Golf course architect John Fought has started his redesign plans for the Wilmington Municipal Golf Course in North Carolina.

Built in 1926 and an original Donald Ross design, Wilmington’s greens have deteriorated over time and Fought has been hired by the city of Wilmington to lead a rejuvenation project and improve the course’s green complexes and drainage.

Fought is currently in Arizona creating the preliminary plans. He has previously worked on a similar restoration project at Pine Needles in Southern Pines, North Carolina, another Donald Ross layout.

Wilmington Golf Course is located in a sand belt area on the edge of the Atlantic Ocean, and the course’s greens were reputedly not switched from sand to grass until 1953, five years after Ross’s death. As part of the current project, Fought will have access to sketches and notes for seventeen of the course’s greens, preserved by the Tufts Archives in Pinehurst.

The greens will be sprigged with bermudagrass next summer and following a growing in period, the course is should reopen in September 2014.