I had the opportunity to play Chattanooga G&CC this past Sunday. It was not only the first time that I had seen the course, but I got to play it with Bill Bergin, the architect that renovated/restored the course several years ago. The club itself dates back to 1896 and started the Southern Golf Association in 1902, with the course being a Donald Ross design from 1920. The club hosted the Southern Amateur that same year, and a kid named Bobby Jones managed to win the tournament. Bill was brought in to restore the course after decades of unfortunate changes, and the results are spectacular, with the original routing intact.
Chattanooga is a par 71 that plays 6685 from the back tees, with 2 par 4's on each side that are longer than 450 yds., and with typically long Ross par 3's. In fact, BOTH nines finish with a par three; #9 is 178 uphill, and #18 is 222, also uphill. Wonderful, demanding holes with good places to miss and disaster if you miss in the wrong places; and the fact that the nine's are finishing with par 3's never seems odd on a Ross routing, including Chattanooga.
The club sits on the Tennessee River, with several holes playing along the bluffs of the river. There were no original drawings to work from, though there were aerials from sometime in the '40's, so the project was to both restore the Ross features that were still there, and give the rest of the course a feeling in keeping with Ross' work. The membership of the club seems thrilled with the work; a number of members went out of their way to come over and speak to Bill during the afternoon both in the grill and on the course. Perhaps the best proof of the club's satisfaction is that the scorecard now lists the Course Architects co-equally: Donald Ross and Bill Bergin.
For any of you that have a chance to get to Chattanooga and play the course, make it a point to do it. It is a thoroughly enjoyable round; very Ross-like in that you come off the course thinking, "I could have played better than that; that wasn't that hard!" It was nice to be challenged on every shot without being bludgeoned to death in the process.
Two other side notes:
1. For GCA freaks like us, playing a course with the guy who designed it is just a huge treat. To hear the architect describe what was there before, why and how they changed it, and to see it all firsthand is pure education. I've gotten to do it a couple of times now, and it is tremendous. It also makes me realize how little I really understand about how GCA's do what they do.
2. Secondly, I've gotten to play 4 Ross restorations now, each by a different architect. Two I had not seen "before" (Chattanooga by Bill Bergin and Wilmington Muni by Ron Pritchard) and two I had seen many times prior to the new work (Cape Fear by Kris Spence and Hope Valley by Brian Silva). I loved all 4, and won't even attempt to rank either the courses or the architects, but it is a fascinating thing to see and study.
I posted this link in another thread, but here is a link to some pictures of Chattanooga before and after; it is a very cool presentation. You'll also be able to see that the club allowed Bill to remove a number of trees that had significantly reduced the playing corridors since the course was built.
http://bergingolfdesignsbna.homestead.com/ChattanoogaCCTenn.htmlBe SURE to look closely at the picture of #17; the pit in front of the green is the site of an old logging pit from which logs were rolled down into the river transport downstream; it was part of the Ross course and then later removed. The club wanted it restored and playable, which Bill did, and it makes for a very cool hole.