A Rave Of A Redesign
December 5, 2008This story is republished via the
Allentown Morning Call
.
By Mark Wogenrich, The Morning Call
Seven months before the U.S. Women's Open arrives, the Old
Course at Saucon Valley Country Club has received applause for its
recent makeover from Golf Digest. The magazine bestowed its
Best Remodel award
on the Women's Open host site as part of its
Best New Courses 2008 issue
, which hits newsstands Tuesday.
"What this award does is put Saucon Valley back on the map --
not that it needed to be put back on the map," said Ron
Whitten, Golf Digest's architecture editor. "It reinforces
the club's decision to strengthen the course, lengthen the
course and get some 21st-century pin positions. I think they did a
tremendous job."
In the fall of 2005, a few months after winning its bid for the
2009 Women's Open, Saucon Valley commissioned Tom Fazio's
design group to administer a master plan that added new bunkering,
four rebuilt greens, eight new tee boxes and nearly 350 yards to
the 86-year-old course.
After more than a year of work, the course reopened in 2007 to
near-unanimous raves among the membership, which increased play on
the course by about 30 percent, said Andrew Warner, chairman of
Saucon's golf and green committee.
Fazio's group, led by senior architect Tom Marzolf, nominated
the Old Course for the Golf Digest award, which covered courses
remodeled between May 2007 and April 2008. The courses were judged
in five categories: shot values, design variety, resistance to
scoring, memorability and aesthetics.
"This is not a most-improved award," Whitten said.
"Saucon Valley was a fine golf course before Marzolf and Fazio
got involved with renovating it. It's an improved golf course
now."
Another Honor
In addition to Saucon Valley being recognized by Golf Digest
for its remodeling work, another future site for two USGA
championships was honored by the magazine as
America's Best New Course
in 2008.
Chambers Bay of Tacoma, Wash.
, is scheduled to host the 2010 U.S. Amateur and 2015 U.S.
Open. |
During a recent site visit, Mike Davis, the USGA's senior
director of rules and competitions, said the renovation
strengthened what he called an "already strong" course.
"It definitely came out better than I thought it would,"
Davis said. "I thought it would be a very positive thing, but
the look to the bunkering is quite good, and strategically it's
much better."
For Saucon, the award affirmed a decision that proved expensive and
kept members off their course for parts of 18 months. The
club's intent was to freshen the course's look while
retaining the characteristics of the original Herbert Strong
design.
The primary work centered on tree removal and overhauling the
course's 80-plus bunkers, to which 11 were added and 11 others
removed. Several holes, notably the par-4 third and par-4 12th,
were changed dramatically. Further, the course was lengthened to
7,126 yards, which Marzolf noted last year could be stretched to
7,500.
"The overwhelming majority of the members love it,"
Warner said. "We're excited that the course has been
well-received from a membership perspective, and we're thrilled
that Golf Digest felt it was exceptional enough to give us this
award. We didn't strive for it, but we sure are honored."
Whitten said the award was based on at least 10 evaluations among
course raters, of which more than 900 participated in the Best New
Courses survey. That should put the Old Course on the radar of more
raters, making it a contender for the magazine's biannual Top
100 American Courses list in 2009.
To be eligible for that survey, perhaps the most influential course
list in golf, a facility needs to be evaluated by at least 45
raters.
"Saucon may well compete," Whitten said. "[The Old
Course] has two other fine sister courses [the Grace and Weyhill],
and they're all strong contenders for the Top 100
list."