It has been nearly three decades since a second Golden Age of golf course architecture took hold in North America, and by the looks of some of the new layouts coming on line this year, the renaissance is continuing.
According to the National Golf Foundation, however, it is not just the upper tier of course construction that is growing, with the organization saying it is “currently tracking 69 new courses of varying lengths and type under construction and another 47 that are in planning.”
NGF officials are quick to note that they are by no means suggesting that the industry is in the midst of another building boom and add that “the best-supplied golf market in the world is still seeing more course closures than new openings.” But course developers in certain parts of the country – specifically Florida, South Carolina and Texas – appear to be prospering.
In terms of golf course design ... 2024 is shaping up to be a very good year.
Among the most exciting openings in 2024 will be Sedge Valley, an 18-hole course designed by Tom Doak at Sand Valley in central Wisconsin. He says that the par-68 course borrows architecturally from epic heathland courses such as Harry S. Colt’s Swinley Forest in England and adds that his goal with Sedge was "to bring back a more intimate scale and build classically styled holes that everyone can enjoy.”
Another noteworthy new arrival in 2024 will be a pair of 18-hole layouts at Cabot Citrus Farms, which golf impresario Ben Cowan-Dewar has been creating on the grounds of the former World Woods golf resort some 45 miles north of Tampa, Florida. This complex features a pair of reimagined 18-hole layouts, one of which is a Kyle Franz creation dubbed Cabot Barrens and the other Cabot Oaks, a collaboration between Franz, fellow designer Mike Nuzzo and Ran Morrissett, founder of the Golf Club Atlas website that acts in many ways as a chat room for architect enthusiasts, and the architecture editor at Golf Magazine.
In addition, Cabot Citrus Farms will boast a pair of short tracks laid out by Nuzzo as well as a 2-acre putting course and a double-sided driving range.
The Sunshine State is also the site of Apogee Golf Club’s newly opened West course, a Gil Hanse and Jim Wagner effort. Play is expected to start this fall on the South, the second of what will be a three-course collection in Indiantown, with the architects in this case being Tom Fazio II and Mike Davis, the former USGA chief executive. (As for the third member of Apogee’s trio, the Kyle Phillips-designed North, it is slated to come on line late next year.)
Out in the wilds of southern Oregon, Mike Keiser is further enhancing his Bandon Dunes portfolio with the opening of Shorty’s, a 19-hole, par-3 layout. Designed by the firm of Whitman, Axland & Cutten (for noted architects Rod Whitman, Dave Axland and Keith Cutten), it is routed among the chop dunes of a 60-acre site that abuts the resort’s other short course, the Preserve (to the north), as well as Bandon Trails (to the east).
This year also will mark the premiere of GrayBull, a remote and stunningly scenic inland links that represents David McLay Kidd’s first project in the Sandhills of Nebraska. And the Home of Golf in America will soon be welcoming the Tom Doak-designed Pinehurst No. 10 into the fold in the spring.
In terms of golf course architecture – and using the parlance of the wine world – 2024 is shaping up to be a very good year.
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