course, which features grand ocean views and the most significant elevation changes of any course on Tour, was extensively restored in 2019.

The Plantation maxes out at 7,596 yards and a par of 73, with only one par 3 on the back nine. With several downhill tee shots and the possibility of drives rolling out past 400 yards, the course usually plays significantly shorter than the yardage might indicate.

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. Check out the maps of each hole below.

Golfweek’s Best 2022: Top public and private golf courses in Arizona

The top public-access offerings in this stacked golf state go on for miles, especially in the Phoenix-Scottsdale region.

Arizona is a gifted golf state, with desert courses of all kinds to suit any budget or taste. Especially in the region of Phoenix and Scottsdale, there are miles and miles of fairways to welcome residents, visitors and seasonal snowbirds alike.

Tops among the public-access offerings is We-Ko-Pa’s Saguaro Course, designed by famed architects Bill Coore and Ben Crenshaw and which celebrates its 20th anniversary this year. One of two courses at the facility operated by a casino next door, the Saguaro Course ranks No. 1 in Arizona on Golfweek’s Best Courses You Can Play list for each state.

MORE COURSES: Best Modern | Best Classic | Top 200 Resort |
Top 200 Residential | Top 100 Best You Can Play

Golfweek’s Best offers many lists of course rankings, with the list of top public-access courses among the most popular. All the courses on this list allow public access in some fashion, be it standard daily green fees, through a resort or by staying at an affiliated hotel. If there’s a will, there’s a tee time.

Also popular are the Golfweek’s Best rankings of top private courses in each state, and that list is likewise included below.

Puzzling putting year continued for Jordan Spieth in Memorial at Muirfield Village, but for the better

It’s been a puzzling year on the greens for the three-time major champion.

DUBLIN, Ohio – With Ben Crenshaw, one of the greatest putters the game has ever seen being The Memorial honoree, it was natural to ask players in the field who was the best with the short stick they’ve ever seen.

Jordan Spieth’s name popped up quite a bit.

“Jordan Spieth is up there,” Rory McIlroy said. “I think especially from that sort of middle distance, every putt he hits is just like the perfect speed. I think that’s one of the things I always notice when I play with Jordan.”

Spieth proved why his name popped up so many times in Thursday’s first round of Jack Nicklaus’ annual gathering at Muirfield Village Golf Club. He had 11 1-putt greens, gained 3.250 on the field with his putting and needed just 25 in all.

He made birdies from 12, 8, 12 and 7 feet and canned par saves of 7, 17, 8, 3, 7 and 10 feet en route to a 2-under-par 70.

Memorial: Thursday tee times | PGA Tour streaming on ESPN+ | Columbus Dispatch live blog

“I didn’t strike the ball really well at all and I putted great,” Spieth said. “Kind of the opposite of how things have been going, but I’ve been putting in a lot of work in with the putting and made a couple early and then just kept it going made a birdie early and kept it going.”

It’s been a puzzling year on the greens for the three-time major champion. For instance, he won the RBC Heritage despite saying he had one of his worst putting weeks in his PGA Tour career that week. And he ranks 173rd in Strokes Gained: Putting this year. In 2019, he ranked second.

“Same stuff,” Spieth said when asked what he’s working on. “Had some misreads, just been looking for the hole to catch a few, and let it get going. This morning might have been the best putting surfaces I’ve ever been on in my life, they were that good. So you knew there was no excuse, and then they were so quick that wherever you’re going to start, it’s just going to roll perfectly.”

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Memorial golf honoree Ben Crenshaw recalls first time he met Jack Nicklaus — in a bathroom

Jack Nicklaus laughed at Ben Crenshaw’s telling of the story.

DUBLIN, Ohio — The first time 2022 Memorial honoree Ben Crenshaw met tournament founder and host Jack Nicklaus included a bit of bathroom humor.

Crenshaw was a young and upcoming Texan who had grown up idolizing Nicklaus, 12 years his senior and already a golf legend, when the two PGA Tour players showed up at the 1971 U.S. Open at Merion Golf Club near Philadelphia.

“I’m watching the Masters every year since I was a little kid,” Crenshaw said Wednesday during the honoree ceremony, which also recognized co-honoree Charlie Sifford. “Every kid idolized Jack. I really wanted to meet him, so here we are at a practice round (at the U.S. Open) and I go into the locker room and here he comes.”

Nicklaus, at the top of his game and height of his fame, charged past the 19-year-old Crenshaw and up the stairs, blond hair waving.

Memorial: Thursday tee times | PGA Tour streaming on ESPN+

“He’s got the white shoes on and I’m going, ‘Oh my god, there he is,’” Crenshaw said. “He was by himself, didn’t have an entourage around him, so I thought, ‘This may be my chance.’ Like a little kid, I waited a bit and then ran up the stairs and there Jack was – using the restroom.”

Undeterred, or maybe better put in a panic, Crenshaw stuck out his hand while approaching Nicklaus and said, ‘Hi Jack, I’m Ben Crenshaw.’

“And he just said, ‘I’ll be with you in a minute.’”

Nicklaus laughed at Crenshaw’s telling of the story, later saying he was glad the story got told by the tournament honoree and not the host.

“Jack to me is a player who was conjured up from somewhere else,” Crenshaw said, turning serious. “He had power, touch and always knew what club to hit. I played with him and he would pull out that 1958 MacGregor 3-wood, and that thing won him a lot of tournaments.”

Crenshaw also addressed Nicklaus’ outstanding sportsmanship.

“Jack was always doing the right thing,” Crenshaw said. “I played with him in 1977 at the last round of the Masters and I did not play well. And Jack played the most magnificent round you ever saw. He did not miss a shot, but unbelievably he hit a 6-iron fat at No. 18 and made a bogey, and Tom Watson made this curling putt on 17 and beat him. We played twosomes and we went into the tent and signed the cards and Jack turned to Willie Peterson, his caddie, and said, ‘Gee, Willie, that’s too bad.’ I thought, ‘Is that all he’s going to say?’ If I’d have done that I’d have torn up the tent. … But that’s the kind of guy Jack Nicklaus is.”

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Watch: Streamsong surprisingly different than anything else in Florida

Red, Blue or Black? When it comes to Streamsong in Florida, why choose?

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BOWLING GREEN, Fla. – What’s my favorite course at Streamsong? Red, Blue or Black?

Golfers at the popular resort, which turns 10 this year, are constantly reviewing that very question about the three courses that all rank among the top 20 resort courses in the United States. My stock answer: The next one. And I’ll defend that simplified response on the basis that I’ll gladly take a day at any of the three courses built by Gil Hanse, Tom Doak or the team of Bill Coore and Ben Crenshaw.

There are noticeable differences between the layouts, but they are so tightly packed in the Golfweek’s Best rankings as to inevitably invite debate – that’s a big part of the fun. Ask me which you should play, and I’ll tell you to sample all three and get back to me.

Until you get that chance to visit the first time, or whether you’re a Streamsong veteran wanting to return, check out this video for a taste of golf that is different than anything else in the Sunshine State.

A star-studded, honky-tonk romp nets nearly $1M for a Texas muni. Will it be enough to save the historic course?

Negotiations between the university and the city are ongoing, and organizers admitted there’s plenty of work left.

AUSTIN, Texas — As soon as Verne Lundquist got the call, he knew he had to be part of the fun. Not just to enjoy the company of his buddies, many of whom he remembers from his time at Austin High School, but to help save a vital greenspace in the center of one of the nation’s hottest housing markets.

That’s why Lundquist – the 81-year-old sports broadcasting legend – was one of the many stars Sunday night at Imagine Muny, a Texas-sized gala at  the Moody Theater made famous by the TV show Austin City Limits. The event, which organizers say netted around $800,000 to help restore Lions Municipal Golf Course, was a bona fide success in terms of fundraising, but perhaps even greater was the awareness the evening brought to a cause that’s been dragging out for decades.

For those who’ve missed the backstory, the 141 acres on which Muny sits are extremely valuable. The City of Austin has conducted stakeholder meetings, asking for public input on zoning for the area, and boyhood friends Ben Crenshaw and Scott Sayers put together the Muny Conservancy, hoping to purchase the area for a reasonable price and preserve it for years to come.

The parcel is part of the 500 acres of University of Texas-owned land known as the Brackenridge Tract, and is considered the first fully desegregated municipal course south of the Mason-Dixon line. The city has leased 140 acres for Muny since 1936 and pays UT about $500,000 a year. If the parties don’t come to an understanding, the university could be free to lease the property to another entity, develop it or sell it.

Lukas Nelson waves after performing during the Imagine Muny gala at ACL Live’s Moody Theater on Sunday night. Nelson joined Eric Church, Asleep at the Wheel and Jimmie Vaughan. (Photo by Tyler Schmitt for the Muny Conservancy.)

But the outpouring of support at the event – which included appearances by musicians Eric Church, Lukas Nelson and Asleep at the Wheel, as well as a surprise visit by Jimmie Vaughan – certainly might help to lean opinions. Among those who were part of a special video presentation were celebrities Luke Wilson and Kyle Chandler. Sports personalities on hand included former PGA Tour pro Mark Brooks and former TCU head football coach and Texas special assistant Gary Patterson.

“Just look at this event. You get some sense of what this golf course, this beautiful place, means to so many people in this city,” Lundquist said while musical acts rotated through the famous theater’s stage.

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Lundquist – whose famous calls at the Masters include Jack Nicklaus’ birdie putt on 17 in 1986 that gave him the lead and Tiger Woods’ dramatic chip-in birdie on the 16th hole in 2005 – admittedly doesn’t get around like he used to. The national broadcaster lives in picturesque Steamboat Springs, Colorado, but he and his wife, Nancy, purchased a small condo in Austin three years ago and he comes back to his hometown for at least a few months each year.

More: Local golf icon unveils memorial for Morris Williams Jr. at Austin course

“I’ve known Scott Sayers and Ben Crenshaw for more years than they want me to admit,” Lundquist said, noting that his sister was a year behind Crenshaw in high school. “Whenever we’re back here, we want to be here to support this place. It’s an amazing undertaking. Really it is.”

Sayers, who helped coordinate the event, said it was a smashing success on multiple levels.

Scotty Sayers, left, and Ben Crenshaw enjoy a laugh during the Imagine Muny gala at ACL Live’s Moody Theater on Sunday night. The event netted around $800,000 for renovations to Lions Municipal Golf Course. (Photo by Tyler Schmitt for the Muny Conservancy.)

“The musical guests and the finish to the thing were as good as I’ve ever seen,” Sayers said. “And we did what we hoped to do financially, to be able to make improvements to Muny, which was important. But the awareness is the key – we need folks from the city and the university to both realize this isn’t something for a small subset of people, or just a few folks who are interested. This is a place for the entire community. I think this proved that.”

The conservancy hopes to partner with the city to keep Muny in the best shape possible before any decisions are made by the university on potential permanent uses for the property. Recently, a fleet of 62 new golf carts was introduced at the course and a new roof was constructed on the clubhouse, all with help from the city. The money raised at Imagine Muny will help with more renovations and improvements.

But the final decision is yet to come. Negotiations between the university and the city are ongoing, and Sayers admitted there’s plenty of work left.

“This is a critical stretch, for sure,” he said. “We just hope that whatever develops that we keep all 141 acres as greenspace. If the conservancy gets the course, and we hope that happens, renovations will take time, but will be worth it. It’s a place that just means too much to so many people.”

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Golfweek’s Best 30 under 30: The top golf courses opened since 1992 in the U.S.

Count down the top 30 courses of the past three decades, as judged by Golfweek’s panel of raters.

It’s been a crazy string of decades in golf design, with construction going gangbusters through the 1990s and early 2000s before grinding nearly to a complete halt after the financial crisis of 2007 and ’08. Things have picked up a bit in recent years, especially when considering high-end destinations scattered in far-flung locales around the U.S.

Through it all, these are the best 30 courses opened in the past 30 years in the U.S., as voted by Golfweek’s Best panel of raters.

The hundreds of members of our course-ratings panel continually evaluate courses and rate them based on our 10 criteria. They also file a single, overall rating on each course. Those overall ratings on each course are averaged to produce a final, cumulative rating.

This ranking is compiled from data included in the 2021 Golfweek’s Best Modern Courses list, and it focuses on the golf courses themselves, not on resorts or private clubs as a whole or other amenities. Each golf course included is listed with its average rating from 1 to 10, its location, architect(s), the year it opened and its status as a private club (p), a resort (r), a daily-fee operation (d) or a real estate development (re).

Other Golfweek’s Best lists include: