What Remains to Restore?

[Steven Wade]

I was recently thinking about the restoration boom of the last 20ish years and trying to think of what the most notable examples of courses that are still crying out for a restoration are? Pebble Beach comes immediately to mind, but that's complicated because as long as the goose is laying golden eggs, there's not a lot of pressure on the ownership to make any changes. Maybe there's something obvious that I'm failing to think of, or perhaps I'm too zeroed in on Golden Age designs and instead the most obvious examples are courses from the 1950s to 1980s that are the ones that are the most glaringly need in restoration/renovation?


I'd love to hear what's left out there that you'd like to see restored? This could even be a reversal of controversial redesign work, such as Fazio at PV, etc. I'd especially love to hear from the architects on the board, is there anything that comes to mind where you think, "Man, I'd love to be given the reins on that?"

[Matt Kardash]

The most obvious to me is restoring the TPC at Sawgrass back to what it was in 1980.

[MCirba]

Two I'd love to see are both unlikely as each has historic problems with flooding that would need to be considered and mitigated but both Timber Point and Shawnee-on-the-Delaware are otherwise restorable.

[Jim Sherma]

Concur with Shawnee as a great candidate - unfortunately the fact that it will just flood again and again could make the spend difficult to justify.


I would love to see Hershey CC - West, (1930 Maurice McCarthy) restored to something similar to what it was when Milton Hershey was alive in the 1930's and 40's. The original bunkering schemes in the available overheads look wonderful. You would need to reclaim the green pads and invest in significant bunkering rebuilds. There are 5 green that were redone by Postelthwaite in the 80's that you would need to decide what to do with. The vast majority of the routing is unchanged with the few changes that exist dating back to the 1950's. It's an historic course with a great piece of land whose routing uses it well. The cost would be akin to a rounding error to the broader Hershey entities that own it, however you would need a business model that showed sufficient ROI over a short enough period of time to get them to justify the spend. I can dream however.

[Keith Williams]

From a classic perspective, I don't know; but I won't underestimate the ability of clubs, owners and architects to think up work.  I recently read on social media that Kris Spence is doing a major bunker resto/reno at Holston Hills.  I always thought Holston was considered very well preserved and that Tom Doak had done what little work was necessary years ago, so who knows?


-Keith

[Brian Finn]

Has any substantial work ever been done at Myopia? If not, would it benefit from anything in particular?

[Thomas Dai]

Wouldn’t a simple way to restore a lot of old courses be to turn the irrigation off apart from maybe on the greens. Revise the mowing lines, remove a bunch of trees and re-do the drainage would be useful too.
Atb

[Matt Schoolfield]

My vote is for Mackenzie's Sharp Park, but it likely won't happen.

I don't have much to add here. I would just say that the restorations we see are transformative restorations into a modern era. Because we're restoring them into our modern distances, and modern setups, it's entirely likely that the next generation of players will want to re-restore many of these restorations we're seeing.

[Ira Fishman]

As I have mentioned on another thread, Hope Valley is considering a restoration. We benefit from a complete set of the Ross drawings plus some solid aerials. I have read the proposed plan. It is not a “pure” restoration because it would retain some of the bunkers added in prior renovations, but it would eliminate many of them.


And Matt, it would not add any distance nor bunkers to attempt to account for modern distances.


The most significant above the ground changes would be to lower some of the greens, restore the original contours in them, and restore the original bunker size, depth, and positioning relative to the greens. The greens would be terrific.


It is a really good course as is. It would be an exceptional course if the plan goes forward. The Ross routing is completely intact except for switching the nines.


However, it is expensive to do the above the ground restoration when most members would applaud just the drainage improvements. I hope that the full plan goes forward, but I would understand if it does not.

[Steven Wade]

Another one that I forgot about is a course I’ve never played. I’m happy to be corrected if I’m off-base with this one, but St. Louis CC looks like it might be a good candidate. I’ve been lucky to play a few CB MacDonald courses and count myself as a bit of a fanboy. I can’t speak of the playability of the course, but I think it loses a bit of visual drama to the over abundance of trees. I post this having not looked for the old aerials, but I have to think it looks far different than in 1914.

[Steve_Roths]

Peachtree is the one that architects usually mention.


As for St. Louis.  I think just cutting down trees is all it needs as they really have not touched that one as far as I know.

[Mark_Fine]

I love the enthusiasm and we all appreciate the good ideas/intentions but does this kind of thread make anyone nervous besides me?  There are definitely pros and cons but a thread like this can lead to courses being changed for the sake of change. 

[Wayne_Kozun]

ANGC

[Adam G]

Pebble and Riv.


Not much to restore at Myopia. Gil and the super have been doing amazing tree clearing work. They need to slow down those greens, though.

[Ryan Book]

To toot my own horn, I sent invites to some 150 anonymous "experts" earlier this year with the goal of creating an aggregate list of the most in-demand reno/restos in the United States at the moment. Some of you may have participated (or ignored me, ha). Nominators could list up to 10 options, with the rules stating that nominees could not a) already have a restoration plan in place or b) be impossible to restore (e.g. original plot developed). From the 255 courses nominated, I scored based on popularity and created this countdown. Many will not surprise and some perhaps will.

Just remember...if you hate the list, you hate democracy! 

America's 25 Most In-Demand Golf Course Renovations/Restorations (bethpageblackmetal.com)

[Tim Taylor]

Concur with Shawnee as a great candidate - unfortunately the fact that it will just flood again and again could make the spend difficult to justify.


I would love to see Hershey CC - West, (1930 Maurice McCarthy) restored to something similar to what it was when Milton Hershey was alive in the 1930's and 40's. The original bunkering schemes in the available overheads look wonderful. You would need to reclaim the green pads and invest in significant bunkering rebuilds. There are 5 green that were redone by Postelthwaite in the 80's that you would need to decide what to do with. The vast majority of the routing is unchanged with the few changes that exist dating back to the 1950's. It's an historic course with a great piece of land whose routing uses it well. The cost would be akin to a rounding error to the broader Hershey entities that own it, however you would need a business model that showed sufficient ROI over a short enough period of time to get them to justify the spend. I can dream however.

Jim, here's a cool aerial of HCC West from 1930. I'm struggling to figure out the holes/routing from this photo.


https://hersheyarchives.org/encyclopedia/hersheyarchives30-12-designing-a-course-fit-for-a-
pro/#&gid=psgal_7739_1&pid=6




Tim

[Mark Pritchett]

Anyone else get the feeling a lot of clubs are doing work to fix things that aren’t broken? 

[Tim Martin]

Anyone else get the feeling a lot of clubs are doing work to fix things that aren’t broken?

YES

[Jason Thurman]

To toot my own horn, I sent invites to some 150 anonymous "experts" earlier this year with the goal of creating an aggregate list of the most in-demand reno/restos in the United States at the moment. Some of you may have participated (or ignored me, ha). Nominators could list up to 10 options, with the rules stating that nominees could not a) already have a restoration plan in place or b) be impossible to restore (e.g. original plot developed). From the 255 courses nominated, I scored based on popularity and created this countdown. Many will not surprise and some perhaps will.

Just remember...if you hate the list, you hate democracy! 

America's 25 Most In-Demand Golf Course Renovations/Restorations (bethpageblackmetal.com)

This is mostly, I think, a surprisingly good and interesting list.


Clovernook was one of the first courses that came to mind when I saw this thread - I live about 5 miles away. I agree that it would benefit hugely from restorative work, and I can think of at least 3 other courses just on the West Side of Cincinnati that would also benefit. For all the high-profile, high-dollar restorations and restovations of the last 30 years, there are still tons and tons of courses that would benefit even from small and incremental adjustments in this direction. It's hard for me to imagine Clovernook undertaking an enormous capital project to fully restore the course, but it's easier to imagine them undertaking an incremental master plan that starts with things like renovating bunkers and thinning some trees, and that maybe eventually gets around to less essential but way-cool things like recapturing the giant shared fairway at 17, 18, and 10 that's in Langford's original plan (if I remember correctly...).


The most well-heeled memberships in golf have mostly figured out the art of spending 10 figures on restoration work. Figuring out  how to reverse the gradual architectural deterioration of places with lesser budgets, though, is still a great big unsolved frontier. Maybe it's just not solvable. But I'd be much more excited if someone somehow found a way to change a few mowing lines at the Cleveland munis, as opposed to watching Pebble Beach try to reclaim the cool-looking but totally artificial and unsustainable faux dunes of its past lives.

[John Mayhugh]

From a classic perspective, I don't know; but I won't underestimate the ability of clubs, owners and architects to think up work.  I recently read on social media that Kris Spence is doing a major bunker resto/reno at Holston Hills.  I always thought Holston was considered very well preserved and that Tom Doak had done what little work was necessary years ago, so who knows?


-Keith

Great question. Here's a long answer.https://www.golfclubatlas.com/forum/index.php/topic,73099.0.html

[Jim Sherma]

Concur with Shawnee as a great candidate - unfortunately the fact that it will just flood again and again could make the spend difficult to justify.


I would love to see Hershey CC - West, (1930 Maurice McCarthy) restored to something similar to what it was when Milton Hershey was alive in the 1930's and 40's. The original bunkering schemes in the available overheads look wonderful. You would need to reclaim the green pads and invest in significant bunkering rebuilds. There are 5 green that were redone by Postelthwaite in the 80's that you would need to decide what to do with. The vast majority of the routing is unchanged with the few changes that exist dating back to the 1950's. It's an historic course with a great piece of land whose routing uses it well. The cost would be akin to a rounding error to the broader Hershey entities that own it, however you would need a business model that showed sufficient ROI over a short enough period of time to get them to justify the spend. I can dream however.

Jim, here's a cool aerial of HCC West from 1930. I'm struggling to figure out the holes/routing from this photo.


https://hersheyarchives.org/encyclopedia/hersheyarchives30-12-designing-a-course-fit-for-a-
pro/#&gid=psgal_7739_1&pid=6




Tim

Tim - Great picture, Thanks. I had not seen that one before. I have some overheads from later in the 30's that have more tree growth and fairway bunkering that better defines the routing. The photo definitely flattens out the land from that perspective.

[David Kelly]

Riviera, definitely. 


I think there are a number of public and municipal golden age courses that are candidates for restoration.

[Blake Conant]

From a classic perspective, I don't know; but I won't underestimate the ability of clubs, owners and architects to think up work.  I recently read on social media that Kris Spence is doing a major bunker resto/reno at Holston Hills.  I always thought Holston was considered very well preserved and that Tom Doak had done what little work was necessary years ago, so who knows?


-Keith

Any other info on this? It’s been several years since I saw Holston, but it appeared to be a time capsule. Curious if they hired Spence and what the scope of work is.


Edit: unfortunately, I saw the thread dedicated to this.

[Mark Pritchett]

Seems most clubs are “improving” themselves to death. 

[Mark_Fine]

Mark,
See the thread on why courses change.