Betsie Valley

In Play

Sometimes, a makeover of a course doesn’t happen overnight. Piece by piece over the past five years, the Betsie Valley course at the Crystal Mountain Resort & Spa in Thompsonville has been revamped into an improving layout.

The 6,567-yard course has long played second fiddle to the scenic Mountain Ridge course at the resort. To bridge the gap, a master plan was put in place to improve the layout, with the work carried out by Paul Albanese and his staff.

The Heather #5

Albanese estimates that three-quarters of the new tees called for in the master plan have been added in recent years. The plan also called for the addition or remodeling of 25 bunkers, 13 of which have been completed.

The biggest change occurred when the old 14th green was removed, transforming two “weak holes,” the 14th and 15th, into a challenging par 4 of 430 yards. A new par 3, the 176-yard 11th hole, was built to address the loss of one hole.

The most recent undertaking enhanced the 425-yard ninth hole with a new bunker, new tees and a remodeled green complex. Albanese said he’s proud of this project, because it met the goals of his client: To raise the level of the course to match the other amenities of a fabulous resort. The work will continue in the future, too.

“It used to be the black sheep” of Crystal Mountain, Albanese admits. “ … It has gone from a two-star course to well above a three-star.”

Meantime, the head brass at Boyne USA Resorts always pulls out something special when The Heather at Boyne Highlands Resort hosts the prestigious Michigan Amateur. To prep for the 2006 tournament, Boyne purchased sparkling white tour sand for a bunker renovation that truly gave the 1967 Robert Trent Jones Sr. design from a total facelift.

In anticipation of the 100th Michigan Amateur June 20-25, 2011, a new tee was built for the dramatic 18th hole, adding more than 30 yards to one of the state’s best finishing holes. It plays a whopping 490 yards from the tips. From an elevated tee, players face a daunting drive that must find a sliver of a fairway left of a large pond or land short of it, setting up an approach shot of 180 yards or longer to a narrow green.
Trent Jones despised that water hazard, but former owner Everett Kircher was adamant it stay. Former Michigan Amateur champ Christian Vozza, who won the event in 2005, once said the pond was so intimidating, it looks like the water is “over your head” while standing in the fairway.

“By taking the tee back, it will be a better hole,” said Jeff Eccleston, Boyne’s director of golf marketing. “It will be interesting to see what it does to the field.”

Sweetgrass

In the Rough

The economic recession of the past three years has changed the game for Michigan’s golf course architects.
Unless your name is Tom Doak, the globe-trotting award-winning architect from Traverse City, the business model isn’t about building new courses somewhere in the United States. It’s about finding smaller renovation projects or working in far-flung destinations overseas.

Ray Hearn of Holland estimates that 45 percent of his work involves remodeling older courses in the Midwest and 35 percent involves new construction overseas. He designed a new course in Egypt and is working on “dream” projects in South Korea and France.

“Everyone knows that new design is dead in the U.S., put a fork in it,” Hearn said.

Paul Albanese, principal of Albanese & Lutzke in Plymouth, said his firm has picked up a handful of smaller projects in Michigan since opening Sweetgrass Golf Club in 2009 in the Upper Peninsula, such as building practice facilities for Travis Pointe Country Club in Saline and Walnut Creek near South Lyon and working on bunkers at Springfield Oaks, an Oakland County Parks course in Davisburg. “We are doing a lot of work in Asia, Russia, China, India and Thailand,” Albanese added.

Bruce Matthews of Okemos said for the first time in his career, he had no construction in Michigan this fall after working at Chikaming Country Club in Lakeside. He’s staying busy teaching golf course design and construction at Michigan State University and consulting with clubs on several business and master plans. Jerry Matthews, the most prolific architect in Michigan history, did not return phone calls or e-mail requests to be interviewed for this story.

Mike DeVries, of Traverse City, said he has come “close” to landing projects in Asia, but nothing has come to fruition. He has no plans of changing careers.

“It is just like any business. It goes up and down. You have challenges,” he said. “I am not looking to quit because there is a hiccup in the environment. … If I won the lotto, I would still design courses. It’s what I want to do.”

Doak’s Renaissance Golf Design team finished redoing the greens at the Country Club of Detroit last fall and is focusing on a new course cut from an old mining site in central Florida. He’s also in the hunt to grow golf in the Far East.

“We’ve got a couple things signed up in China,” he said. “We’ve got new projects on the books that the (financial) backing is sound, but nobody is in a hurry to construct (them).”