REPORT Every now and then a golf club may face an uncommon challenge, with no precedent that can inform the solution. At the Waldorf Astoria Golf Club, set within the grounds of Walt Disney World Resort in Orlando, Florida, that came in the form of plans to build an enormous ballroom on the site of its eighteenth green. This wasn’t quite the glass slipper that director of golf club operations Rob Turner and golf course superintendent Reese Patterson may have wanted to receive. The eighteenth played to an outcrop towards the centre of one of the property’s four lakes, overlooked by two hotels, and was the only feasible location for a building of the size required by the owners, Hilton Worldwide. It meant the course would lose its premium finishing location as well as, for the duration of the project, the par-three sixteenth hole on the bank of the lake, which was to be flattened and used as a staging location for the building construction work. Turner and Patterson had, over the years since the course’s original construction in 2008, developed a close relationship with the designers Rees Jones and Steve Weisser. The four of them would work together on the solution, devising a plan that would enable play to continue over 18 holes while the work was in progress. At 623 yards, the par-five twelfth hole could be split into a par four playing to a temporary green in the fairway and, using the back tees of the sixth, a par three over water to the hole’s existing green. Another temporary green was designed for the eighteenth, shortening it to a par four and freeing up the existing green site for the new building. “Those greens were built to a USGA spec, so by no means would meet a golfer’s usual definition of temporary, other than being scheduled for just a short period of time,” says Turner. “But then Covid hit and that short period became a bit longer.” With challenge comes opportunity. In addition to the new building, Hilton was in the process of an extensive renovation of both hotels on site. “The owners took a look at the golf course and said they want to improve it to become consistent with the rest of the investment that was going on,” says Turner. “The realities of a golf course that is 14 years old are that green sizes are reduced as a result of fairway Bermuda encroachment,” continues Turner. “The original fabric liners of the bunkers had been compromised because of the nature of our central Florida summers and multiple hurricanes; they were no longer draining effectively and had lost some of their distinctive shape. And tees start to lose their level over a period of time. “There were other opportunities too, such as opening up some of the You shall go to the ball A Cinderella story has unfolded at the Waldorf Astoria Golf Club, within Walt Disney World Resort in Orlando, Florida. Toby Ingleton reports. 74
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