More than any single
redesign project in U.S. history, Jones’ work on
The
Country Club displayed the virtues of turning back the clock to an
era of
natural looking mounds, swales and flow lines. Rather than
imposing himself on
the course, Jones allowed the site and its original
features to set the tone for
his work. Indeed, he was most successful
at The Country Club when he literally
undid some very clumsy renovation
work that had been committed there in the
1960s. No wonder Jones spent
tournament week in the press tent giving
interviews. The media
discovered what course owners had known for years: This
was a man who
loved his work and who shared that enthusiasm with his
clients.
Long before any contracts were signed, Jones made half a dozen trips
to
Wilkes-Barre to
help Maslow and his founding group scout
out prime golf ground. After four years
of searching, they finally
secured 290 acres of rolling farmland and hardwoods
adjacent to the
campus of Pennsylvania
State University’s Wilkes-Barre extension.
A routing was prepared, and after Rees presented his plans, he
turned to
Maslow and pointed to an adjacent parcel. “I can build a very
good golf course
with what you’ve given me, Dick. But if you can get
hold of this additional
piece, I can deliver an outstanding golf
course.” Maslow gulped. But the next
day, he initiated talks that led
to gaining the extra land Rees had asked
for—all 184 acres of it. The
outcome is a golf course routed the old-fashioned
way, with the owner
and architect roaming over the land rather than having to
shoe-horn
holes onto cramped quarters.
This was not, however, a simple construction process, not on land
with
147 feet of elevation change. Much of the subsurface is siltstone
and sandstone.
During construction, 65,000 cubic yards of rock were
dynamited. At the practice
range, by the way, the raw rock ledge was
blasted out to provide a backdrop for
the target greens.
All told, some 420,000 cubic yards of earth were moved to make way
for
the holes. The golf course proper occupies just over 200 acres,
with an
additional 35 acres designated as protected wetlands. The
result is an unusually
spacious golf course, the more so because no
homes will be developed on site and
the only buildings surrounding the
golf course are historic barns and farm
houses.
Rees Jones is not someone who throws bunkers and lakes in your face
and
dares you play over them. His craft is of a more subtle variety,
with artfully
carved fairway bunkers and greenside sand placed on
diagonals to offer options
and wide streams of play for those who
prefer the safe route. He works hard at
building flow into his greens,
so that instead of harshly shaped decks and
swales there is a more
natural movement to putting surfaces. And wherever
possible when water
affects a hole, there’s always an alternative (if longer)
path.
These traits of generosity are all in play at Huntsville. There
isn’t
anything close to a weak hole. How could there be since Jones had
complete
freedom to build holes anywhere the land looked good? The
par-72 layout can
stretch to 7,154 yards (135 slope/75.1 rating), but
every hole affords five sets
of tees. The greens, of Pennlinks creeping
bentgrass, average 6,750 square feet
and so offer plenty of landing
room—more so since at least one side of each
entrance has been kept
open for low-running shots. The grassing
textures—bentgrass fairways
and tees, bluegrass for the close rough and a hybrid
fescue mix for
mounds and the secondary rough—enhance the look of each hole by
highlighting features and framing each vista.
The front nine is routed through woods and occasionally steep
terrain.
The back nine, by contrast, has a much more open look and feel
to it. Huntsville opens with a
gently rising par-5 that looks much
tougher than its 518 yards would suggest.
Surely that’s because the
initial tee shot has to skirt a wetlands to the right.
No problem,
there’s plenty of fairway to the left. By the second tee, you get a
sense of how strong a golf course this is what with all the hang-time
on the tee
shot. The fairway on this 391-yard dogleg left tumbles
nearly 80 feet.
