a thread from the Treehouse? Interesting that the Pr blurb pasted below doesn't cite the architect hired.....

TOP RANKING CASCADES COURSE GETS EXTREME MAKEOVER


The Homestead course set to reopen May 2006
(Hot Springs, VA) Nov. 10, 2005 - Silver is for a 25th anniversary and gold for a 50th, but what do you get for a 240th anniversary?

If you're The Homestead resort, it's a facelift for your most famous golf course. The classic Cascades course closed Oct. 30, 2005, to begin its extreme makeover, a renovation that will restore the course to its original design, as created by William Flynn more than 80 years ago.

The makeover will focus mainly on the course bunkers, which, have deteriorated from routine edging and flooding over the history of the course.

"Our No. 1 opportunity has been the bunkers all along," said Don Ryder, director of golf. "This restoration will elevate the level of play and make the course more difficult than it was before."

The Cascades course was completed in 1923 and then redesigned by Robert Trent Jones in 1961. Renovation plans will restore the course to the original design Flynn developed, with the help of the 1923 course blueprint.

"We are restoring the course with assumptions based on today's game. Many things the original design called for can't be implemented today - there's a road that runs through the course now - and today's game is a bit more challenging," said Brett Schoenfield, president of The Homestead. "But we want to pay homage to one of the world's most talented golf course architects and to a regular guest that loved The Homestead and its surroundings."

The Cascades is noted for grooming some of the PGA's past and present touring professionals, such as Sam Snead, who began his professional career at The Homestead in 1934, and Richmond, Va., native Lanny Wadkins, the 1995 Ryder Cup captain.

The course, recently named as one of the Top 100 golf courses in the United States and Top 100 in the world by Golf Magazine, is scheduled to be finished and ready for play in May 2006.

About ClubCorp

Founded in 1957, Dallas-based ClubCorp is the world leader in delivering premier golf, private club, and resort experiences. Internationally, ClubCorp's affiliates own or operate nearly 170 golf courses, country clubs, private business and sports clubs, and resorts. ClubCorp has more than $1.5 billion in assets. Among the company's nationally recognized golf properties are Pinehurst in the Village of Pinehurst, North Carolina (North America's largest golf resort, home to the 1999 and 2005 U.S. Opens); Firestone Country Club in Akron, Ohio (site of the 2003-2005 World Golf Championships - NEC Invitational); Mission Hills Country Club in Rancho Mirage, California (home of the Kraft Nabisco Championship); and The Homestead in Hot Springs, Virginia (America's first resort founded in 1766). The more than 60 business clubs and business and sports clubs include the Boston College Club; City Club on Bunker Hill in Los Angeles; Citrus Club in Orlando, Florida; Columbia Tower Club in Seattle; Metropolitan Club in Chicago; Tower Club in Dallas; and the City Club of Washington, D.C. The company's 18,000 employees serve the nearly 200,000 member households and 200,000 guests who visit ClubCorp properties each year. Visit www.clubcorp.com for additional company information.


Media Contact:
Tiffany Townsend Fessler
Account Supervisor
Edelman Atlanta
1350 Spring St., Suite 500
Atlanta, Ga 30309
p: (404) 262-3000
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Tiffany.Fessler@edelman.com
 

WOW...big news ( to some ).....

congratulations Wayne and Tom....this sounds like an intriguing and personally rewarding project to immerse yourselves in....

a suggestion: after just seeing firsthand the new real estate being built at the "other resort down the  road", please insert a clause in your contract which mandates that Club Corp deed the course to you if they EVER start maximizing earnings by constructing (more) real estate around the Cascades

congrats men!  I hope I can see it asap

Thank you Scott, Sully, Paul and Geoff.

It is a great project to be associated with.  The staff's appreciation of Flynn and their desire to stick as closely as possible to the Flynn plan has been a fortunate opportunity.  Craig Disher was instrumental in helping us present a format that the construction team can work with.  In many ways the whole process is groundbreaking and sets a unique benchmark in restoration.  Of course none of this would be possible without loads of photographs, drawings and documentation.  The fact that Flynn drew as built made it all possible.  Not all restoration projects can follow such a process but all the pieces fell into place on this one.

The return of the 14th green and 15th tee will be further down the road.  But the first phase will result in a terrific improvement in aesthetics and playability.

We have received permission from Ran to have a GCA get together down at the Homestead sometime in late May or early June.  We'll have two days to play golf and talk about the restoration.  I'm sure the resort wouldn't mind if some decided to stay longer.  I know that families will have a great time...there's so much to do.  We'll let you know the logistics when they become clarified.  We also don't wish to have it too close to Pat Mucci's gathering for many reasons.

hey, just think, another book for you two to write...

Ouch...I'm done writing books for a while.  It is HARD work.  Don't let anyone tell you differently.  

A new twist on the Top-shot bunker....the topped-shank-shot bunker just to the side of the tee. I love it.

Tom,

Did you give Donnie a flask while we were down there?  He must've been at the bottom of it when he called you.  I told you to be careful how you collate the instructions in the 119 page report.  You put them in upside down, didn't you?  Well, Sebonac's tees look like greens so if its OK for Tom and Jack it should be OK for us too!

I was perfecting the topped shank and topped hook today so my game is ready for the new reversed Cascades designed by Tom Paul and Donnie Adkins or is it Snikda Einnod and Luap Mot.

Jim,

I know you posed the question on another thread as to how we treated bunkers, tees and such; in other words how we regarded design intent.  I think that was Tom's job and he forgot all about it.  But seriously, we did use Flynn's plans to dictate most everything that we could.  We started to take out some of the RTJ, Sr. stuff as on 1,7,9,11 (still need to address 14 and 15).  The first phase is fairway and greenside bunkers.  I have to think but I believe we're actually taking more out than we are putting in.  There's such great topography on much of the course that it'll play like Gravity Golf (Tom's catch phrase).  We have some ideas for new tees that will bring present bunkers into play and that is left for another day.  I hope we can someday address the 16th and 17th greens (RTJ) since they are not sympathetic to the Flynn greens.

Dan,

We do have the Indian Creek drawings--engineering and design. They differ from the present look.  The undulating sandy waste areas have been reduced in scale and in many cases formalized.  Likely a maintenance cost consideration or they didn't quite understand how it was to be maintained.  Similar to the waste areas originally at Shinnecock Hills.  I can send you a drawing or two to give you an idea.  Which hole(s) would you like to see?

By the way, Geoff, as a Penn graduate (and Tom attended for a time as well) I'm not sorry that I am not a Yale van Yale but I do feel your pain regarding the course.  

I hope that with your efforts and the path the superintendent is now on will lead to a recovery of the greatness that was once the Yale GC.  Never having been there, I take your valuable word on it.  But let's correct that situation next year!

Wayne -

We will absolutely correct that next year. I've been trying to get your sidekick up there for a few years now but now that I know he is a dropout (wait till Pat reads this) it's understandable  .  I've got to get down your way more as well.

It also reminds me that TommyN owes me an overlay of the old and new Yale aerials for the Road Hole (#4) to show that the new bunker is 15 feet or so further from the green then it used to be.  That's a great tool you're using (with Craig).  It would be nice to hear some additional details about how this was done.

Geoff,

Check your aecom.yu or earthlink emails, I sent you something you may find interesting.

Wayne,

Equally striking in those pictures is the green size, especially on the fourth. Also, while not shown in the picture, I am fond of the angle of the green horizon "reflecting" that of the mountain in the distance.

Both greens present a more intimidating look when pushed to the horizon of the feature. More challenging hole locations, too, I'd imagine.

"....when I played the course years ago there was a neat stream that added strategic intrigue to the 370 yard sixth. Was part of it grassed over ? Im not sure that was "Flynns stream" but I am wondering if it might be reinstated."

Mark:

Interesting point you make and question you ask. #6 is a very, very good example of what can happen to alter original architecture over time for all kinds of diverse reasons.

I'm glad you asked about this hole because it probably could serve as an excellent case study for interested architectural analysts and restoration buffs on here as to the benefit of doing comprehensive research on the evolution of a hole and intelligently addressing a whole series of inter-related problems and issues with an eye to determining if anything positive can or will be done about the hole in the future compared to the way it was designed or originally built.

In a sense #6 is the type of hole that potentially had three strikes against it from the start. First, it's wedged into the narrow far end of the property (both actually width-wise and topographically). Golf architects (routers) worry about that kind of situation saying they can get stuck using areas like that. In other words, it's just not that easy to get hole in there and then another one out of areas like that without some kind of disconnect or inherent problem to holes or the connection of them.

Second, #6 had a road along its entire left side that may not have been much of anything when Flynn designed and built that course but the road is definitely traveled now. Obviously that presents a much greater problem with balls going left than when designed.

Third, and most important, the water flow and potential volume problem in that area can be really destructive, and has been a number of times.

Obviously all three of those things both individually and collectively contributed to the green being moved to the other side of the creek up on the hill and farther out (by Flynn).

Perhaps something can be done to restore some of the original characteristics of this hole but if so all those problems will have to be addressed simultaneously and that's not easy and it wouldn't be cheap, particularly solving the occasional water volume problem. (that fix would have to get into the green-end of #5 too)

The right side creek was turfed over on some of the tee-side end of the hole and an enormous diameter drain pipe was sunk in there years ago (I think the diameter was 76" which is huge--we have a photo of a man standing in it).

We also have a design drawing from Flynn for that hole that has a section of the creek wandering around on the fairway as well as along the right side (I think). Flynn did quite a bit of re-aligning of creeks at the Upper Cascades and obviously that was one proposed example that never got built.

Personally, I think that iteration of #6 with another arm of the creek wandering around on the fairway just might be something to consider today. I'm no engineer or hydrologist but I mentioned that if the levels were matched at the bottoms of all the creek arms if additional arms were made that should serve to carry a larger volume of water through there in the worst of times and help solve that problem on that hole. Arms of the creek wandering around on the fairway as Flynn's alternative design proposed would also be more multi-dimensional on the tee shot and strategically on a shortish hole. That just might also allow for the creek along the right to be opened up again.

I never thought of it before now but in my opinion taking out trees across the creek on the right side of the tee end (somewhere near the LZ for shorter players) would serve to open up the feeling of that narrow hole as well. I don't know if that would be problematic for some other reason such as topography etc. The next tee I doubt could ever be a problem from the 6th tee unless they took out all the trees along the right of #6 which would of course not be wise.

Anyway, Mark, that's a very long answer to a good question on your part on a hole that really has a lot of problems and solutions to consider and obviously always did.    

Tom,

I agree there are many examples around the Cascades course that were converted to a Raynor-esqe look.  Compared to these geometric shapes similar to Raynor's style Flynn's are more elaborate even in clamshell style.  

I think Flynn's bunkers flowed with the land far better than the present and soon to be restored bunkers.  He placed them in ideal locations and perhaps, as at other flattish sites (Kittansett) he had rolling floors to his bunkers.  They didn't stand out on the more topographic stretches but he designed far more complex bunkering that really caught the eye on flatter ground.  Here's an example of the changes proposed, only some of which were adopted, on the 14th hole:

Original design of the 14th:



1935 redesign (only the green and greenend bunkering was changed):