74 STEVENS POINT One thing we at GCA are very conscious of is that the world of golf includes facilities at a lot of different levels, and what works well at one level may be impossible at another. Being based in the UK, but covering American extensively, it’s hard not to see this; the scale of budgets in the US industry is off the charts from a British point of view. While five million dollar renovations may seem almost modest in the US, any British club spending a million pounds on its course is making a huge investment. But the truth is that this is not just a transatlantic divide. High-end American clubs may seem quite blasé about big golf course projects, but there are plenty of clubs further down the food chain for whom spending a ton of money is out of the question. When funds are tight, it becomes even more important that any windfall is not wasted, but rather gives as much bang for the buck as possible. And, even after a brief look at Stevens Point Country Club, it’s not hard to agree that they have done exactly that. Designed originally by architect Larry Packard, Stevens Point, located in central Wisconsin, looked a lot like many other mid-century layouts – wall to wall green, from grass and trees. But, like so much of this part of Wisconsin, Stevens Point is built on sand, and that proved to be its saving grace when it lost a large proportion of its tree stock because of the use of the DuPont herbicide Imprelis. Stevens Point is now managed by Oliphant Golf, and that fact meant that Oliphant partner Craig Haltom, a young man trying to develop his reputation as a golf architect, saw a lot of the course. Haltom, who found the property later developed by Mike Keiser as Sand Valley (the Craig’s Porch snack hut at Sand Valley is named for him). The settlement of the Imprelis legal case meant Stevens Point was in line for a substantial windfall: Haltom proposed to the members spending some of the money on a radical project involving taking out further trees, completely rebunkering the course and turning a traditional parkland course into something far rougher around the edges, with exposed sand and large bunkers dominating the view. To the club’s credit, it bought into this new vision. And the work is nothing short of a triumph. Just walking up the first hole and seeing the beautiful bunker complex that protects the front right of the green should be enough to tell any observer that something special has gone on here; and it just gets better and better.
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