My family has a house in Island Falls, ME, way up in Aroostook County, about 350 miles from Boston.
We are of course familiar with the most local Golden Age golf course, Penobscot Valley Country Club in Orono about 90 miles south of our house. The course is credited to Donald Ross with the date of 1924.
I have only played the course once, about 5-7 years ago, and was delighted with the small, canted greens, minimal interior trees, and old-time feel. When I was there, it appeared that perhaps half the holes had been "restored" (whatever that meant at the time), and those holes took the feel of many of the recently restored Ross courses, with squared-off greens, deep grass-faced bunkers, and small square tees.
Since, the course has recently come under control of Harris Golf, the company that manages (owns?) Sunday River, the new Old Marsh in Southern Maine, Boothbay Harbor, and Freeport CC. Recently plans were announced for a "sympathetic restoration" to "Ross ideals," and their website contains a .pdf outlining the plan for the work. The plan says all the right things with Ross quotes, some club history, etc...
So, my dad and brother played the course a few days ago, and I will be going up in about a month (possibly playing PVCC), so I was asking them if the work was currently heavy enough to wait until later to play it again. They said that the work was ongoing, but there were changes happening that didn't seem to them like they were to the "Ross style." I will admit that my dad is an inexperienced GCA analyst, and there could be a whole different discussion of what "looks like a Ross course," but things were reported like "big greens" and "large flashy bunkers with many fingers extending into the sand." I believe Harris Golf is doing the work themselves, as no architect is mentioned in the plan.
Does anyone know how this is going, or what the plans are? I seem to remember Michael Moore having some knowledge of/excitement for the project...