Paul,
I'll try although it is important to know that we were not attempting to "restore" anything. We had a 32 year old course (and irrigation system), old penncross (and poa) greens and we decided to "blow things up" and start over.
The original course was a good Joe Lee layout. 6600 from the tips but challenging enough to host about 16 USGA Senior Open qualifiers and the 2005 US Open local qualifier (71-1 under advanced to sectionals) as well as a few Atlanta Amateurs.
Anyway, we spent $3.4M and rebuilt every green to USGA specs and installed a sub-air system and fans on every green, we re-did every bunker and removed many. The re-builds were done as "Billy Bunkers" drain tile, 1 inch gravel layer and liner. Completely new irrigation system and 85% of the cart paths were re-done. We also built a nursery green (something we never had!) and a new practice putting green.
After deciding to hire Mike from a very good group of candidates, we talked and wrote down some "principles/thoughts" about what we wanted. I know that everyone thinks their course has the potential for greatness and often overestimate their home courses and I tried not to do this. I do think we had a nice piece of land, a good layout and the potential was to have a very affordable and "surprisingly" good course in Atlanta. I have also felt that while there is alot of decent golf in Atlanta, very little really gets my blood moving, and even if it meant screwing up a pretty good thing, I wanted to try and do something different.
Some of Mike and my thoughts were:
1. Absolutely no white sand--nothing looks uglier or more out of place to me. Brown is beautiful and I like the texture better anyway versus the powdery fluff.
2. Try and create the most interesting greens in Atlanta. I don't give a damn about the "Stimpmeter". I would rather play very undulating greens that were "slow" instead of tiered flat greens that have to be mowed at ridicuousley low heights to get their speed.
3. I don't care what par you end up with--anything from 69-73 was fine if it meant better golf holes. We ended up at 72.
4. Trees suck.
5. Bunkers should be hazards--mean, nasty and brutish (apologies to Thomas Hobbes). Mr. Richardson and Fine's book, Bunkers Pits and Other Hazards was great inspiration. I actually considered raking bunkers just once per week, but figured that would be too much. My seniors and ladies would kill me.
6. I love native vegetation and grasses. I hired Mark Hoban, former superintendent for 33 years at The Standard Club to be my super. We now have yuccas, sedges, lovegrasses, fescues, scotch brooms all over as well as in many of the bunkers.
7.Absolutely no ornamental trees or annual plantings. Again, I love the texture of different grasses and for color, well, brown and shades of greens are colorful.
8. Our tees ended up diamond zoysia, around tee boxes (square) and bunkers is zoysia (toro or emerald? much thicker leafblade). Greens are 50/50 mix of A-1 and A-4, fairways are 419 bermuda.
9. We both loved MacDonald and Raynor courses--my top two are, of course, NGLA and Camargo.
10. Try and be different. We have greens ranging in size from 4,000 to 10,000 square feet. We have a redan hole, a punchbowl green, a green with a "half-pipe" in the back right (inspired by #9 Winged Foot East, a green with a false front that covers one third of the green (think #14 ANGC).
11. Some bunkers you may have to play backwards from. We removed most fairway bunkers and/or moved them out of the 240 yard range and into the 270-290 range.
12. VERY wide fairways--40-70 yards but that demand an approach from the "correct" side or you have a very tough shot.
13. We took our shortest par 4 of 322 yards and shortened it to 295 to make it driveable.
14. While we lenghthend the back tee from 6597 to 7005, we built more forward tees than any other tees and tried to allow a run up shot on every hole. We have some crossing bunkers but you do not have to go over them--you have room to go around. The course is 5103 from the most forward and our senior course was shortened as well.
15. We have bunkers ranging is square footage from 6 square feet!! to over 5,000 square feet. Not alot of "flashed bunkers" but lots of jagged edges and grasses tumbleing into them. Some bunkers are 12 feet deep and one or two you could putt out of.
16. Most difficult problem was convincing the shapers (Medalist Golf--BTW, Joey and Detrick are the best!) to not make the lines so perfect! At first, Mike had to really explain how the imperfections, mistakes and gouges should stay! It was hard not loosing many of the bumps and "mistakes" in the sand layer but they did a great job. Also, had to make the mounding look as "old" as possible--no "ice cream scoops" for mounds.
BTW our course is private but affordable--ID is $7500 and mnthly dues are $259 for full family. Before the project we were about 90% full, now we have a 4 1/2 month waiting list to join! I can't thank Mike Riley or credit him enough.
Sorry the post is so long. I'll jump off now. Please let me know if you want to take a tour sometime and I will also try and get some pics up to look at. The course will re-open for play December 1.