Jack Nicklaus is another who is as busy in reconstruction as he is in original designs, most recently touching up No. 68 Valhalla in Louisville in anticipation of the 2008 Ryder Cup. Far more expansive is his reworking of No. 18 Muirfield Village Golf Club, where over the years, Nicklaus has redesigned some aspect of every hole to keep the course competitive for the PGA Tour's Memorial Tournament.
Curiously, Nicklaus has done little to Sycamore Hills Golf Club in Fort Wayne, Ind., which rejoins America's 100 Greatest at No. 92 after dropping off two years ago, one of the many victims of the trap-door effect resulting from our abolition of the Bonus Tradition category that year. Sycamore Hills returns this time, in no need of bonus booster points.
One project Nicklaus didn't get was the rebunkering of No. 58 Scioto Country Club in Columbus, Ohio, the Donald Ross design on which Jack learned the game. That contract went to the Columbus design team of Michael Hurdzan and Dana Fry, whose Calusa Pines Golf Club in Naples, Fla., debuts on this year's list at No. 71. Calusa's flat, drab property was reshaped into ridgelines up to 58 feet above sea level and planted with mature oaks, pines and sable palms. It's akin to Nevada's Shadow Creek (No. 27 in 2007), but with far more sandy waste areas.
We shouldn't neglect the other two newcomers in 2007: No. 83 Tullymore Golf Club is Jim Engh's unconventional, inventive design in the low, wooded wetlands of central Michigan, featuring the longest, skinniest set of greens on the 100 Greatest, and the longest, skinniest set of bunkers, too, mostly deep trenches of sand framed by knuckles of turf. No. 98 Kiawah Island Club's Cassique Course (pronounced Kah-seek) is a lowcountry design for Nicklaus' long-time tournament rival, Tom Watson. Created from old farm fields along the tidal marshes of Seabrook Island, S.C., just across the Kiawah River from famed Kiawah Island (home of No. 38 The Ocean Course), Watson wanted his design to demand the "touch, feel and imagination" of links-style golf, so he framed most holes with choppy faux dunes and installed some of his favorite links features: a burn from Turnberry, Carnoustie's Spectacle bunkers, the Hell Bunker from St. Andrews.
Such additions to America's 100 Greatest are a reminder that there's still plenty of room for exciting new designs in our ranking. But redesigns have taken on new excitement, too, which means a spot on America's 100 Greatest will be even more competitive in 2009. In just the past two years, a number of former 100 Greatest courses have undergone major remodeling programs, including Atlanta Athletic Club, Bel-Air, Bellerive, Jupiter Hills, Oak Tree and Stanwich (Golf Digest's Best New Remodel of 2006). All that these courses need now are the minimum 40 panelist evaluations to qualify for reconsideration on the 100 Greatest.
The lesson for contenders and pretenders: If you're not improving, you're probably not moving. Not onto America's 100 Greatest, at least.
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