On the Tee

DULLES, Va. - 1757 Golf Club, which unveiled 10 holes to rave reviews last May, will open its complete, 18-hole championship course to the public on Thursday, May 6, 2010.

Designed by David Heatwole, formerly with Jack Nicklaus' design company, the 6,623-yard, 18-hole, par-70 gem places premiums on shot-making and using every club in golfers' bags for fair challenges to all handicappers.

Since the Prospector Course opened in 1998, Superstition Mountain Golf & Country Club has been lauded at length for its superior conditioning, dramatic setting and championship-caliber golf.

For the first time ever, the general public can experience this once exclusive private club on a daily-fee basis. And with the recently introduced Summer Membership plan, golfers can sample all of the fantastic amenities and extras Superstition Mountain has to offer.

Finding the Quiet Side of Florida is easy in Flagler County.

With the reminiscence of “old Florida” and the ambiance of a sleepy beach town Flagler holds its own as a Floridian treasure. The avid golfer will be in paradise with eight fantastic golf courses offering a wide range of styles to challenge the most proficient golfer and the novice alike.

What would Charles Blair Macdonald do?

Stepping into the shoes of the "Father of American Golf Architecture" to create a stirring tribute to him and his greatest work was the task assigned to golf course architects Tom Doak, a minimalist who is in the midst of a meteoric rise to the zenith of the design world, and partner Jim Urbina.

With a decade of missteps behind it, Ferry Point, the long-awaited golf course on a former landfill on the edge of the East River in the Bronx, is well underway.
 
The routing for the course is complete and construction is transforming 185 acres of tree-less land into an eye-catching Irish links-style golf course. The layout is a Jack Nicklaus Signature Golf Course design in collaboration with Sanford Golf Design, a Jupiter, Fla., company whose principal is architect John Sanford. Sanford is also the Project Manager.

By the time he finished his postgraduate work at the Harvard School of Design, Rees Jones was programmed to be a golf course architect. After all, he watched his dad, the legendary designer Robert Trent Jones, transform undefined patches of land into picturesque golf venues for the better part of his formative years.

Rees’ own legacy is likely to revolve around his virtuoso work breathing new life into sites of the United State Golf Association’s premier tournament – the men’s U.S. Open. It was Rees who beefed up Bethpage Black and put the teeth into Torrey Pines South before each welcomed the world’s best players.

A voracious reader and Ivy League educated lawyer, Charles E. Fraser was known for his tendency to preside over spirited intellectual debates. With that said, it’s hard to fathom how the founding father of The Sea Pines Resort could’ve convinced the PGA Tour to bring professional golf’s premier circuit to this tiny island community.

It’s an especially remarkable achievement when you consider that Hilton Head’s total population a little more than a dozen years prior to his deal with the Tour wasn’t too far off from the crowd you’ll find gathered around the 18th green on the weekend during this year’s Verizon Heritage.

Recently hailed as the best value in the Tampa/St. Pete region by Golf.com Senior Editor Joe Passov, Cheval Golf & Country Club is a private club that is currently accepting outside play.

Located in Lutz, just 20 minutes north of Tampa International Airport, Cheval is a premier facility offering extraordinary golf and world-class tennis.

Since the artificially inflated housing bubble burst a few years ago, the golf course construction business has slowed to a trickle. Many existing projects were halted at the halfway point, while others never really got started. Men moving dirt shut down their Caterpillar machinery and kicked off their Carhartts. The great America golf dig had come to an end.

With the economic tempest still swirling and golf course architects shuffling off to South America and Asia to earn their commission, there is certainly cause for celebration whenever a new course opens stateside these days. The excitement surrounding the newest gem to hit the Carolina coast, Cape Fear National, is significant. This Tim Cate design is preparing for its Grand Opening on April 19th, and there is reason to believe that the layout will attract golfers from every nook and cranny of the Southeast, and give Wilmingtonians an option other than heading south toward Myrtle Beach for a championship-caliber round of golf.

Think about golf legends and who comes to mind? Well, you are definitely going to think about Arnold Palmer and Jack Nicklaus. Go back in time to an earlier era and Sam Snead and Gene Sarazen may come to mind. And, how about the chance to play the Official Courses of the World Golf Hall of Fame? The golf courses at World Golf Village have it all.

The first course, Slammer and Squire opened in 1998. It was designed by Bobby Weed with Sam Snead and Gene Sarazen as consultants. The King and Bear golf course, named for its co-designers, is the first and only collaborative design by Arnold Palmer and Jack Nicklaus.