Month: October 2017

Episode 4: Bill Bergin

Episode 4: Bill Bergin

In this episode, architect Bill Bergin and Derek Duncan catch up and discuss a wide array of subjects including Bill’s recent and upcoming re-workings of several historic clubs, WWSRD (what would Seth Raynor do?), keeping pace with Bob Tway and the northwest Atlanta high school golf scene, going low at St. Andrews, Bill’s top 3 Atlanta…

Read More Read More

RTJ Trail – Oxmoor Valley: Vertigo at the Ridge Course

RTJ Trail – Oxmoor Valley: Vertigo at the Ridge Course

Certain elements of the Ridge Course at Oxmoor Valley in southeast Birmingham are fairly outrageous. I think of the 1st and 2nd holes (formerly the 10th and 11th, a par-4 followed by a par-5, one going uphill, the other downhill) that are so steep they play like a life size Q-bert pyramid where the only place a ball can come to rest…

Read More Read More

RTJ Trail: Smoothing Into Oxmoor Valley’s Valley Course

RTJ Trail: Smoothing Into Oxmoor Valley’s Valley Course

The Valley Course at Oxmoor Valley makes a dramatic entrance with a tee shot that drops nearly 200 feet to a fairway bracketed by large clover bunkers. The rest of the routing covers the tamer flats on the western side of Little Shades Mountain with none of the big up and down movements of the Ridge Course, at…

Read More Read More

Another Round for Druid Hills

Another Round for Druid Hills

Druid Hills is one of Atlanta’s original surviving clubs along with Ansley, Capital City Club–Brookhaven (also an H. H. Barker design, completely reconfigured by Bob Cupp in 2009) and East Lake. The design is nestled snugly into one of the city’s most prestigious old neighborhoods near Emory University where Atlanta’s moneyed set built estate homes in the early…

Read More Read More

Solid and Scenic: Amelia Island Plantation’s Oak Marsh

Solid and Scenic: Amelia Island Plantation’s Oak Marsh

Compared to Ocean Links, Amelia Island Plantation’s other (now deceased) resort course, Oak Marsh is both more solid and less interesting. The holes follow a standard real estate development configuration, playing through wooded condos on the inland side of Highway A1A along the Amelia River and Intracoastal Waterway. Each nine starts slow, flowing in counterclockwise and clockwise rotations on either side…

Read More Read More

The Highs and Lows of Sanctuary Ridge

The Highs and Lows of Sanctuary Ridge

Any course that claims to be Florida’s “mountain course” cannot be taken seriously. This is a state that considers a mountain anything that’s higher than the roof of your house. However. Sanctuary Ridge, located at the north end of Lake Wales Ridge near Clermont, is in fact situated on some of the state’s most vertiginous real estate. The…

Read More Read More