“Our style is to fly under the radar and keep things low key, but we are looking forward to opening on December 19,” says longtime General Manager Mark Brenneman. “That will be exactly seven months from when we closed and began this process.” That process included increasing the teeing spaces on holes, which now allows Shadow Creek to be stretched to 7,560 yards for those willing, up from 7,239 yards. Also, the greens were rebuilt and seeded with Bentgrass–as were the approaches to the greens–and a dynamic 7-acre short game practice was created. Plus, a new, more efficient irrigation system was put in and all of the fairways were sand-capped. The fairway grass is a high-tech 419 Bermuda. Shadow Creek Golf Club is one of more than 70 Las Vegas golf courses in the Las Vegas area.

“Tom Fazio took the opportunity to move some tees and greens closer to some of the beautiful streams that were kind of being lost because of the maturation of the trees, and he wanted to make them more visible as they were when the course opened in 1989,” says Brenneman. “We wanted to keep the course intimate and secluded, but we also wanted to create a more open feel because over time the trees kind of closed it up.” He also noted that the greens and teeing areas got smaller over the last two decades due to natural mowing processes, and it was time to “open” up those surfaces and return them to the original sizes.

And contrary to some public speculation, the new renovations were not made in hopes of hosting a large, televised event. Brenneman emphatically stated that there has never been a plan or any talks about hosting any Tour or other televised events, and course and hotel management (Shadow Creek is owned by MGM Mirage) have “no desire” to do that. Shadow Creek is open to any guest staying at an MGM Mirage property. The green fee is $500 and includes cart, caddie, and limo transportation to and from this Las Vegas golf course.

This is a course that I’d like to see for the simple reason that it’s 100% man-made, but, according to so many people whose opinion I trust, it’s actually a very good golf course and a lot can be learned from the architecture. If any readers have a chance to play the new course, please post your opinions on the changes.

I wonder why that is? To keep people from discussing them? He doesn’t want anybody to steal his ideas?

There are a few places where we get to see some idea of what the routing looks like for some of these golf courses. Here is the routing for the Cliffs course in High, North Carolina. (Click for larger.)

I’ll be the first to admit that judging any golf course by a routing is unfair – we can’t see the topography, although Tiger said that he wanted the course to be walkable, which means that the topography can’t be too severe, even if the course is in the mountains.. The fairways and greens won’t look exactly like what is shown and bunkers won’t be in the same place. There may even be more or fewer bunkers on each hole.

Now, that being said, we can still get a feel for what the design intent will be. We have returning nines that are segregated from one another – the front nine is on the west side and the back nine is on the east side. The good news is that the course is a “core course” – there is very little housing on the course. It is mostly along holes 5-8, which you can sort of see in this picture. It looks like there might be housing along 16-18 at some point in the future, but it’s difficult to tell with any certainty. Having looked at the routing for a little while, I don’t see anything of particular note. Holes 9 and 17 look somewhat interesting, but the rest look like copies of one another. I’ll be curious to see how the greens and their surrounds turn out – will there be bold green contours in the mold of Augusta or the sand hills of Australia that Tiger has praised in the past? Will more strategic elements be included?

We found out that, even in the current economy, that property sales weren’t too shabby. They sold $40 million worth of real estate in November. With property prices starting at $500,000 and going to over $3 million, that’s a decent haul. Probably enough to cover the cost of construction, land costs and Tiger’s design fee for the course. Maybe even a road or two in the subdivision.

The golf course at Punta Brava is quite different since it’s along the Pacific Ocean. The best I could come up with for a routing is below (that Tiger’s hand in the picture…). (Click for larger version.)

This is a different animal than the Cliffs. We see some pretty dramatic holes in 4, 9, 10, 16, 17 and 18. I’m sure the view on every hole will be spectacular. The internal holes also have some interesting features, like the shared bunkers on holes 3 and 4 and again on holes 14 and 15. The biggest downside I see to this design are all of the parallel holes, but that’s a minor quibble. This is actually a course that should be pretty interesting.

I’m looking forward to seeing some of the actual construction photos from the golf courses as well as how it’s played as a finished product. Hopefully his courses will live up to his playing ability.

Unfortunately, I came away totally disappointed. The public golf is pretty bad. The best of the public accesible lot is undoubtedly the City of Wilmington’s Municipal Course. It’s an old Donald Ross course that underwent a renovation in the late 1990s. Golf Club Atlas’ profile of the course details how Ron Prichard, along with the Donald Ross Society, restored the bunkers to give the course a lot of life. I walked the course, which was a pretty easy walk, and really enjoyed many of the holes. It is incredibly affordable.

The other courses that I played included Echo Farms Golf Club, Beau Rivage Golf Club, Castle Bay Golf Club and Magnolia Greens Golf Club. The publicly accesible golf courses I did not play that are in the area were the Cape Golf Club, Belvedere Country Club, Olde Point Golf Club, Porters Neck Golf Club and Topsail Greens Golf Club. The Cape was undergoing a total renovation and was closed. What I saw from driving around the courses at Belvedere, Olde Point and Topsail Greens was totally uninspring. Portners Neck is a Tom Fazio design that I’m sorry I didn’t get a chance to play. From what I saw of the few greens driving around the course, they did show some interesting contours that would have been fun to play. Magnolia Greens, which gets high marks in Golf Digest’s Places to Play (4 stars…) was about as boring and lifeless a golf course that I’ve ever played. For the life of me, I can’t figure out how or why people rank it as high as they do.

There are three private clubs that I never did get a chance to play. I was able to see some of Cape Fear Country Club, another Donald Ross layout. It was recently restored by Kris Spence and it looked fantastic. The day I was setup to play it, it poured and I never got a chance to get back to the course. The ultra-private Eagle Point by Tom Fazio is reportedly a really good tract. And there are two courses located inside a planned development called Landfall. One course by Jack Nicklaus and one by Pete Dye. I was able to see a little of the courses in Landfall – they looked in immaculate shape, but not very unique.

There is one course under construction – the terribly named Cape Fear National Country Club. It is part of a planned development already well under construction and with many homes already occupied. While it isn’t scheduled to open until late 2009, an article The Real Estate Channel caught my eye because of the comments made by Cape Fear National’s architect, Tim Cate.

“It’ll blow everything out of the water up there,” says Cate, who also is working on a fourth new course at the Ocean Ridge resort-style community in Sunset Beach, N.C., called Jaguar’s Lair.

“You could bring (Cape Fear) down here (to Myrtle Beach) and it would be one of those top-five, best new courses and all that stuff. Up there in Wilmington they’ve never had competition like they have down here.

“I think the people that play it are going to be pretty surprised at what they see.

They’re going to see a sophisticated, detail level of golf that they probably don’t even know about. It’s a very good project with very good developers. And KemperSports is top of the line.  Everybody’s just totally committed to make Cape Fear really good.”

Those are pretty interesting comments made by Mr. Cate. He must have seen the same thing that I saw – rather unispired golf. Hopefully his golf course will be something that adds an interesting twist to an otherwise rather boring golf landscape.

“My sense is that they’ve widened the fairways a little bit this year,” Mr. Crenshaw said. “But that sight” — he motioned toward the first and ninth fairways below us, both lined by the darker-green second cut — “is still a little unpalatable to my eyes.”

To Mr. Crenshaw, the second cut is unnecessary given the other many strategic challenges that Augusta poses, and given that the founding designers, Bobby Jones and Alister MacKenzie, chose not to grow deeper grass near the fairways. They took their design philosophy in part from the strategic but roughless St. Andrews links in Scotland.

“There’s no question that Augusta National and the other courses in the world need to do something because the equipment has got away from us,” he said, referring to the increased distance that the top players in the world are hitting the ball these days. But the second cut takes away some of the angles into the greens that strategically inclined players like to play. “There are many ways around this course. It was designed to make you think,” he said.

Ben’s being very kind and sticking to just the topic at hand with regards to what has taken away some of the angles into the greens. The club claims that the rough imposes a one-half stroke penalty. Apparently, they think that the rough is imposing that penalty and that were the rough not there, the penalty would be less.

Could they be more wrong? First, the penalty is not because of the rough – it’s because of an improper angle to the green. Second, the rough actually prevents a number of balls from finding a far more imposing penalty – having to hit from pine straw between trees.

Ah – but the club has realized this to a point and has added MORE trees because the rough isn’t, apparently, penalty enough. So the corridors are getting tighter and the rough is coming in further (from zero). And that means that founder Bobby Jones’ and architect Alister MacKenzie’s philosophy of having the course be in “the spirit of St. Andrews” gets more and more bastardized each year.

Each year we hear more and more about how dull and boring the Masters is – how the roars are gone. How the course has gone from anticipation of a charge to anticipation of a train wreck. That more trees were added or bunkers widened. That the rough is a little tighter or a little longer. With each tweak, Augusta loses a little more of itself and, by their symbiotic relationship, golf loses a little more of itself.

Below are some details on the changes.

Every hole was redesigned with new tees, fairways and greens. Square tee boxes created a more traditional look. Much of the mounding was softened, creating better sight lines for players and improved views for fans. White-faced bunkers added definition to fairways and greens. And about 200 yards were added.

Weibring turned one of the least favorite holes, No. 11, into what could be an exciting, drivable par-4. He enhanced No. 17, the popular par-3, by clearing viewing areas on both sides and around the green. A stadium feel was created with grandstands and luxury boxes framing the hole. The 18th hole is highlighted by a series of four ponds with waterfalls.

The 11th sounds intriguing – the 18th sounds boring. White faced bunkers sounds typical and not at all Texan.

Looking at player/architect D.A. Weibring’s website where he discusses the changes, we find more detail.

Every tee box, green and bunker has been redone. About 165 trees have been moved.

Other parts of the landscape have been altered for shot value and to improve views. Mounds have been softened. A new irrigation system is in place. It’s a clean, less-is-more look that should intrigue pros, members and resort guests. When fans arrive at the April 24-27 tournament, they will find open viewing areas that will bring them much closer to the action.

Removal of trees sounds great. It would be nice to know what “softening” means to mounds. I have no idea what the cliche “clean, less-is-more” has in the context of golf course design.

“You hear competitive and you hear challenging, but the word you have to hear is fun,” Weibring said. “It’s got to provide all levels of player the visual opportunities to play a shot. Do they have a bailout? Can they bounce the ball on the green? Will they remember the holes?”

I think Weibring meant bounce the ball on TO the green. Weibring was very critical of Pete Dye’s design at Whistling Straits with regards to the ground game, so it will be interesting to see if the TPC actually does allow for the ability to play a ground attack.

Colin Montgomerie and Vijay Singh are two big stars to cash in on the trend, adding their names to a who’s who of golfers with course interests in the booming country.

“There’s certain meetings this week while I’m here and we hope to do that,” Montgomerie said, when asked if he planned to design courses in India.

“We look forward to it.”

Singh, a Fijian of Indian heritage, said he already had plans to design a signature course in the tourist state of Goa.

“Hopefully I can get a lot more opportunities to design golf courses here,” he said.

“I’m doing a few more in the Asian region but here in India, that’s the first one and probably after that we’ll see if we can get some more.”

The Classic was held on the Arnold Palmer-designed DLF Golf and Country Club here, while Jack Nicklaus and Greg Norman have also charted courses and Nick Faldo and Ernie Els have layouts in the works.

Well, nobody can blame these guys for taking a paycheck. The question, as is always the case, is what level of involvement will they have? There aren’t any regular tour stops in India – and for Els and Singh, tournament golf is still a high priority. How they will balance family, tournament golf and golf courses in India would seem fairly tricky. Especially with the difficulty of putting together a piece of property large enough for a golf course.

According to Narain, one of the main difficulties in establishing courses is buying land, which is usually held in small parcels by various families.

“If you want to put together 200 acres, you might have to negotiate with 200 owners,” he said. “It can take up to five or 10 years sometimes.”

Negotiations can turn ugly, as in 2002 when thousands of homes in Chandigarh were knocked down to make way for a golf course. One man died after setting fire to himself in protest, reports said.

As I state on the page, this list is not intended to be complete, but represents my best effort to date of identifying the architects working today. I’ll be the first to admit that I’m not consistent in my listing of professional golfers. While I’ve included golfers like Brad Faxon, Johnny Miller and Davis Love III, I’ve omitted many others like Ernie Els, Vijay Singh and Fred Couples who have courses credited to them, but I feel aren’t really a part of the golf design. I’m willing to be wrong and have them included in the list, but it’ll take some convincing. I’ve included the guy that does the majority (all) of their designs anyway in Brit Stenson.

Finally, a word on Tiger Woods presently being omitted from the page. I have included the person mostly likely responsible for his design projects in Beau Welling. I’ll include Tiger once two things are in place: A course is open and it is shown that he is involved heavily in the design of the course.

If you know of architects missing, or websites that I’ve been unable to locate (i.e. no link associated with their name) please comment or drop me an e-mail. Many of those who don’t have a website associated with their name is because, inexplicably, Tom Fazio does not have a website. To those architects who don’t have a website – for shame!

I’m not sure what exactly the definition of a “perpendicular” hazard is – does it have to be situated across the entire line of play? Fazio claims to want to make a rule for golf that there be no perpendicular hazards because it’s unfair to the beginning golfer.

This is an absolutely absurd notion – that courses with hazards like this should not be rated. Let’s take perhaps two of golf’s best and most famous holes – the 12th and 13th at Augusta National. The 13th is perhaps the most interesting and strategic hole in all of golf. Both holes feature a perpendicular hazard (a creek) directly in front of the green.

Now, a beginning golfer is going to face any number of challenges, the least of which is the “unfair” perpendicular hazard. If a golfer is not able to carry something as simple as a 5 or 10 yard wide creek, they don’t belong on a golf course yet. They need to stick to the driving range and par 3 courses until such time they can carry a golf ball 10 yards in the air. The notion that a course shouldn’t be ranked because of this is absolutely absurd.

There was some discussion of reversing the nines – which might be interesting only from the standpoint that the front 9 appears to be more interesting and entertaining than the back 9.

“If you flipped the nines, you’ve got a short par 3, a short par 4, another short par 4 and a good risk-reward par 5. That could be pretty exciting,” Arron Oberholser said last week at the BMW Championship, where he failed to qualify for the Tour Championship.

The front nine was also the site of Tiger’s 28 on Friday. (Although, Zack Johnson shot 29 on the back in route to his incredible 60 on Saturday.) Of course, there is some reason that the front nine is likely more interesting and entertaining than the back nine.

Designer Rees Jones, who did the makeover at East Lake in 1994, cringed at the idea. “Please don’t do that,” Jones said. “I just souped up that back nine.”

“Souped up” is code from Jones for “made more boring” – as in added length, added or deepened bunkers, planted trees, added water. In any event, the wet conditions brought on by both rain and less than ideal green conditions (which turned out to be blown WAY out of proportion) resulted in conditions that allowed the golfers to fire darts all week.

Here’s Tiger’s take on ending on a Par 3.

“I’ve never been a big fan of the last hole being a par 3,” Tiger Woods said. “I think you should have to hit more shots to determine a champion than just one shot. I think you should have to play two or three shots to get to a flag, not just one shot.”

Hmmm… the champion has likely hit between 250 and 290 shots over fours days to determine the outcome of a tournament. The champion, unless he hits a hole-in-one will also have to hit at least two shots, including a putt, on a par 3.