Interesting article with some good quotes by DL III on GCA. There's a pic at the link:
www.thestate.com/mld/thestate/sports/11438362.htmLove’s course a links to history
The Patriot GC was designed with Ninety Six’s revolutionary roots in mind
By BOB GILLESPIE
Senior Writer
NINETY SIX —There is more history in this corner of South Carolina than there is people. Davis Love III learned that when he began construction of his newest golf course, The Patriot Golf Club at Grand Harbor, on Lake Greenwood.
Love, an 18-time winner on the PGA Tour but a relative newcomer to the course-design business, had heard about historic Star Fort and the Revolutionary War battle fought nearby between Colonial forces under Nathaniel Greene and a British garrison. He was wondering about perhaps incorporating that history into his work when fate stepped in.
“When we started moving dirt, we found a cannon ball,” Love said during last week’s MCI Heritage. “That’s part of the history of the area — they shot cannons here.” He grinned. “That’s pretty cool.”
What Love created is pretty cool, too.
His 12th golf course (with five others under construction) has, as its signature feature, replica “ruins” similar to those of Star Fort.
Weather-brick walls frame the par-5 18th’s green complex and are part of both the first and ninth tee areas, as well as the No. 1 green and elsewhere.
“You can’t convince some (members) that the ruins aren’t real,” Love said, laughing.
Love used faux ruins before, at his Barefoot Resort course in Myrtle Beach, but there “the course is dead flat,” he said. “You needed something.”
That’s not the case with The Patriot, which has steeply rolling terrain, water on nine holes and features such as a “Redan” (elevated) green that seem straight out of golf’s earliest days. Opened in January 2004, the course was selected as South Carolina’s best new course by the S.C. Golf Course Ratings Panel, beating out Hampton Hall, a Pete Dye design near Bluffton.
That a course in the middle of nowhere — it’s nearly 30 minutes from Newberry on State Road 34, some 15 miles from Greenwood — would outpoll one located in golf-crazed Hilton Head and built by one of golf design’s premier names is somewhat surprising. But Gary Moore, The Patriot’s general manager, says he expected it.
“Almost to a man, or woman, the raters gave us great feedback, how much they enjoyed the course,” he said. “We felt we had something special.”
Moore says Love’s North Carolina roots show in his design.
“He does a lot of the same things as at Pinehurst, where if you miss a green you don’t just grab a sand wedge,” Moore said. “You have to think around the greens.”
Love’s affection for Harbour Town Golf Links, where he has won five MCI Heritage titles, also is in evidence. “Pros like Harbour Town because you don’t just blast a driver,” Moore said. “It’s the same with this course.”
At 6,798 yards and par 72, The Patriot’s original layout was deemed too short. Moore says the club added back tees to push the length to 7,045. The 18th, an easy finishing hole, is being lengthened to 552 yards.
The private club, which allows limited outside play, has 300 members, locals and retirees but just 60 golf members. Construction of 30 new homes is under way, Moore said.
Recently, Love was on hand for the grand opening. That day, Greenwood’s Vince Hatfield, one of the state’s top juniors, set a course record with a 65, and a local member, Glen Drummond, made a double eagle at the 18th. A good start.
Love plans to be back. He wants to add bunkers and make them look “raggedy” for an old-time feel. He figures he will be tweaking the design for a while.
“To build a (Tom) Fazio or a Rees Jones course right out of the box, you need a budget like theirs,” Love said. “But the course will mature, and we’ll add to it, polish the edges.
“We’re learning. Listening to Tom, Rees, Pete (Dye), that’s my education.”
Golf design, with a minor in history.