83 to get some airflow,” says Pike. This is helpful for turf health but has two key additional benefits: there is now more often a route to recovery when shots end up in trees, and the removal of lower limbs has “highlighted the beautiful terrain of the golf course,” according to Pike, and provided more of a sense of the overall site and the connections between holes that previously felt very separate. “It’s what a lot of clubs should be doing,” says Jones. “They shouldn’t be taking out as many trees as they do. They should just raise the canopies because you then have to manufacture shots, turn the ball one way or another. And you have to think about how to recover from a bad shot. With wide open golf courses, it’s the same shot every time.” Jones and team have also redesigned the bunkers at Sahalee. Primarily, this was to improve performance – by installing new lining, drainage and sand – but it has also given the design team an opportunity to make some significant revisions to bunker style and placement. The latter is driven primarily by the desire to retain strategic relevance in keeping with modern hitting distances, but the tree clearance has also opened opportunities for new locations that embrace the site topography. “When we took out trees, it gave us more room to tie in the bunkers to the natural grade,” says Jones. In terms of style, bunkers now have the wavy edges that are becoming something of a hallmark of Jones’s recent work, aspects of bunker design that were slowly lost over years of maintenance have been restored, and some adjustments have been made for accessibility – it is now easy to walk in and out of each bunker. “The focus has always been, number one, making the golf course playable for the members, and number two, being championship ready,” says Pike. “I think every club in America complains about bunkers, but ours are now 100 per cent better.” There have been other changes too, notably the extension of the pond and removal of a saving bunker on the front left of the tenth green (the opening hole of the North nine), making the short downhill approach more thoughtprovoking. The East nine – which is a similar length and stature as both the South and North but not part of the tournament configuration – has also received attention in equal measure. The result of the renovation is a layout that further endorses Sahalee’s credentials as best-in-class, and may give many visitors a newfound appreciation of tree-lined golf. “The beauty of Sahalee is that you have got to manage and master the mental side of the game as much as on any major championship course in the world,” says Jones. “You can never let up and there is never a free shot.” The 2024 KPMG Women’s PGA Championship was the fourth major championship hosted by Sahalee REPORT “ When we took out trees, it gave us more room to tie in the bunkers to the natural grade” Photo: courtesy of Rees Jones, Inc.
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