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Pete Balzer

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Lakewood Country Club- Denver
« on: May 08, 2012, 07:47:00 AM »
Played Lakewood CC yesterday, an enjoyable course, other than the road noise. Curious, they advertise it as a Donald Ross course, but it didn't feel/look like a Ross to me.  What was his involvement with this course? Have there been many alterations over the yrs?

Pete

Matthew Petersen

  • Karma: +0/-0
Re: Lakewood Country Club- Denver
« Reply #1 on: May 08, 2012, 11:46:32 AM »
The three Ross-credited designs in Colorado are Lakewood, the Broadmoor, and Wellshire, which is a Denver muni. Lakewood and Wellshire always seems to me like very probably candidates for courses where Ross simply drew up a routing and mailed it back for someone else to build. I don't know if that's the case at all, but having played those courses I had that general sense.

Lakewood is itself generally credited both to Ross and Tom Bendelow. What that indicates about Ross' actual involvement isn't really all that clear to me.

Lakewood is an enjoyable course, but the roads around it have grown up to be quite a nuisance, as you say.

Does a Ross expert know if he ever actually visited Colorado? What was his actual involvement with the Broadmoor?

Kirk Gill

  • Karma: +0/-0
Re: Lakewood Country Club- Denver
« Reply #2 on: May 08, 2012, 12:52:43 PM »
I am absolutely no Ross expert, but my understanding is that Ross did visit Colorado, mainly to work at the Broadmoor. GCA member Doug Wright obtained a copy of the Ross drawings for Wellshire, but if I remember correctly said that Ross never did actually visit the site. Brad Klein said the same. Honestly not sure regarding Lakewood Country Club.

I like seeing the course from highway 6, but I'm sure the golfers on the course aren't feeling the same way about looking at the road !
"After all, we're not communists."
                             -Don Barzini

Matthew Petersen

  • Karma: +0/-0
Re: Lakewood Country Club- Denver
« Reply #3 on: May 08, 2012, 05:06:55 PM »
I am absolutely no Ross expert, but my understanding is that Ross did visit Colorado, mainly to work at the Broadmoor. GCA member Doug Wright obtained a copy of the Ross drawings for Wellshire, but if I remember correctly said that Ross never did actually visit the site. Brad Klein said the same. Honestly not sure regarding Lakewood Country Club.

I like seeing the course from highway 6, but I'm sure the golfers on the course aren't feeling the same way about looking at the road !

Just being at the three courses would tend to give you the feeling that Ross did in-person work at the Broadmoor but not at the two Denver-area courses.

The opening dates for these venues are listed as: Wellshire 1926, Lakewood 1908, Broadmoor 1918. (Note though that I'm not 100% sure if the date listed for Lakewood applies to the course as well as the club, but I couldn't find anything that gave a different date for the course itself.)