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The golf season in Wisconsin is just coming to a close, and you may be thinking about the courses you had on your 2007 playing schedule but never managed to play. You got busy, and this summer – like most summers – got away from you.
But while you were watching the kids or grandkids playing tee-ball and spending endless hours on that important work project or volunteering for local organizations, some of those courses on your list might have been busy with plans of their own.
And because it’s never too early to plan for next year, you should think about stopping at the following facilities during your 2008 tour of Wisconsin courses. We think you will like the changes they have in store.
The Golf Courses of Lawsonia, Green Lake
The Golf Courses of Lawsonia consistently rank among the top courses in Wisconsin, and for good reason. The two courses there – The Links and The Woodlands – are unique, and their differences complement each other.
“The Links is almost treeless – rolling – with huge, elevated undulating greens and steep-faced bunkers,” said Gary Zimmerman, director of golf. “The Woodlands is tree-lined with large, slightly sloped, trapped greens.”
So the renovations that took place on the Woodlands Course during the 2007 season weren’t necessary to improve the playability of the course. They were really more of a formality.
Lawsonia is run by the Green Lake Conference Center, a Baptist-owned organization. The center, in order to fund a new mission program, carved out two residential areas at Lawsonia, and one of them impacted the golf course.
“So we had to rearrange holes five and six on the Woodlands Course,” Zimmer-man said.
To accommodate the residential development on the two parcels, the tee on No. 5 was moved back 60 yards into the woods, and the green was moved up 40, which slightly increased the length of the hole. In turn, the hole’s once-severe dogleg is much less drastic.
Much more work was done on No. 6, where both the tee and green were reworked. The hole remains a 175-yard par-3, but the tees have been moved up and the green back. The most spectacular aspect of the renovation is a pond added in front of the green. A stream enters the pond on the right side of the green and wraps around to the back. It goes across the 18th fairway into two holding ponds with a 5-foot waterfall between.
The design of the new holes at Lawsonia was a collaborative effort among Zimmerman, head golf pro Jeff Kleinke and Turf Solutions Group, a design firm based in Peoria, Ill.
The changes made at Lawsonia have been well received by members and guests, even though a team of scuba divers earlier this fall searched the holding pond and pulled up 1,504 golf balls.
“I guess (players) love hitting the balls into the pond,” Zimmerman said.
Horseshoe Bay GC, Egg Harbor
The modifications at Horseshoe Bay GC have been taking place over the past two seasons, but they don’t have much to do with the actual golf course.
May 2006 brought new ownership to the club, which is built on former farmland and fruit orchards, and since then general manager Ken McIntyre and others have been working to maintain the resort-quality service members and guests have come to know since it opened in 1998.
“What everybody got to know in the early 2000s with the great golf course and the five-star resort-type service ... it’s all still here,” McIntyre said. “Everything we went through, it’s still all here.”
Horseshoe Bay Golf Club 2006, LLC, a consortium of five investors from the Appleton and Green Bay areas, purchased the club from the Frank Murphy Cowles family, which had owned the club and the land on which it sits for nearly 100 years. The previous owners went through what McIntyre called “financially troubling” times, but in the 16 months since the new owners have taken over, they have continually invested in the property and pumped up the services available at the club and course.
Horseshoe Bay GC offers a two-tiered membership structure. Gold members typically are residential owners who live in the Horseshoe Bay development year-round; they pay regular yearly dues and do not pay green fees. Silver members are part-timers who don’t call Door County home all year; they have lower dues than Gold members, but they pay green fees.
One of the main improvements at Horseshoe Bay has been the increased quality of the club’s food and beverage service. McIntyre said the chef, who was hired in 2002, the same year Troon Golf of Scottsdale, Ariz., took over management of the club, has developed outstanding menus that are on level with any other five-star dining facility in Door County.
A fresh coat of stain was put on the cedar siding of all the club’s buildings this year. The golf course has full bag room and range staff, and the Laser Link Golf distance measuring system is in use. A new golf cart fleet was added in 2007.
“(We) are allowed to continually improve the golf course, but this isn’t a golf course that needs to be re-routed or flipped. We weren’t broken. There was never anything wrong here from a physical standpoint,” McIntyre said. “What we do have is the ability to continue to adjust and try to improve the playability out here.”
Horseshoe Bay GC plays through the natural settings of Door County. The course is not forced and it places a premium on hitting the fairway off the tee. Greens are large with a lot of movement.
“Regardless of your ability, you can find a tee box that you will enjoy playing from,” McIntyre said.
Horseshoe Bay is a private golf club, but guests who stay in one of the Club Cottages – eight two-bedroom condos that sit along No. 10 – are afforded the many benefits of being a member. Real estate also is expanding at Horseshoe Bay. Existing homes and new lots are available, and they range from condos around $300,000 to multimillion-dollar homes.
McIntyre said rumors that the club will return to semiprivate status, like it was from 1998 to 2004, are completely false.
“We didn’t need to be all new and different, we just needed to be given a financial basis to work off of that we could succeed from, and that’s where we are now,” he said.
Siren National GC, Siren
The changes at Siren National GC won’t be complete for the start of the 2008 season, but come next autumn, when you’re ready to head up north to scope out the fall foliage, be ready to play this redesigned course.
Owned by RTS Development, the former Siren Glen GC is undergoing a renovation to improve both visibility and playability. In order to do so, the owners hired Minnesota firm Herfort Norby Golf Course Architects and purchased an additional 110 acres of land adjacent to the golf course – land that abuts Highway 70.
“The primary goal there was to improve exposure to the highway and also to fix some of the holes that were too difficult for the average golfer to play,” said Kevin Norby, the architect in charge of the project.
He came up with a plan that relocates the clubhouse closer to Highway 70, so passers-by have a better chance of seeing the course. Also added were a new 320-yard driving range, an 8,000-square-foot putting green and 3,500-square-foot chipping green with bunkers.
“The course sort of had this reputation of being very difficult,” Norby said. “There were some forced carries. For instance, No. 9, when you teed off, your ball was on a downhill slope, yet you were hitting up over a ravine to a green that was probably 20 or 25 feet above your head. So you were faced with a downhill lie with an uphill shot.”
To remedy the problem, Nos. 1, 9, 10 and 18 are being rebuilt on the new land, but they won’t be ready for play until late 2008. They will play to a new clubhouse, and the old holes will be abandoned. Trees have been cleared, grading is complete and the new holes have been shaped, but finish work won’t begin until spring. To smooth the transition, additional changes will be made to a number of remaining holes once the four new holes open next fall.
“In the process of building four new holes, we’re able to eliminate four of the weaker holes and then improve some of the holes by just modifying drainage, greens, tees and sight lines,” Norby said.
RTS Development also plans to develop residential sites on the remaining new land. A model home will serve as the course’s clubhouse when the four new holes open next fall until the new, permanent clubhouse is built. Norby expects the changes will be welcomed by members and guests.
“We’ll end up with a golf course that will be more enjoyable for a wider range of people,” he said.
New Richmond GC, New Richmond
If a first-class practice facility is what you’re looking for, New Richmond GC can definitely deliver.
Also designed by Herfort Norby Golf Course Architects, the new driving range, putting green, chipping green and swing analysis building are sure to help get your 2008 season off to a great start.
Located 150 feet from the first tee, the new practice area is a 180-degree flip from what members and guests of New Richmond are used to. The new irrigated driving range is complete with 30 stations, target greens and yardage markers.
“The driving range they had was just plain not big enough,” Norby said. “They only had eight stations so it was quite small and it got really beat up. They also had some issues with (the old location) and hitting balls out onto the No. 11 fairway.”
If your putting and chipping need some fine-tuning, the new 8,000-square-foot putting green and 4,000-square-foot chipping green with bunkers are a great place to start. Or head over to the adjacent practice facility building for a complete swing analysis on the course’s new video equipment.
“They’ve got a first-class practice facility now, which is fairly unique in that area,” Norby said.
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