Work on eight new holes of golf is underway at the Toscana Country Club in Indian Wells, California.

Toscana CC is home to two courses – the 18-hole south course and the currently 10-hole north course – both of which were designed by Jack Nicklaus. 

A project to complete the north course is now underway, and GCA spoke to Bill Bone, founder and chief executive officer of Sunrise, the company behind the Toscana Country Club, about the latest goings-on and working with Nicklaus.

“With the North Course, the first nine holes were built and we built the eighteenth just because it came back to the clubhouse around five or six years ago,” said Bone. “The golf course has grown in and matured nicely, so the challenge when designing the remaining holes is to make them as compatible in terms of playability, green design and pretty much everything else so it doesn’t look like you’re playing two different golf courses.”

Nicklaus’ original designs have been used extensively in the latest work, with only some minor tweaks being made, including the expansion of turf areas on certain holes.

The third hole on the North Course at Toscana CC. Photo: Dimpled Rock Photography

“This is a desert-style golf course with decomposed granite,” Bone explained. “The waste areas are similar to what they do in Scottsdale, Arizona, and it has desert landscape material. There are Mexican fan palm trees, palo verde trees, all the things you’d require for a desert-type landscape.”

This is in contrast to the South Course at Toscana, which Bone describes as ‘a lush, parkland golf course that has wall-to-wall green grass’.    

“The South Course has traditional greens where if you stand 50 yards back, you can tell where the high point is and where the low point is. Essentially you can read the green 50 yards away,” said Bone. “But on the North Course it’s not that way. They have what Jack Nicklaus called ‘closed contours’ on the greens, which means there are little mounds in various places, so when you look at it, they are very hard to read. For example you may look at it from one location, think it’s going to break right, hit the ball and it breaks left. You need to walk around 360 degrees because from each angle the greens look different. It’s a very unique challenge and Nicklaus told us it’s the first time he’s ever designed greens like that. He wanted to make the greens totally different to the South Course.”

Bone is delighted to have Nicklaus involved in the latest work to finish the North Course, and praised the architect for his hands-on approach.

Work begins on the seventeenth hole. Photo: Scott Avra

“We’re being very careful to match everything with the new eight holes. We’re focusing on all the details – from the colour of the sand to the colour of the rock – so it doesn’t look like you’ve gone from one golf course to another golf course. Having 36 holes at a country club is a phenomenally beneficial asset. If you’re doing a tournament you can use one while having the other course open for member play. And you want variety from courses, particularly with two on the same site.”

“Jack Nicklaus is a perfectionist. Every time he looks at the course he’s trying to figure out a way to make it better,” Bone said. “Jack actually picks up a pencil and draws what he thinks and feels about a course design.”

“He’s an artist, and several times when we were out building the first 18 holes, we were out there in the truck after it was all rough graded, the greens and bunkers all cored and so you could see the course layout, but we hadn’t installed irrigation because if we were going to make changes and tweaks, that was the time to do so,” Bone explained. “We’d get to a certain point and Jack would say ‘that’s not right, I don’t like it, that needs changing, it’s out of context’. It was built exactly the way he drew it, but he’d take the green plan, turn it upside down, stand there for 15 minutes and design a whole new green complex, with bunker positioning, the sloping, where it’s supposed to drain and everything else.

“I said ‘Jack, sign this please!’ So he signed it and they’re now framed in the men’s locker room. He did that in the field a number of times, and I’ve never seen an architect do that.”

The fourteenth and sixteenth holes on the North Course. Photo: Scott Avra

The architect’s design mindset is also something that impresses Bone, and he believes Nicklaus’ ability to make suggestions about certain parts of the design that would pass many architects by is something unique.

“He’s always looking at design and saying ‘what can I do to make this better?’” said Bone. “And a lot of the time it’s not just about the playability of the golf but it’s also about the aesthetics. I remember on one green on the eighth hole, he said: ‘See the mountain behind the green? See the mound there in the distance? It should be shaped the same as the mountain behind it.’ It has nothing to do with the golf course, but it sets up the green in the context of where it’s located. The fact he’s aware of things like that amazes me. He is by far the most hands-on architect I’ve ever used.”

The site of the new eight holes have been cleared, having been rough graded a number of years ago, and work is now underway to bring the full complement of holes to Toscana Country Club.

“We started shaping on 1 September with the same shapers that did the other 28 holes at Toscana,” said Bone. “Shaping is like a signature. Everybody shapes things a little differently, and if you have two shapers on the same course you’re going to have two different looks. We were fortunate enough to get the same shaper back, and he will shape all eight holes by himself on the tractor. That’ll be done before the end of the year.”

And with work progressing well, Bone is confident golfers at Toscana Country Club will be able to enjoy two complete, Nicklaus-designed courses before the end of 2015.

“Jack Nicklaus will be coming out in early January to take a look when all the greens are cored and all eight holes are totally shaped and the bunkers are cut out and cored,” concluded Bone. “He’ll see if there’s anything we can do to make it better, and whatever he suggests we’ll do. We’ll then install the irrigation system, continue with the course before Jack comes out again in June, and hopefully gives it his blessing. We’ll then grass the course, it’ll grow in all summer long, and then we’ll reseed it in October and they’ll be playing it next November.”