Check out the photos of the freshly renovated Lagoon Course at Ponte Vedra Inn & Club in Florida.
Architect Bobby Weed has completed a nine-month renovation of the Lagoon Course at Ponte Vedra Inn & Club in northeast Florida in which the greens were rebuilt and resurfaced, among other improvements.
Partnering with MacCurrach Golf Construction and Joey Flinchbaugh, the director of agronomy at the club, Weed restored the greens of the Lagoon Course to their original sizes. The contouring of each green was enhanced to accommodate modern green speeds, and new irrigation was installed. The putting surfaces are now TifEagle Bermuda grass.
The Lagoon is one of two courses at Ponte Vedra Inn & Club, alongside the longer Ocean Course that was redesigned most recently by Weed in 2020. The front nine of the Lagoon was designed in 1961 by Robert Trent Jones Sr., and the back nine was added in 1978 by Joe Lee. In 2007, Weed redesigned the Lagoon and lengthened it to 6,025 yards with a par of 70.
The tees, fairways and rough of the Lagoon were re-grassed with TifTuf Bermuda; the bunkers were restored to their original flat-bottomed design with new drains, liners and sand; and the short-game and practice areas also were improved.
“Led by Herbert Peyton, chairman of Gate Petroleum, the Ponte Vedra Inn & Club has entrusted our firm for nearly 30 years to guide the evolution of the Ocean and Lagoon courses,” Weed said in a media release announcing the completion of the renovation. “The Lagoon’s shorter layout, with numerous half-par holes, offers a diverse, faster playing experience that perfectly complements the bolder Ocean Course.”
Check out a selection of photos of the course and resort below.
The Peninsula Club will be renovated by architect Beau Welling.
The Peninsula Club in Cornelius, North Carolina, has broken ground on an extensive golf course renovation project led by Beau Welling and his associate, Chase Webb.
The layout opened in 1990 with a design by Rees Jones on the shores of Lake Norman about a half hour’s drive north of Charlotte. The renovation is slated for completion in October 2024.
The routing of the private Peninsula Club will remain largely the same, but Welling plans a number of improvements. The course, including the greens, will be re-grassed with TifEagle Bermuda. Infrastructure will updated with a new irrigation system and drainage. Strategic tree clearing will improve views, fescue will be added to out-of-play areas and the total square footage of bunkering will be reduced.
Beau Welling (from left) with Nick McLennan, director of golf course grounds at the Peninsula Club, and Nick Mazzella, owner of the Mazzella Partnership (Courtesy of the Peninsula Club)
“After a couple of years of planning and preparation, we are excited to break ground on a project that will create a brand new feeling and playing experience for the golf course as well as other facilities for the club’s membership,” Beau Welling, founder and CEO of Beau Welling Design, said in a media release announcing the renovation. “We are proud to add to the tradition of excellence that the Peninsula Club has curated for decades, and we believe this project will enhance the guest and membership experience both on and off the course.”
A putting course will be added and the club’s practice area will be expanded to include two state-of-the-art teaching bays, among other capital improvements away from the course.
Refreshed greens make this coastal South Carolina layout by Jack Nicklaus play like new.
Pawleys Plantation Golf & Country Club near Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, reopened this month after a renovation by Nicklaus Design. The layout on Pawleys Island near the Atlantic Ocean was originally designed by Jack Nicklaus and opened in 1988.
Over the decades, trees had grown to encroach on the resort course, and many of the greens had shrunk dramatically – both those conditions are common at many courses. Working with a plan laid out by Nicklaus during a 2018 visit, associate Troy Vincent set about a renovation that could improve conditions while making the course more playable.
Besides selective tree removal, the work included:
Each green was stripped and restored to its original size, then re-grassed with TifEagle Bermuda grass. The resizing efforts reclaimed nearly 40,000 square feet of putting surface across the course.
The collars of each green also were resurfaced with a variety of Bermuda grass that can withstand mutation and be mowed lower.
Sprawling fairway bunkers on 10 holes were replaced with smaller traps, native areas and expanded fairways.
The club is also undertaking a clubhouse renovation.
“We followed Jack’s ideas from 2018,” Vincent, who has worked alongside Jack Nicklaus for 15 years, said in a media release announcing the reopening. “It was our intention to make the course more playable, to give players more options, and we have carried that out. I think everyone will be happy.”
The club, which features six holes on the back nine along a tidal marsh, is owned by Founders Group International, which owns 21 courses around Myrtle Beach.
Check out several photos of the finished work below.
Gil Hanse and Jim Wagner looked to the past to set up Olympic Club for the future.
SAN FRANCISCO – From the first tee to the 18th green, golfers will notice plenty of differences on the recently renovated Lake Course at the Olympic Club, a layout that already had seen plenty of changes since it was first designed in 1924.
As they did at several other major championship courses including 2023 U.S. Open host Los Angeles Country Club, Hanse and Wagner planned for the future by studying the past.
Hanse Design associate Tommy Naccarato said that meant researching old aerial photos from the 1920s and ‘30s as well as Spring Valley Water Company’s plans. That allowed the team to identify fairway bunkers that had been abandoned over the decades, and the historic research also provided clues on fairway widths, approaches and green surrounds.
The Spring Valley Water Company’s historical plans show the routing of the the Lake Course at Olympic Club. (Courtesy of Hanse Golf Course Design)
Ultimately the Hanse plan would call for the reintroduction of fairway bunkers on Nos. 4, 9, 14, 16, 17 and 18. Other refinements included the expansion of greens by roughly 33 percent to provide more pinnable space, widening fairways by roughly 25 percent to better fit the land, expanding approaches to greens to offer more ground-game options and converting numerous green surrounds from fairway to rough for consistency course-wide.
The final piece of the plan was the creation of a new seventh hole to better connect Nos. 6 and 8 after the 2009 shifting of the tees on No. 8. The new No. 7 remains an uphill and drivable par 4, but the green was shifted down a hill to the right. The tee shot offers numerous options, the best of which come when players challenge a new fairway bunker about 50 yards from the green, Hanse said via zoom at a September reopening event.
The land for the new No. 7 at Olympic Club’s Lake Course in San Francisco before the restoration by Gil Hanse and Jim Wagner (Courtesy of Hanse Golf Course Design)No. 7 at Olympic Club’s Lake Course in San Francisco during the restoration by Gil Hanse and Jim Wagner (Courtesy of Hanse Golf Course Design)No. 7 at Olympic Club’s Lake Course in San Francisco during the restoration by Gil Hanse and Jim Wagner (Courtesy of Hanse Golf Course Design)
Players can notice the differences from the first tee shot, where the removal of dense shrubs between the first tee and second green has opened a view across the property and down to Lake Merced, all the way to the 18th, where fairway bunkers were added and the green was expanded.
All told, the refinements have provided the Lake Course with a more consistent Golden Age look and feel as well as improved playability for day-to-day play.
The Lake Course offers a rich history that Hanse and Wagner were able to tap into. William Watson and Sam Whiting designed the first version of the Lake in 1924, but storm damage led to a Whiting redesign in 1927.
Starting in 1955 the Lake Course became a familiar home to USGA championships, hosting U.S. Opens in 1955, ‘66, ‘87, ‘98 and 2012. It also hosted the U.S. Amateur in 1958, ‘81, and 2007, as well as the U.S. Women’s Open in 2021.
Throughout its championship history, plenty of work was done to the course while leaving the routing intact. Before the 1955 U.S. Open, architect Robert Trent Jones Sr. toughened the course. In 2009 the uphill par-3 eighth hole was shifted to the north and the greens were converted from poa to bent grass. And in 2016 a bunker renovation was executed under the direction of Bill Love.
No. 1 at Olympic Club’s Lake Course in San Francisco before the restoration by Gil Hanse and Jim Wagner (Courtesy of Hanse Golf Course Design)No. 1 at Olympic Club’s Lake Course in San Francisco after the restoration by Gil Hanse and Jim Wagner (Courtesy of Hanse Golf Course Design)
The course played beautifully during a media event thanks to the work of director of grounds Troy Flanagan and his team that worked closely with Hanse’s team, including shaper Shaymus Maley who was on site every day throughout the project.
“Tapping into his knowledge and enthusiasm allowed us to do a better job and be much more responsive on how the golf course plays,” Hanse said of Flanagan. “I can’t think of better greens I’ve played on for an opening day.”
The praise of the course was music to the ears of Olympic Club president Jim Murphy, who led the club through what is always a nervous time for a membership.
“First there was uncertainty, then there was anticipation and now there is jubilation,” Murphy said of his members’ response to Hanse and Wagner’s work.
Those sentiments were echoed by longtime Golfweek’s Best rater and Olympic Club member Pat Murphy, who said, “I’ve been a member of the Olympic Club for 65 years, and previously served as green chair, on the board and as vice president. I feel this renovation has done a great job of honoring our past and positioning us for the future. The golf course is as beautiful, fun and engaging as it has ever been in all my years.”
No. 18 at Olympic Club’s Lake Course in San Francisco before the restoration by Gil Hanse and Jim Wagner (Courtesy of Hanse Golf Course Design)No. 18 at Olympic Club’s Lake Course in San Francisco during the restoration by Gil Hanse and Jim Wagner (Courtesy of Hanse Golf Course Design)No. 18 at Olympic Club’s Lake Course in San Francisco after the restoration by Gil Hanse and Jim Wagner (Courtesy of Hanse Golf Course Design)
There is no doubt the course refinements will be embraced by the membership, but perhaps the bigger question is how will the course play in championships. The Lake Course is set to host the 2025 U.S. Amateur, 2028 PGA Championship, 2030 U.S. Women’s Amateur and 2033 Ryder Cup.
The amateur events and the Ryder Cup should be able to tee off while maintaining the added fairway width thanks to their match-play formats. It will be interesting to see how chief championships officer Kerry Haigh and the PGA of America prepare the course for the 2028 PGA Championship, for which conventional wisdom would suggest the narrowing of fairways to add challenge. But a potential ball rollback, more hole locations from which to choose and more rough around the greens may see them embrace the added width – we can only hope.
Big, steep bunkers and fresh greens highlight the work at Wakonda Club in Iowa.
Wakonda Club in Des Moines, Iowa, is nearing completion of a restoration at the hands of golf architect Tyler Rae and his associate, Jim Ryan Jr. Work is nearly complete with just a few items left as the course grows in.
Wakonda Club opened in 1922 with a design by William Langford, who started laying out courses during the golden era of golf design. Langford typically worked with partner Theodore J. Moreau through the early 1940s before continuing on his own later.
Along with Wakonda Club, Langford’s highest-rated courses include Lawsonia Links in Wisconsin, Texarkana Country Club in Arkansas, Skokie Country Club in Illinois and Culver Academies in Indiana. Wakonda Club, as judged before the restoration, ranked No. 4 in Iowa in Golfweek’s Best 2023 ranking of private clubs in each state.
Wakonda Club has an extensive competitive pedigree, having hosted many tournaments including the 1963 U.S. Amateur won by Deane Beman, who would go on to play on the PGA Tour before becoming the Tour’s longtime commissioner. The club has hosted the Principal Charity Classic on the PGA Tour Champions since 2013, with Stephen Ames having won it this year.
Rae has an extensive list of credits to his name, including historical restorations and new builds. His other projects include Lookout Mountain Club in Georgia, Brookside Country Club in Ohio, Mountain Lake in Florida and Brae Burn in Massachusetts.
As noted in an email from the club, Rae’s extensive plan for Wakonda has included:
All new tee boxes, adding length to the championship tees while shortening the forward tees.
Ten-plus acres of fairway expansions, reinstalling width to the course. This includes joining two sets of fairways at Nos. 8 and 10 and Nos. 11 and 15.
Added five new greens (Nos. 2, 5, 9, 15 and 17) using themes from Langford and Moreau’s best work.
Used 22,000 square feet of sod from the old greens that were rebuilt to expand the greens on the 13 other holes.
Rebuilt every bunker to Langford and Moreau’s style, and reclaimed many bunkers that had been grassed over – L&M were not afraid to build deep bunkers with tall, nearly vertical faces. (Check the photos below for examples.)
Added XGD drainage to every green and installed a new Toro irrigation system.
One investor lives almost every golfer’s dream: Building (or rebuilding) a course with a top designer.
WILLIAMSBURG, Mich. – Tom Doak was a newcomer as a solo golf architect when he planted his first flags in the ground near Traverse City at High Pointe Golf Club, which opened in 1989. Now he’s finding help from another industry newcomer in bringing much of the course back from the dead.
Just 26 years old when he built High Pointe, Doak spent 60-plus hours a week shaping the layout that climbed a hill through dense trees. To this day – after dozens of courses built, several of them among the most highly regarded in the world – High Pointe’s greens were the only of his putting surfaces he shaped entirely by himself.
The following decades weren’t kind to High Pointe, which despite having achieved a relatively high level of acclaim was shuttered by its former owners after the 2008 season. It was less a statement on the design and more a sign of troubled financial times and a lack of interest by the owners. Doak had moved on to bigger and better projects, establishing himself as one of the best modern golf architects. But the Michigan resident always maintained a soft spot for his first layout, the front nine of which was converted into a hop farm.
And while High Pointe failed as a daily-fee business, interest in the layout never ceased. Fans of architecture often speculated on a resurrection of Doak’s first course. There were still holes on the ground.
Enter Rod Trump – no relation to the former President, a question asked so frequently that Rod clears things up early in conversation. An investor who has found success largely in tech sectors, Trump wanted to buy a golf course and get into a new business he believes he will love. Aside from working capital, he has provided a seemingly boundless reservoir of enthusiasm after partnering with Doak to revive High Pointe as an elite national private club.
“Anybody that’s a fan of golf architecture who’s heard of this story, becomes instantly captivated by it,” Trump said. “I think Tom has … I don’t want to call it a cult-like following, but people who like Tom, they love Tom. He is exceptionally authentic, and he is who he is.
“I guess we’re all dreamers in a way. The more I got into it, the deeper I went. It has proved to be an even more compelling story than I believed it would be.”
Ross Bridge near Birmingham, Alabama, is slated to reopen this fall with new putting surfaces.
Ross Bridge, one of the highest-ranked golf courses on the Robert Trent Jones Golf Trail in Alabama, will reopen Oct. 13 after a complete renovation of its greens and bunkers.
The layout just outside Birmingham ranks No. 4 in Alabama on Golfweek’s Best list of top public-access courses in each state. The course wraps around the Renaissance Birmingham Ross Bridge Golf Resort and Spa, a gorgeous AAA 4-Diamond Approved Hotel. With plenty of ground movement in its valley setting, Ross Bridge can be stretched to more than 8,100 yards off the back tee, making it one of the longest courses in the world.
The work to the greens was necessitated by an accidental poisoning of many of the greens a year ago. The operators of the Trail opted to start from scratch, switching the putting surfaces from bent grass to a much more heat-tolerant TifEagle Bermuda grass. That switch should result in much firmer and smoother green surfaces.
Every bunker on the course also was renovated with fresh drainage systems, and several cart paths were relocated. Architectural changes were also made to Nos. 1, 2, 10, 14 and 18, but details of those changes weren’t specified in a media release announcing the opening date.
The new Monster Golf Club routing takes land from two previous courses at Resorts World Catskills in New York.
The Rees Jones-renovated Monster Golf Club in Monticello, New York, has reopened with a new routing that incorporates parts of the old Concord Monster Course and the property’s Old International Course. The new layout took nearly five years to reach completion and is part of a $40-million investment by Resorts World Catskills.
The previous Monster layout, originally designed by Joe Finger and opened in 1963, had been closed since 2015. Jones used holes and corridors from the two former courses to create a 7,650-yard, par-72 new Monster Golf Club in the Catskill Mountains about a two-hour drive from Manhattan. The public-access course will be managed by Arizona-based Troon Golf.
“The opening of any golf course is a special time, but to do it in the picturesque Catskills and to be able to combine the elements of two celebrated golf courses makes this a truly remarkable occasion,” Monster Golf Club director of golf Uri Jimenez said in a media release announcing the news. “The magic of Rees Jones is omnipresent throughout the course’s 18 holes and the hospitality excellence of Troon Golf and Resorts World Catskills will offer golfers an unrivaled experience at the Monster Golf Club.”
The course features six sets of tees to accommodate any player. The club has a new fleet of carts and a golf shop located in The Alder, Resorts World Catskills’ newest boutique lifestyle hotel adjacent to the property’s casino and resort.
“The grand reopening of the Monster Golf Club is a milestone moment for Resorts World Catskills as it completes the vision we had for this amazing property,” Robert DeSalvio, president of Genting Americas East, said in the media release. “We are proud to deliver on the commitment we made to the Catskills community to reimagine and reinvigorate this storied golf course in partnership with the legendary Rees Jones. We can’t wait to welcome golfers from around the world to face the Monster.”
Two of the hottest designers in golf will rework one of the main layouts at Pebble Beach Resorts.
Pebble Beach Company has hired the team of Gil Hanse and Jim Wagner to redesign The Links at Spanish Bay in Pebble Beach, California.
Opened in 1987, the original layout was designed by the trio of architects Robert Trent Jones Jr., former USGA president Sandy Tatum and PGA Tour player Tom Watson. Situated between the Inn at Spanish Bay and the Pacific Ocean, the course was built on the site of a former sand mine with ocean views on nearly every hole.
Hanse and Wagner have become one of the most in-demand architecture teams in recent years, with original designs such as Ohoopee Match Club in Georgia and the Black Course at Streamsong in Florida. They also have completed historic restorations to many highly ranked courses including Los Angeles Country Club, site of the 2023 U.S. Open.
The Links at Spanish Bay at Pebble Beach Resorts in California (Courtesy of Pebble Beach Company)
Details on the timing of the renovation were not included in a media release announcing the news.
“The Links at Spanish Bay possesses nearly every raw element you’d want in a golf course, from expansive ocean views to rolling, sandy terrain,” Hanse said in the media release. “With these natural attributes already in place, our team will have a significant head start on delivering a final product that will be in the top echelon of ‘must-play’ courses.”
Pebble Beach Company also operates Pebble Beach Golf Links, which ranks No. 10 on Golfweek’s Best list of classic courses in the U.S., and Spyglass Hill, which tied for 26th on the list of top modern courses in the U.S. The company’s Pebble Beach Resorts also operates Del Monte Golf Course and The Hay, a par-3 course designed by Tiger Woods.
New bunkers and tees to be added to one of the top private clubs in Connecticut.
Fazio Design and course superintendent Stephen Hicks have started a bunker renovation to Bull’s Bridge Golf Club in South Kent, Connecticut. The project to one of the top private clubs in the state will include the expansion of several fairways and approach areas and the addition of new tees on select holes.
Bull’s Bridge ties for No. 5 on Golfweek’s Best 2023 list of private clubs in Connecticut, and it also ranks No. 181 on Golfweek’s Best list of all modern courses built since 1960 in the United States. Designed by Tom Fazio, Bull’s Bridge opened in 2004.
New bunkers will be added to eight holes, and other bunkers will be repositioned. With McDonald and Sons as the construction contractor, new back tees will be added to Nos. 2, 9 and 18. Forward tees will be built on Nos. 3, 6, 10 and 17. Grow-in and full completion of the golf course project is expected in November.
No. 16 at Bull’s Bridge in South Kent, Connecticut, during renovation (Courtesy of Bull’s Bridge Golf Club)
A clubhouse expansion plan also has been approved by the local zoning commission, with Furno Architects on board for that job. The existing clubhouse has been redesigned, and a new golf house with locker rooms and a golf shop will be added and connected by a breezeway. The project began in August.
“This is an exciting time at Bull’s Bridge, with these significant upgrades being made to enhance overall member enjoyment of our facilities,” general manager Brian Freeswick said in a media release announcing the plans.
