69 an environment where members and staff feel comfortable on first-name terms. “We got better at what we did on a daily basis – the blocking and tackling,” he says. As his work began to yield results, the challenge then became one of coping with increasing demand: “Every day that we got better, the more members wanted to participate,” says McCarthy. His “simple solution” was to invest. “We built a 40,000 square foot lifestyle complex, a 300-seat casual restaurant, full spa and twostorey fitness centre with tennis.” Three months after the lifestyle complex was completed, Covid hit. But McCarthy has navigated recessions before, and felt confident the club would prosper. With people avoiding gathering indoors, he took the opportunity to renovate the entire clubhouse. Once that was complete, everything at Addison Reserve was new and state-of-the-art, except the golf courses. “I have wanted to get my hands on them for a long time,” says McCarthy. Addison Reserve has three nines – Redemption, Salvation and Trepidation – that were designed by Arthur Hills and built in the late 1990s. “We had 25-year-old infrastructure that was failing,” says McCarthy. “I knew that I wanted to hire the best in the world to come and redo golf here at Addison and bring golf to the level of all of the amenities that we are offering.” Among several architects to visit were Rees Jones and his associate Steve Weisser, who toured the club facilities with McCarthy, before being shown around the course by director of golf course maintenance Joshua Fleisher and director of golf Kevin Baldizar. “After that, Rees said, ‘I understand – it’s not at the level of everything else you have created in the community. But we can make this really special’. He also said, ‘you’ve got plenty of land to work with out there’. I didn’t hear that from anyone else, so it was refreshing.” Jones and Weisser set about creating a modern course, influenced by classic design principles. “We had 27 holes and wanted a common theme but at the same time a distinctive challenge for every hole – and I think we have accomplished that,” says Jones. The redesign emphasises the ground game; every green can be accessed with a running shot, while new contour introduces challenge on fairways and around greens. “The original golf Photo: Gideon Heller On the par-three seventh on the Salvation nine, the green and surrounds form an island in the sand
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy NzQ1NTk=