Sleeping Giants: 5 public courses that could be transformed into major championship venues
RUNNING GAME: Poppy Ridge’s tumbling terrain can deliver excitement. (Photograph by A.J. Panjelinan)
Major championships held at public courses like Bethpage State Park’s Black Course (host of the upcoming Ryder Cup), Torrey Pines’ South Course near San Diego and TPC Harding Park in San Francisco provide an apples-to-apples connection with golfers not possible at traditional blue-blood private clubs. Our affinity grows when we know that we can walk the same fairways as the pros, hit many of the same shots and see how the world’s greatest handle courses where we struggle to break 90 or 100.
The good feelings these municipal Opens, PGAs and Ryder Cups provide are possible because large capital investments by local governments and golf’s governing bodies have transformed their slightly ragged, foot-worn designs into elite venues. It made us wonder what other “people’s” courses might be worthy of similar upgrades. Here's a look at five venues that, with a little extra TLC, could be the next Bethpage Black.
Brown Deer is Milwaukee’s most popular municipal course and represents every good public golf aspiration: It’s convenient, walkable, well-maintained and affordable for county residents. The core 1929 design, past host of the Greater Milwaukee Open (including Tiger Woods’ professional debut), rolls through a spacious wooded property and oozes greater potential. The challenge would be to extend the length beyond the current 6,759 yards, but a smart remodel to enhance the greens and bunkers could put it back in the championship conversation.
The ongoing $150 million revival of Cobbs Creek, originally laid out by Merion designer Hugh Wilson in 1916, represents one of the country’s biggest investments in public golf. The project includes a Tiger Woods/TGR Learning Lab and other youth educational services, an instruction center and separate nine-hole and par-3 courses. The centerpiece is Gil Hanse and Jim Wagner’s reconstruction of Wilson’s Olde Course that has already been mentioned as a potential PGA Tour site. It’s a no-brain choice for entities curious about injecting major tournament golf directly into urban community nerve centers.
It wouldn’t take much to transition this 2009 Tom Doak/Renaissance Golf design into a fascinating high-stakes tournament site. Operated by the Colorado Golf Association, the prairie-style layout overflows with different looks and hole lengths, bunkers that force driving decisions, tempting half-par holes and one of the most varied sets of greens in the state, all the perfect ingredients for a team match-play event. The bunkers could be enhanced, and there’s space for another 300-plus yards, needed at the elevation, but all the intangibles are in place.
Poppy Ridge, 45 minutes east of Oakland, has already gone through the transformation needed to become a major tournament site. Owned by the Northern California Golf Association, the course was remodeled last year by architect Jay Blasi, who converted three nines into one original 18-hole course with new holes moving in opposite directions and tumbling into new green sites. Broad, flowing, flexible and highlighted by tight turf fairways and surrounds, it plays across the site’s prodigious ridges and can be lengthened well beyond the current 7,345 yards if needed for a PGA Championship.
Bethpage isn’t the only New York state park golf course worthy of a renaissance. Saratoga Spa, north of Albany, was built in the 1930s (like Bethpage) and later expanded by architect Bill Mitchell in the 1950s. The wooded holes stroll peacefully through the state park, but the bones suggest something more substantial, and the design is ripe for a smart remodel (the small, sloped greens could be a calling card). Additionally, all the elements needed to host a big tournament from infrastructure to crowd flow are built in from the venue’s performing arts center, which hosts big concerts.
