Architect Tom Fazio is returning to Reynolds Lake Oconee in Greensboro, Georgia, with plans to combine nine existing holes with nine new holes and introduce them as a new, 18-hole private golf course.
The existing nine holes that will be used for layout is The Bluff nine that currently is part of the 27-hole The National course. Fazio built all 27 of those holes, which also include the Ridge and Cove nines. The Ridge and Cove nines will continue as The National, which currently ranks No. 10 in Georgia on Golfweek’s Best list of public-access courses in each state. The National also ties for No. 187 on Golfweek’s Best ranking of resort courses in the U.S.
Reynolds Lake Oconee operates as both a resort and a members club. With the addition of the new and yet-to-be-named Fazio course, expected to open in late 2024, Reynolds Lake Oconee will have seven courses. Five of those – Great Waters, The Oconee, The Preserve, The Landing and The National – will be open to resort guests, including those who stay at The Ritz-Carlton Reynolds, Lake Oconee. Two of the property’s courses – Creek Club and the newly combined Fazio 18 – will be private. All the public-access courses at Reynolds Lake Oconee rank highly in Georgia on Golfweek’s Best state-by-state list, with Great Waters by Jack Nicklaus the highest among them.
Fazio built The Bluff nine in 1997 as part of the original National course, and The Cove nine was added in 2000 on the parcel that includes forests, streams, ponds and views of Lake Oconee. Fazio will use adjacent land distinguished by 100 feet of elevation changes, a creek, large boulders and an existing pond for the new nine holes that will be combined with Bluffs.
“My goal is always to create distinctive, one-of-a-kind golf courses,” Fazio said in a media release announcing the new nine. “There’s a lot of terrain variation – lots of ups and downs, ins and outs, twists and turns – which is great for golf. That’s what makes this such a fine natural setting.”
The media release said the new 18 will use the first five holes of the existing Bluff routing, followed by nine new holes including a new ninth green alongside Lake Oconee, then incorporate the final four holes of The Bluff.
“We are fortunate that Tom Fazio again applied his vision to Reynolds Lake Oconee to create nine new holes and integrate them with the world-class golf course he originally designed. It’s an honor for our community,” said Robert Merck, global head of real estate at MetLife Investment Management, investment manager of Reynolds Lake Oconee. “Our members and their guests are certain to be challenged and energized by his latest design.”
Tiger Woods, Mike Trout partner up to build upscale private course in New Jersey.
Baseball star Mike Trout has partnered with Tiger Woods to build a private golf course in Vineland, New Jersey. Named Trout National – The Reserve, the 18-hole layout will be about 45 minutes south of Philadelphia and is slated to open in 2025.
“I’m so excited to finally officially announce that we’re doing this project, and doing it in a community that means so much to me,” Trout, a three-time American League Most Valuable Player who plays for the Los Angeles Angels, said in a press release. “I was born in Vineland and raised in Millville. I met my wife, Jessica, in Millville, and my parents and siblings and in-laws still live in the area. I could put down roots anywhere in the country, but Jessica and I make South Jersey our offseason home and always cherish the time we get to spend there.”
Construction on Trout National – The Reserve will begin this year.
We promised you all a big announcement and here it is! We are so excited to be able to make a longtime dream of mine a reality, with none other than @tigerwoods and @tgrdesignbytw. We can't wait to share more updates with you as we create Trout National – The Reserve. pic.twitter.com/V8eMGEUYdS
The club, which is being developed with John and Lorie Ruga, owners of Northeast Precast of Vineland, is being constructed between Sheridan Avenue and Route 55.
“I love South Jersey and I love golf, so creating Trout National – The Reserve is a dream come true,” Trout said. “And then to add to that we’ll have a golf course designed by Tiger? It’s just incredible to think that this project has grown to where we’re going to be working with someone many consider the greatest and most influential golfer of all time.”
Woods and his archeticture firm, TGR Design, is also creating a new short course as part of Cobbs Creek Golf Club in Philadelphia.
“I’ve always watched Mike on the diamond, so when an opportunity arose to work with him on Trout National – The Reserve, I couldn’t pass it up,” Woods said in the press release. “It’s a great site for golf, and our team’s looking forward to creating a special course for Mike, Jessica, John and Lorie (Ruga).”
The will also have a “cutting-edge” practice range, short-game area, clubhouse, restaurant, “five-star” lodging, a wedding chapel and more.
“We’re going to be doing some really cool things from a service and offering standpoint,” Trout said. “Although plans aren’t finalized quite yet, I’ll put it to you this way – this will not be your grandparents’ country club.”
The release said the course will leverage the site’s topography, including deciduous and evergreen forest in places and rolling farmland in others. The sandy site was once home to a silica sand mine, so drainage and turf conditions should be excellent, according to the release. As TGR Design becomes more immersed in the project, additional details will be released.
“Mike’s a great guy and we both care deeply about our community,” John Ruga said in the release. “Like Mike, I always dreamed about the possibility of opening a truly one-of-a-kind golf club. When we met and started talking about our individual visions, it became clear that we were on the same page. Trout National – The Reserve is going to be the place where members gather to enjoy an unforgettable club experience. Equally as important, we’re focused on making the club a catalyst for job creation and economic development in our area, while also exploring ways for non-members to enjoy it.”
Bandon Dunes Golf Resort has broken ground on a new par-3 course on incredible terrain between Bandon Trails and the Pacific Ocean.
Bandon Preserve, the 13-hole par-3 course that opened in 2012 at Bandon Dunes Golf Resort in Oregon, ushered in a trend of high-end resorts adding short courses that far exceed the experience of many afterthought par-3 layouts that came in preceding decades. Real holes on stunning terrain make for an unforgettable experience that has become a major draw along the southern Oregon coast, and a new breed of par-3 course has evolved around the world.
And Bandon Preserve will soon have a sibling just a few hundred yards south along the coastline.
The resort officially announces today that it is constructing a new, 19-hole par-3 course, yet to be named and built by the WAC Golf team of Rod Whitman, Dave Axland and Keith Cutten. The layout was routed on dunesland between the first hole of the resort’s Bandon Trails course and the Pacific Ocean, and construction is already underway. Plans are for the course to be completed this year, with some preview play possible this fall and a full opening in 2024.
The layout for Bandon Dunes Golf Resort’s new par-3 course between the first hole of Bandon Trails and the Pacific Ocean (Courtesy of Bandon Dunes Golf Resort)
“This is just an incredible piece of ground, and we’re super excited about it,” said Cutten, the youngest member of the WAC design team who has worked in various roles with Whitman and Axland for more than a decade, most notably at Cabot Links in Nova Scotia, one of the top-rated public-access courses in Canada. “It’s quite a bit choppier, more severe changes in the dunes than some of the other pieces of ground out there, so it’s just perfect for a short course.”
The layout of Bandon’s new par-3 course has been in consideration for years, and architect Tom Doak had marker flags in the ground for a proposed routing last year. Bandon Dunes founder and owner Mike Keiser said plans changed, and the WAC team was given a chance to create a layout on what Keiser always believed to be a special piece of land.
“We called and said, ‘Why don’t you stop by and see what you can do?’ ” Keiser said. “They came up with, I think, a brilliant routing. I wouldn’t call it short, because our scorecard will have short, medium and long distances. They did a fabulous job and you’ll have to wait and see for yourself.”
Holes will range from just under 60 yards up to nearly 160, depending on the tees selected, Cutten said. Keiser said the plan is for each of the 19 holes to offer a chance to tee off with a putter, at least from the forward tees.
The layout will consist of 16 acres of maintained turf across lumpy, bumpy and sandy dunes, into and out of various natural bowls and across ridges. Cutten said the terrain was perfect for a par-3 course because there was no need to design landing areas for tee shots on par 4s and 5s, allowing the design team to instead focus on finding the most interesting and natural green sites full of interesting bounces and rolls.
“I think all but one of our greens were basically just sitting there” on the ground already, Cutten said. “The one (that’s not) that I’m referring to, the 10th, needs a little bit of sand in the middle but the edges are already there, so it looks like it’s already there. The rest of the greens are just found.”
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The original WAC routing was 12 holes, but Cullen said the team kept finding interesting green sites and possibilities for additional holes. They finally settled on 18, playing down toward the ocean then back up in a series of loops. Keiser then added a 19th hole.
“It was 18 holes, and I was just out there with my son Chris, and we decided the walk from 18 up to the clubhouse was too arduous,” Keiser said of the process with his son, who along with brother Michael operates Sand Valley resort in Wisconsin. “So we put in another par 3 as the 19th hole there to take us back up to the great clubhouse site.”
Keiser said his one mandate is that each hole can stand on its own and would fit well on any of the resort’s five 18-hole layouts that rank among the best modern courses in the world. Cutten said that was no problem on terrain so naturally suited to golf.
Keith Cutten (from left), Dave Axland, Rod Whitman, Chris Keiser and Mike Keiser at the site of the new par-3 course at Bandon Dunes Golf Resort in Oregon (Courtesy of Bandon Dunes Golf Resort)
“It became a running joke as we toured Mr. Keiser around that we should be paying him for the golf course, because all the work was already done,” Cutten said. “It speaks well to the quality of the ground and the kind of golf we were able to put on it. …
“On a short course, you can get a little more bold with the decisions you’re making and the contours you’re using. A lot of the times the short courses can be a little more funky and dynamic and quirky, a lot of the things we try to do with our golf courses from the get-go.”
Keiser said he isn’t sure yet what that clubhouse will look like, possibly a “glorified mobile home.” Don’t be surprised if he decides to include some sort of food truck, a version of which has proved incredibly popular at Sand Valley’s par-3 course named the Sandbox.
Keiser anticipates the new course, which will raise the total number of par 3s at Bandon Dunes Golf Resort to 53, will complement the Preserve, designed by the team of Bill Coore and Ben Crenshaw. The resort is also home to Shorty’s, a nine-hole par-3 course at the practice facility that is open only at select times.
“I think most people who have time will play both of them,” he said. “We’ll have to wait to see which they favor, but Preserve is awfully good, as is this new one.”
Keiser said that like the Preserve, the green fee will be $100, with all proceeds benefiting the Wild Rivers Coast Alliance to support communities along the southern coast of Oregon. The resort has contributed $7.3 million to the WRCA, with the Preserve now generating $800,000 a year for the charity.
Check out the photos of the Dunas Course at Terras da Comporta, the first design in mainland Europe by architect David McLay Kidd.
The Dunas Course at Terras da Comporta, designed by David McLay Kidd, is scheduled to open this summer and is accepting tee times starting June 1.
The course near the Atlantic Ocean, the first in mainland Europe by Kidd, began in 2010. Development was delayed for a decade as the property changed hands, and new owner Vanguard Properties acquired Terras da Comporta in 2019. The development is also planning a second course to be named Torre designed by José María Olazábal and Sergio Garcia.
Kidd – a Scottish architect famed for his design of the original and namesake course at Bandon Dunes Golf Resort in Oregon in addition to other highly regarded layouts around the world – restarted construction on the the par-71, 7,168-yard Dunas Course in 2019 just south of Lisbon.
“What David McLay Kidd has been able to build here is exceptional and a true example of world-class golf course design,” Rodrigo Ulrich, director of golf at Terras da Comporta, said in a media release announcing the planned opening. “We are so excited about the launch and cannot wait for golfers to enjoy the exceptional on- and off-course experience on offer at Terras da Comporta from this summer onward.”
The resort has been dubbed by some to be “a 17-Mile Drive for the southern hemisphere.” These pictures are pretty breathtaking.
Te Arai Links in New Zealand has officially opened its South Course, designed by the team of Bill Coore and Ben Crenshaw on a long stretch of beach overlooking the Pacific Ocean.
The resort has been dubbed by some to be “a 17-Mile Drive for the southern hemisphere” in reference to the famed courses on California’s Monterey Peninsula that include Pebble Beach Golf Links and Cypress Point. That’s a huge hurdle of comparison to jump over, but the photos below are certainly eye-catching and any serious fan of golf travel needs to go for themselves to be the judge.
The resort plans to open its second course, the North by Tom Doak, in October. Te Arai Links follows on the well-regarded heels of the private Tara Iti Golf Club, another Doak design just up the road. The resort is less than a 2-hour drive north of Auckland on the eastern shores of New Zealand.
Te Arai Links is a resort that also includes private memberships, and resort guests will have access to the South and North on alternating days, playing one course as the members play the other. The South opened for limited preview play in October, and it is now fully open for resort play.
“We invite the Monterey Peninsula comparison because we believe it’s apt,” Jim Rohrstaff, a partner in Te Arai Links and its managing director, said in a media release announcing the full opening. “Our good friend Mike Keiser (founder of Bandon Dunes Golf Resort in Oregon) believes the South Course has as much ocean frontage as any golf course in the world. It’s that connectivity with the sea that distinguishes the South Course from most links experiences, from the golf experience in Monterey, even from Tara Iti just up the shoreline. On the South Course, the beach is just so close. There’s the visual sensation of actually seeing the waves crashing. But golfers can also hear them crashing — on more than half the holes.”
Te Arai Links includes 48 on-site suites with 19 two-bedroom cottages and six four-bedroom villas slated to be completed in the coming months. The resort also will have a 2.5-acre putting green named The Playground that wraps around a pizza barn near the South’s clubhouse and range and will serve as the resort’s communal gathering spot.
The new course will feature six par 3s, eight par 4s and four par 5s for a total par of 70.
Windsong Farm Golf Club in Independence, Minnesota, has hired architect John Fought to design a second course at the club just west of Minneapolis.
The original course at Windsong Farm – also designed by Fought and opened in partnership with Tom Lehman, then renovated by Fought in 2015 – ranks No. 6 on Golfweek’s Best list of private courses in Minnesota. It ties for No. 140 on the list of all modern courses built in the U.S. since 1960.
“I generally don’t like to do the same thing with my projects, so this one will be really different from any of my other courses,” Fought said in a media release announcing the new course. “It’s a unique piece of land with lake views and rolling terrain, and we will be doing what it allows us without having to move a lot of dirt. It will be the perfect complement to Windsong Farm Golf Club.”
Plans for the new course to be built at Windsong Farm Golf Club in Minnesota (Courtesy of Windsong Farm)
Plans are for Fought and course-building company Duininck Golf to break ground as soon as the ground thaws out this spring, with an opening planned for summer of 2024. The second course will make Windsong Farm the lone 36-hole private facility in the Minneapolis-St. Paul metro market.
The new course will feature six par 3s, eight par 4s and four par 5s for a total par of 70. Thirteen of the holes will have views of Fox Lake, and the entire course will play shorter than its 7,550-yard predecessor at the club but, Fought said, not necessarily much easier.
“This second course will play tougher than people might think as length is not the only factor in determining difficulty,” Fought said. “Playing strategies will very much come into play here. Plus, the 18th will be a ‘Cape’hole — a long, 483-yard par 4 that plays around the lake.”
The original course at Windsong Farm Golf Club in Minnesota (Courtesy of Windsong Farm)
Fought said he took inspiration for the new course, which will include several famous template holes, from Seth Raynor’s Shoreacres Golf Club near Chicago.
“This will be like creating a course from the early 1900s but with a modern infrastructure,” Fought said. “This is open, rolling land with natural, native areas that are fescue and gives us the opportunity to integrate several old-style holes into the mix. I’m thrilled to be working with the talented teams at Windsong Farm and Duininck Golf on what promises to be an exciting addition to the Minnesota golf scene.”
“This is really exciting for our members because they’ll be able to play two completely different, high-quality golf courses,” Jon Dailing, superintendent at Windsong Farm, said in the media release. “John knows this entire property so well and has done a great job studying where the new course will be built. He’s very creative and there will be a lot of history built into his design.”
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.
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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From the Scottish Highlands around to St. Andrews, a series of true links astonish with variety, playability and charm.
Where to begin?
That is not a rhetorical question. When laying out a bucket-list golf trip to Scotland, it’s a very serious query, part of a series of such questions that will follow you around the country. Where to begin? Which course next? Toughest of all: Which courses can I bear to skip?
Headed to St. Andrews? There’s a lot more on tap than the famed Old Course, 30 times the site of the British Open – ahem, Open Championship, thank you very much. Will you play the New Course, which seems a misnomer, seeing how it was built by Old Tom Morris in 1895? How about the Jubilee? The Castle, which having opened outside town in 2008 is the newest of the seven courses managed by the St. Andrews Links Trust? Maybe sample a handful of the other layouts not far from the Home of Golf?
Headed into the Highlands for a dream round at Royal Dornoch? Everyone on other courses, on the way and on social media will tell you that you can’t skip nearby Brora (I didn’t) or Tain or Golspie (I missed both, but I already am planning to return). Scouting a classic links trip to Aberdeen? You can’t miss classic links such as Royal Aberdeen, or Murcar Links or Cruden Bay or a handful of others. The options are lined up along the coast. All the coasts of Scotland, actually.
Cabot Highlands, formerly known as Castle Stuart, in Scotland (Jason Lusk/Golfweek)
Headed east? You’ll be told not to miss the courses to the west. Looking north? Don’t miss those gems to the south. Whichever point of the compass you choose and whatever address you plug into Google Maps, there will be dozens of opportunity costs – all those suggestions are correct, even if they create a totally unmanageable itinerary for a traveling golfer on a weeklong holiday.
Weeks after my recent trip, when playing with a group of Golfweek’s Best course raters in California, I barely could finish a sentence about where I played before the questions poured in: Did you play this one, and what about that one? We all process the world through the lenses of our own experiences, and that’s especially true when judging the courses somebody else is, or is not, playing.
The 18th green of the Old Course at St. Andrews sits close enough to the street and town that the afternoon shadows of old buildings stretch across the putting surface. (Jason Lusk/Golfweek)
Such was the quandary when I started planning this trip to Scotland. I was lucky, because I knew where I would begin. American course designer Tom Doak is building a new course at Castle Stuart near Inverness, which is being rebranded as Cabot Highlands after its recent acquisition by Canadian company Cabot. I would begin there to hear Doak discuss his plans as well as to sample the original course at the resort.
But from there? I had options. Too many options. The names of famous Scottish links courses roll on and on, and it would take months to see even half of what I had in mind. I had only 12 days on the ground, so I enlisted the help of course booking provider Golfbreaks and the local experts at VisitScotland.com to help set up a trip that would venture high into the Highlands before swinging back down the coast, east to Aberdeen and eventually into St. Andrews.
Scotland, of course, is where the game as we know it was invented, and the best of it is all about links golf in particular. Firm, fast and sometimes almost entirely natural – I coveted the links experience. Of the 550 or so total golf courses in Scotland, fewer than 90 might be classified as true links, depending on one’s given definition – there is great debate among academics and clubhouse drunks about what constitutes a proper links. On this trip I was lucky enough to experience 11 examples. Each was distinctive, and don’t dare think of links golf as some uniform game, because it is the definitive opposite of that. The conditions might be similar, but each layout shines on its own, each bouncy shot promising something unexpected.
Street view in St. Andrews (Jason Lusk/Golfweek)
I played courses that are famed worldwide, and several that are less known outside Scotland. I played in sunshine and rain, wind and calm. I played well, and I played poorly. The only constants were the courses, the terrain and coastlines flashing through my exhausted head each night in whatever accommodations I had scheduled. The trip included planes, trains, buses, shuttles and a blue Skoda SUV – “Keep left, keep left, keep left,” I had to remind myself at the start of each drive on skinny, winding roads, because I couldn’t bear the thought of missing my next round of golf due to something so mundane as a car crash.
There were a lot of miles, a lot of different beds, a lot of nerves in the car. So many good courses, too many bad swings. And it was all perfect.
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