Restoration & Redesign Interplay: Cal Club, Meadowbrook (MI), Others?

[Michael Chadwick]

We certainly are fortunate to be in an era when many existing golden age clubs have lent themselves to contemporary architects to perform faithful restorations to ensure their continued pedigree for decades to come. 

Not all golf courses, however, can—or even should—be faithfully restored to its original design. There are a number of reasons: incomplete historical data, a muddled architectural past, design flaws, club and ball technology, and most irremediable, incursions of development or infrastructure impacting original acreage. The question for these kinds of clubs then becomes: How do you improve upon what’s there without entirely erasing its history? How do you rebuild in a way that feels connected to the past, yet is better suited for the future? In my experience, the two clubs that have successfully navigated this risky but thrilling middle road,  preserving an essence of the past while simultaneously championing new work to be performed, are Cal Club and Meadowbrook.

Did Kyle Phillips and the membership at Cal usher in this new way forward? Classic golf courses have been reworked from about as soon as they were finished. In the second half of the 20th century especially, the prevailing sentiment seemed to be hiring an architect to transform the course away from its original style to make it more challenging and in line with aesthetic trends at the time. Today’s aesthetic for historic clubs, though, appears to have come full circle, akin to “out with the new and back with the old.”

Cal’s 3 green in foreground with 8 green and 4 fairway in background

Yesterday I made a non-architectural comment regarding Cal that was interpreted by some more negatively than I had anticipated or intended. By way of apology, I want to highlight how the club serves as a paradigmatic shift for how to best revitalize a golf course whose original routing has been compromised. What is groundbreaking to me is the fact that Mr. Phillips has 5 original holes of his own at Cal, yet his design was done out of respect--rather than opposition--to the spirit of Willie Locke and AV Macan’s layout and Alister MacKenzie’s bunkering. His contemporary holes seamlessly fit within an otherwise historic routing, amounting to an amalgamation of old and new architecture rebuilt and enhanced. A more thorough account from Ran can be found here: https://golfclubatlas.com/courses-by-country/usa/california-golf-club-of-san-franciso/       

At Meadowbrook in Northville, MI, it’s difficult to imagine that trees once obstructed the majority of the club’s wonderfully tumbling property. It’s now incredibly open, revealing brawny holes with sharp edging, characterized by both its visual and playing appeal.


Meadowbrook’s 6th

What the membership entrusted Andy Staples with was an 18 hole renovation in the spirit of Park’s design ethos, taking cues from the architect’s comprehensive list of designs, notably Huntercombe. Ample contours on green complexes and approaches allow for ground game imagination. Tee box visuals are big, bold, and thrilling. While Staples might not have as many original holes as Phillips, the par 3 6th is his and was not part of the preexisting routing. Ben Cowan-Dewar goes into better detail of the extensive hole by hole changes, although the images don’t appear on my browser: https://www.golfclubatlas.com/forum/index.php/topic,64041.msg1525306.html#msg1525306

I’m bringing these two courses up again for two reasons.

1. Renovating with one eye to the future and one eye inspired from the past is a challenging proposition fraught with subjectivity. It also seems like an episodic phenomenon, one that won’t likely be an option years from now for courses built in our 2nd Golden Age, since the internet and club historians will maintain a trove of aerials, photos, and architect notes for continued upkeep. A Tom Doak “inspired” renovation in the future sounds sacrilegious for an architect so persistent on maintaining a paper trail throughout his body of work. But for today’s older clubs lacking the ability to undergo a full restoration, this middle way of historically grounded, modern construction can yield rewarding results.

2. I wanted the above references to help contextualize my following question: What other clubs come to mind that might be strong candidates for such an undertaking? Clubs with some combination of engaging land, history, or architectural past, but for whatever reason are prevented from ever returning to their original state? George C. Thomas’s Ojai Valley comes to mind, a course he himself believed to be better than his LACC, but I’m afraid the resort has probably taken up too much of the land to ever return the course to something resembling what it once was. This article by Garrett Morrison, with pictures and research from Tommy Naccarato, is a good read: https://thefriedegg.com/ojai-valley-inn-golf-course-review/ 

I have heard what Mr. Phillips has achieved at Hillcrest in Los Angeles is another smashing success. What I’d like this thread to become, if possible, is a repository of additional clubs that could stand to greatly benefit not from a pure restoration but from this interplay of redesign and restoration.

[Tommy Williamsen]

Don't you think most restorations also involve a bit of redesign?

[David_Tepper]

Lake Merced (Daly City, CA) is about to begin a Gil Hanse project that I suspect is much more redesign than restoration.

[Michael Chadwick]

Don't you think most restorations also involve a bit of redesign?

Hi Tommy, certainly. The distinction I'm trying to make are clubs that feature new holes as a way to still recapture the essence of an older routing that's no longer feasible. Whereas Oakland Hills had the ability to fully restore, Cal couldn't due to eminent domain. I'd like to see more places listed that could benefit in the way Cal has, because redesign could be an interesting way forward for those kinds of clubs. 


David--good point. Hanse will have 1 new hole of his own, a par 3, but otherwise his plan does seem pretty loyal to the routing and bunkering from the club's MacKenzie era aerial. Based on the hole by hole plans, I'm very bullish on how well it can turn out architecturally.

[Peter Pallotta]

Another in a series of good posts, Michael.

I'd quibble with one of your conclusions though: I don't think renovations are an 'episodic' phenomenon. Decades from now, and despite Tom D's detailed and extensive paper trail, a renovating architect with 'one eye to the future' will still be able to justify whatever changes to Tom's work that he's managed to get the course owners to pay for.

[Tom_Doak]

Another in a series of good posts, Michael.

I'd quibble with one of your conclusions though: I don't think renovations are an 'episodic' phenomenon. Decades from now, and despite Tom D's detailed an extensive paper trail, a renovating architect with 'one eye to the future' will still be able to justify whatever changes to Tom's work that he's managed to get the course owners to pay for.

Probably.  Even if I have promised to haunt them from deep in the bowels of the Internet 

[Matt_Cohn]

Lake Merced (Daly City, CA) is about to begin a Gil Hanse project that I suspect is much more redesign than restoration.

As far as I know, ~13 holes are Mackenzie restorations. The other 5 can't be restored because of land usage. So basically, they're doing something similar to what Cal Club did.

[Michael Chadwick]

Pinehurst #4 and Southern Pines deserve to be mentioned as additional completed restoration/redesign projects of this ilk.


Other places that could possibly benefit from a 'resto-design':
Green Hills
Stanford
Sharp Park
San Diego


Would love to hear more, especially out of California. Places you know could be improved upon, but due to certain constraints would require a redesign of new holes/routing instead of a pure historic restoration.

[Jackson C]

I am curious about this as well.  Especially since Tom recently restored Dornick Hills.  I visited this week and was astounded with the changes.

[Michael Chadwick]

I wonder if there is an architect whose portfolio of courses would be better enhanced by sympathetic renovations than George C. Thomas. Riviera is the last of his big three without an extensive restoration. In addition to Ojai already mentioned, the following clubs/courses would be interesting candidates for a hybrid redesign/restoration: La Cumbre, Stanford, and the LA municipal 36 complex at Griffith Park now known as Wilson and Harding. Perhaps Yale's restoration will spark some productive envy among Stanford's golf boosters.   

This idea is echoed in Andy Johnson's most recent Fried Egg podcast with Geoff Shackelford on Thomas. But, apart from restoring Riviera, taking a page from Cal Club's redesign would be better suited to revitalizing Thomas's degraded designs.

[Jackson C]

I wonder if there is an architect whose portfolio of courses would be better enhanced by sympathetic renovations than George C. Thomas. Riviera is the last of his big three without an extensive restoration. In addition to Ojai already mentioned, the following clubs/courses would be interesting candidates for a hybrid redesign/restoration: La Cumbre, Stanford, and the LA municipal 36 complex at Griffith Park now known as Wilson and Harding. Perhaps Yale's restoration will spark some productive envy among Stanford's golf boosters.   

This idea is echoed in Andy Johnson's most recent Fried Egg podcast with Geoff Shackelford on Thomas. But, apart from restoring Riviera, taking a page from Cal Club's redesign would be better suited to revitalizing Thomas's degraded designs.

What are some of the things one would consider restoring at Riviera?  I am sure there are some things but perhaps they are far fewer than the other two LA Thomas designs.  Historically, hasn't Riviera has been considered the best of the bunch?

[Michael Chadwick]

What are some of the things one would consider restoring at Riviera?  I am sure there are some things but perhaps they are far fewer than the other two LA Thomas designs.  Historically, hasn't Riviera has been considered the best of the bunch?

These two threads are good references for ways upon which Riviera could be improved: https://www.golfclubatlas.com/forum/index.php/topic,65577.0/nowap.html
https://www.golfclubatlas.com/forum/index.php/topic,25193.0/nowap.html