Golf Course Architecture - Issue 61, July 2020

82 holes. This was not without its difficulties: in the area of the course that had been added by Trent Jones in 1950, the construction crew came across a large number of cedar trees. These had been removed by Jones and buried under the holes. Surprisingly, they had not decayed, except on the surface. “You would not believe how much trouble they caused,” says Forse. “The construction crew had to dig a number of them up and discard them, while the rest of them were chainsawed through, then we went in and recontoured, and installed drainage and irrigation.” The regrassed course is no longer overseeded in the winter, which offers obvious environmental benefits. The course opens with a fairly gentle 350-yard par four. The kind start doesn’t last long, though, because the second hole is a toughie. Not hugely long at 428 yards, the green is offset to the left of the corridor, with a pond on that side of the fairway threatening the approach. The pond stops a little short of the green, so should catch only bad misses, but the putting surface is also protected by two flanking bunkers. The trap on the left is the deepest on the golf course; fortunately for golfers’ sanity, it should not come into play that often. The excellent, fairly short par-four third doglegs to the right around a large bunker. Two bunkers on the left side pinch the fairway, making it extremely narrow. Golfers will need to take a decision on the tee. Can they carry the bunker, in which case they will only have a short approach to the green? If not, they are probably best advised to take an iron club and lay up short of the bunkers – trying to hit into the neck is a fool’s errand. The green, inspired by Ross’s fourteenth at the Country Club of Buffalo, features a broad swale running through it. Forse refers to the par-three sixth, originally a Jones hole, as a ‘Ross Redan’. The long diagonal green is inspired by the fourteenth at Peninsula G&CC and the sixth at Hyannisport, both of which are par fives, which I guess shows the flexibility of the Redan concept. The par-four ninth has perhaps the course’s most memorable green, a The par-four second hole at Country Club of Orlando and, right, a view across the back-to-back par-five fourteenth and fifteenth holes “The par-four ninth has perhaps the course’s most memorable green, a double punchbowl” Photos: LC Lambrecht/Golfstock