Golden Age Architects Get New Life

+ How hard is winning the PGA Championship?

May 13, 2023

ON THE TEE

🏌️ “Tiger Woods will not play in the PGA Championship,” say multiple headlines in golf media. Wouldn’t it only have been news if he was playing?

🏌️ The PGA of America extended deadline invitations to increase the number to 18 of LIV Golf players who will compete in the PGA Championship, including back-to-back champion Talor Gooch. Should the USGA take notice?

🏌️ Barstool Sports will broadcast a Korn Ferry Tour event — the NV5 Invitational, July 27-30 at The Glen Club in Glenview, Illinois. And why is it OK for the PGA Tour to partner with Barstool’s Dave Portnoy?

🏌️ The USGA allowed a 9-year-old — Bella Simoes, from Brazil — to attempt to qualify for the U.S. Women’s Tuesday in Naples, Florida. Unsurprisingly, she shot 85-82. Doesn’t the USGA have standards about the ability to be competitive?

🏌️ Annika Sorenstam, 52, received an exemption into the Women’s Open at Pebble Beach. Doesn’t that make more sense? Isn’t that the kind of headline the USGA should pursue?

🏌️ Rory McIlroy continues his struggles on the golf course with a T50 at the Wells Fargo Championship, at a course where he has won twice and has shot 61. Is it too early to say McIlroy is done?

🏌️ Meanwhile, Wyndham Clark won the Wells Fargo, a designated tournament that Jon Rahm and Scottie Scheffler skipped. What was that about the top-ranked players in the same events more often?

🏌️ Jordan Spieth withdrew from the AT&T Byron Nelson with a left wrist injury and is uncertain for the PGA Championship. The cause was undisclosed. How many range balls?

🏌️ Paul Goydos ripped PGA Tour commissioner Jay Monahan for failing to show “an ounce of leadership” and ban carts on the Champions Tour. “It’s a total clown show,” Goydos said on Twitter. This is a new issue?

:: Mike Purkey

FEATURES

Donald Ross’ iconic Pinehurst No. 2 course. | Photo: John Mummert / USGA

The Golden Age of golf design lives on

Thanks to devoted admirers, the work of a bygone generation of course architects is being preserved and celebrated by societies and associations bearing the designers' names

:: Tony Dear | Read

PERFECT PUTT

PGA Tour U's impact on the PGA Tour

There is now a direct pathway to the PGA Tour from collegiate golf — an effort to battle LIV Golf

:: Jared Doerfler | Read

Each Monday, Jared Doerfler breaks down the business of golf. Subscribe to Perfect Putt here.

BOOKMARKED

Good reads that are mainly about golf, but not always.

📖 Off Track To make it a dream course for a future U.S. Open, Oak Hill was turned into every player's nightmare
:: Gary Van Sickle | Sports Illustrated | 08.25.2003

📖 The new and improved home run celebration is a team sport
Forget the pitch clock for a moment. There may not be an area of baseball that has seen as much innovation as the home run celebration
:: Emma Baccellieri | Sports Illustarted | 05.03.2023

📖 How Tom Hanks became Tom Hanks
The actor — and now novelist — reflects on how he got here, and the other lives he might have lived instead
:: Chris Heath | The Atlantic | 05.03.2023

19TH HOLE

Each episode of the “Course of Life” podcast closes with the guest sharing a favorite 19th hole experience.

J.J. Killeen, former PGA Tour pro and current Northern Texas PGA club professional who qualified for next week’s PGA Championship and is known as the West Texas Driving Range Pro: “I grew up in Southern California so I'm a sucker for good street tacos after a round, and me and my buddy are always brewing craft beers, but I'm game for whatever.”

:: Alex Lauzon | Co-host of “Course of Life” podcast

DESIGN NOTES

At least two courses are initially proposed for Dream Golf’s Rodeo Dunes project outside of Denver, Colorado. | Photo: Rodeo Dunes

Keisers have big plans for Colorado's Rodeo Dunes

⛳️ Dream Golf, a.k.a. the Keiser family, announced on April 18 that it will develop up to six courses at a development being called Rodeo Dunes.

Situated near the Front Range town of Roggen, approximately 50 miles northeast of Denver, the 2,000-acre site is replete with massive dunes and mountain views.

"The moment I set foot on this land, I knew this was the place," said Michael Keiser, son of Bandon Dunes domo Mike Keiser, and the developer of Wisconsin’s Sand Valley with brother Chris. "The dunes are perfect — tall and rolling, with unlimited possibilities for great golf holes."

As first reported by Colorado Avid Golfer in December 2022, two courses are currently on the books, one to be designed by Bill Coore and Ben Crenshaw, the other to be the first solo project from longtime Coore/Crenshaw associate Jim Craig. It’s most likely Craig’s course that will appear first. Also to come, soon thereafter, will be a short course and a putting course.

Named for the previous property owner — the Crevi family, which is among the country’s elite producers of championship rodeos — the layout has inspired Michael Keiser to draw parallels to the terrain at Lahinch, calling the site "where Ireland meets the American West." Craig got the nod to design the first course based on the positive experience the Keiser brothers had with him when he built the Sandbox short course at Sand Valley on behalf of Coore & Crenshaw in 2018.

"You just could not ask for a better site," said Michael Kesier of Rodeo Dunes. "The land requires minimal shaping. We know what kind of amazing work Bill and Ben do, and their routing is as great as you would expect from them. Jimmy Craig’s layout explores the property in a way that feels both similar and fresh. The two courses will complement each other and be a blast to play."

Construction at Rodeo Dunes begins this summer, with an expected opening date for public play in 2025.

⛳️ Indian Creek Country Club reopened earlier in 2023 after a 2022 "resto-vation" by Andrew Green.

Located on Indian Creek Island on Biscayne Bay, across from Miami Beach, Florida, the low-key private club was perhaps best known in recent years for its stunning, yet comfortable Mediterranean-style clubhouse, with an impressive locker room to match. Now, the 1925 William Flynn-designed golf course can once more compare favorably to its magical seaside setting and to its remarkable clubhouse.

"We gave the course a real facelift," Green told The First Call in early February. "We reinfused it with the Flynn stylings. We did not go after a more natural or rugged presentation. We tried to keep the refinement that the golf course had transitioned to, but we also found ways to connect to some of the layered bunkering that Flynn originally had — clusters of sand that dance in the landscape."

Green also rebuilt the greens and expanded them back to their original dimensions, and moved the fourth hole closer to the bay, reflecting the original Flynn drawing. To enhance aesthetics even more, Green cleared away much of the overgrown vegetation that had obscured handsome vistas of golf course, bay and clubhouse. With newly improved sightlines, refreshed bunkering and heightened risk/reward decisions with holes set on the Bay.

⛳️ Invited, the private club industry stalwart formerly known as ClubCorp, debuted its renovated Firethorne Country Club on May 9.

Located in the upscale Charlotte, North Carolina, suburb of Marvin, the club boasts a wooded 1998 Tom Jackson design replete with rock walls, creeks and ponds.

For the renovation, the club enlisted the aid of former PGA Championship winner Lanny Wadkins to consult on redesigning the ninth hole. Previously, the hole was a 516-yard par 5 that featured a challenging tee shot, with bunkers and water lining the right side of the fairway. The reimagined hole has been converted to a 440-yard par 4 as the green has been moved 75 yards toward the tee, with new bunkers installed to add an element of risk to the approach shot.

The tee box has been leveled with its footprint expanded and rebuilt with new grass, while the fairway was widened and fashioned into a concave shape that is more receptive to tee shots. The bunkers on the right have been removed, making for a more inviting tee shot. The former ninth green has been transformed into a short game practice area, allowing for pitch shots from up to 75 yards, as well as opportunities for members to work on both short and medium-length bunker shots.

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