Month: February 2017

Red Hawk Ridge: Early Engh

Red Hawk Ridge: Early Engh

Going around Red Hawk Ridge you can see the ideas and embryonic elements of the shapes and playability motifs that Jim Engh would further develop in the early 2000’s at a number of nationally acclaimed courses that launched him into the upper orbit of golf architecture. Built in 1999 in Castle Rock, just south of Denver, Red Hawk Ridge is a more modest…

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The RTJ Trail Highlight: Grand National’s Lake Course

The RTJ Trail Highlight: Grand National’s Lake Course

Many people, and many rankings, consider the Lake Course at Grand National the best stop on Alabama’s Robert Trent Jones Trail. I’m not sure I agree (Ross Bridge) but I wouldn’t waste time arguing with them. Other locations have their strong points, but if you want to know what the Trail is all about visit here…

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The Club at Savannah Harbor: A Delicious Cupp

The Club at Savannah Harbor: A Delicious Cupp

I confess I’m not always able to wrap my head around Bob Cupp’s courses. The architectural features often feel out of sync — or out of proportion — with the properties and with each other. For example: Big holes with wide fairways leading to small greens; slender fairways on properties with lots of room; small bunkers where…

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The Landing: An Oconee Original

The Landing: An Oconee Original

The Landing (née Port Armor, née Reynolds Landing), was the first course built on Lake Oconee in Central Georgia in the mid-1980’s, and for a while Bob Cupp had the only two courses on the lake when he followed this design a few years later with The Preserve (née The Plantation course) at Reynolds Lake Oconee (née Reynolds Plantation). Got that? Cupp once told me a…

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The “Old” Soul of Old Union

The “Old” Soul of Old Union

You can’t teach an old dog new tricks, but apparently you can teach an old dog old tricks. I’m not saying Denis Griffiths is old, but at Old Union in north Georgia’s Appalachian foothills near Blairsville the architect created a look that might have come straight out of the early 20th century. Or before. Old Union is brightened with…

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Echelon — A Cautionary Tale

Echelon — A Cautionary Tale

“A good idea is a good idea, forever.”–David Brent The above quote, proclaimed by Ricky Gervais’s character in the original British series The Office, is clearly false. Especially in real estate, where timing is as important as location. For the developers of Echelon, a would-be prestige-level golf community north of Atlanta, what seemed like a good idea in the early-2000’s…

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Retro MetroWest

Retro MetroWest

MetroWest Country Club opened in 1987 and for a dozen or so years it was considered one of Orlando’s better public golf courses. But a lot happened to golf and golf design in those years, especially around Central Florida, and today the course feels old fashioned and ordinary, a benign but banal throwback. The routing runs…

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