2022: In Photos
Restoring MacKenzie at Lake Merced
Around this time, I usually do a long-winded year-in-review covering all sorts of topics both on and off the course. This isn’t really that, nor can it be. With two little kids and business picking up, that’s just too hard to do anymore. Still, as we head into a potentially exciting 2023, I wanted to share some of the highlights from the previous year 2022, especially work done and new courses seen, and what better way to do that than a bunch of photos. Scroll along for these highlights, the first of which is a career highlight, not just a year highlight.
Projects
Lake Merced (Gil Hanse Renovation/Restoration to as much as Alister MacKenzie version as possible) – Daly City, CA
One of the great opportunities of my career, if not the greatest, has been to work on this special Gil Hanse project and help put back together some of MacKenzie’s incredible bunkering and edits to the original Willie Locke layout. Ever since I moved out to the Bay Area 12 years ago and started to get to know the local golf architecture junkies, they had been talking and dreaming about what Lake Merced once was and had long lost. Most were skeptical a restoration was ever possible or would happen. But thanks to Gil Hanse and the weight of his successful restoration work elsewhere, it happened. Somehow, I was also fortunate enough to help out the Cavemen with it, especially on the 13th (historic 17), 12th(historic 16), and 16th (brand new Hanse par 3 down in that same corner). It was very fun both trying to meticulously match up the fine details to the many old photographs of the MacKenzie work but also to free-form on the new stuff and make an interpretation of his style that could hold up to the great “existing” stuff nearby. Very special to be a part of it all.
Hole 16 at Lake Merced is an all-new Gil Hanse addition to the course. These scab bunkers chasing up the hill were truly fun to build, even if working on a way-too-small open-cab excavator with 50 degree misty rain pummeling me all day.
The 12th (historic 16th), one of the greens with the most photographic evidence for it. MacKenzie added intricate flanking bunkers to the simple saucer Locke green.
Looking back over the 13th green and out to the 16th at Lake Merced. This was the first day I had ever seen the flagsticks in the greens.
8 Green at Lake Merced, with Olympic Club looming in the distance.
Machine shaping almost finished on the bunkers surrounding the 13th green at Lake Merced.
Teton Pines (Thad Layton/Arnold Palmer Design Co. Renovation) – Wilson, WY
This was phase 2 of the project we started last spring, this time doing the back nine. The inward half of holes has a bit fewer of the big mountain vistas of the front, but the tradeoff is a more natural and intimate feel through the woods and streams. Thad shaped out the three new greens while I stuck back on the bunkers, which, like last year, are some of my favorites I’ve gotten to do for their rugged faces and top lines meant to cast shadows and mimic the adjacent Teton Range.
Mornings were special at Teton Pines. Shaping is almost complete here on the bunkers and short-grass expansion on the 16th hole.
The first bunker we worked on this year was maybe the largest (and most time consuming) on the course—the tee shot fairway bunker on the 14th.
Front right and back greenside bunkers on the 13th at Teton Pines. Hat tip to Thad Layton for starting the the front pair and splitting them in a way I had not envisioned but liked enough to roll with it and expand upon.
The back wrapping bunker on the 14th green almost finished.
The other candidate for largest bunker on the course is this beast on the 11th fairway.
A grassed version of last year’s work on the 5th hole
Greenside close-up of the 5th hole, where the green was also expanded in the front left corner just behind this bunker
The Tree Farm (Kye Goalby, Tom Doak, and Zac Blair New Build) – New Holland, SC
With Kye and his team closing in on the finish line for seeding, I was just here for a few weeks mostly doing whatever to help them get closer to achieving that goal. A lot of that was dozer sweeping fairways and working greens tie-ins, but there was also some more fun stuff too like native chunking and touching up or adding to some of the really cool and funky old-school heathland-like features that they have introduced to this awesome rugged property. Great place to hang out and work for a bit, and can’t wait to someday play what they’ve created.
Touching up and adding some lumpy irregularity to a crossing feature on the 11th hole at the Tree Farm. I loved these spoils-like heathland type features that Kye and crew interspersed throughout this rugged layout. Very creative stuff that also really fits the landscape.
Chunking in progress on the right side of the 4th green
Mound-making on the 8th hole. These should mess with a longer player playing too safely through the fairway
Cedarbrook (Jaeger Kovich 4-hole phase 1 Renovation) —
Similar to the Tree Farm, I was here to help out my friend Jaeger Kovich as he introduced a real Tillinghast flair to 4 of the back nine holes at this beautiful 1960s property that relocated from an original Tilly/Ross site nearby. It was fun here to try and push out of my comfort zone, building humps in the middle of the 15th hole fairway bunker and making the landforms on the back of the 12th greenside bunker extra pointy. Jaeger’s done some very cool stuff here while also making the greens more contoured yet also more playable.
I’ve built islands in dry-washes and arroyos, but this was my first time putting islands in a bunker. Hope Tilly would like it!
The inspiration for the bunker was taken from an old aerial showing a Tillinghast bunker as a sort of long, skinny, triangle with zig-zags and a slight curve. What I like most about it though is the funky “pointy-ness” of the landforms.
Mounds! Hopefully more to come as Jaeger moves through the phases of his work here
Best New Courses Seen
As always I sought out some new courses in my travels. There were no total knockouts this year (i.e. Doak scale 9s or 10s) but a very solid sampling of a high number of good courses, many of which were located in the Northeast and most of which were designed by Albert Tillinghast, whose work I had not seen nearly enough of in person to-date. My “Doak rating” is in [brackets] and only to be interpreted as a loose guide of what interests me in golf design, as is the general order of these. Feel free to debate me!
Varied texture and unusual elevated sand features are just some of the charms at Walter Travis’s Hollywood.
1. Hollywood - Deal, NJ (Walter Travis, with restoration by Brian Schneider) [8]
2. Palmetto - Aiken, SC (Thomas Hitchcock 4 holes, expanded to 18 by Herbert Leeds and James Mackrell, renovation by Alister MacKenzie and construction associate Wendell Miller) [8]
3. Manufacturers’ - Fort Washington, PA (William Flynn) [8]
4. Fenway - Scarsdale, NY (A.W. Tillinghast) [7]
5. Hidden Creek - Egg Harbor Twp., NJ (Coore & Crenshaw (James Duncan Lead)) [7]
6. Quaker Ridge - Scarsdale, NY (A.W. Tillinghast) [7]
7. Ridgewood - Paramus, NJ (A.W. Tillinghast) [7]
8. Lake Merced - Daly City, CA (Willie Locke, with revisions by Alister MacKenzie, near-restoration to that version by Gil Hanse) [6]
9. Forsgate - Monroe Twp., NJ (Charles Banks) [6]
10. Shooting Star - Wilson, WY (Tom Fazio) [7]
The Augusta-like greens at historic Palmetto create an enticing challenge that makes you want to get back out and try again after you (most likely) fail the first time.
The quarry at Manufacturers’ not only dominates social media, it dominates the view from all over this surprisingly big broad valley of a property. Flynn’s routing is brilliant as is the strategy he creates with minimal moves against the land.
The rollicking greens at Fenway give it the slight nod for me over the other Tilly courses I saw.
The bunkers and textured grass obviously make for a splendid landscape at Hidden Creek, but so too do the random berms and spoils piles scattered about the property, evoking thoughts of the London Heathland in the South Jersey woods.
The “Reef” hole is one of many outstanding one-shot holes at Quaker Ridge. The back nine here is outstanding.
A cool bunker arrangement at Ridgewood (West hole 2) sneakily extends well back down the fairway.
Super deep bunkers and template greens with many subtle tweaks and contours make Forsgate special and challenging.
There is no doubt that Shooting Star’s primary asset is the scenery as well as superior landscape creation, such as the man-made stream in this photograph.
Other courses that caught our interest for different reasons:
Lulu - Glenside, PA (Donald Ross)
Aiken - Aiken, SC (John Inglis with major revisions by Jim McNair)
Philadelphia Cricket Club (Wissahickon Course) - Flourtown, PA (A.W. Tillinghast with renovations by Keith Foster)
Peninsula - San Mateo, CA (Donald Ross)
Yahnundasis - New Hartford, NY (Walter Travis)
Jumping Brook - Neptune, NJ (Willard Wilkinson with influence from A.W. Tillinghast)
Cedarbrook - Blue Bell, PA (Bill Mitchell)
Sandy Run - Oreland, PA (J. Franklin Meehan)
Links at Teton Peaks - Driggs, ID (David Druzisky)
Corica Park North (Front 9 only) - Alameda, CA (Rees Jones and Marc Logan)
La Rinconada - Los Gatos, CA (William Jefferson)
Montclair Pitch and Putt - Oakland, CA (Unknown)
Eccentric features, especially for Ross, at Lulu: a punchbowl green, an obscuring bunker ridge, and sharp alpinisation mounds between holes
Aiken is a real treat for the golfing public, especially during a droughty summer stretch that allows the fairways to run out.
Two different views over the “Great Hazard” show what a special golf landscape exists on the Wissahickon Course at Philly Cricket Club. It really takes you back in time.
Funky greenside mounding at Yahnundasis in Upstate New York.
The front nine at Corica Park’s North Course includes lots of ground undulations, tight firm conditions, and the occasional deep revetted bunker.
A true “dive-bar” type of little course, the Montclair pitch and putt is a great place to practice your long wedge game
Other Highlights of the Year
Some of which also loosely relate to golf
My son was born healthily during the middle of the Lake Merced project (thankfully waiting until after we wrapped up holes 12 and 13, though he sure threatened to come sooner!)
Was very fortunate this year to make a quick stopover in Michigan to watch the Wolverines down the Spartans in the Big House with my two favorite fellow fans, my dad and brother.
Having the family in Wyoming meant having my daughter often coming out to visit and get her hands dirty at the end of the day. She might just have a future working with Daddy!
I don’t care if this is mid-April—Jackson Hole is a truly special place.
The oaks of South Boundary Ave in Aiken, SC
Pit stop at Idaho’s Craters of the Moon National Monument & Preserve on my way back from Wyoming. What a wonderfully bizarre landscape.
Watching the 150th Open at St Andrews often felt surreal (especially as much of my viewing was out of the corner of my eye looking at my phone screen while shaping at the Tree Farm). The course, especially with its dry conditions, presents so many shot types and situations, and the aura and scene just looked unreal. If only Rory could’ve made a putt on the final day…
We finally got back to Cornell this year, which was also the first time with kids. Pretty special to go back to the place where our family dreams all started with that family now realized. Also, my daughter couldn’t seem to get enough of it, always running enthusiastically to the next thing. So fun.
On football Saturdays, many of the holes at The University of Michigan Course turn into something like the 1st/18th at St Andrews on a Sunday. Michigan Football and MacKenzie/Maxwell—what a combo!
This year’s LPGA Mediheal Championship allowed me the first chance to see any of my work on live TV. Here’s Celine Boutier playing out of the greenside bunker on the canyonside 14th hole at Saticoy.
One of the highlights of the year was my final day in Jackson Hole, where I watched the sun rise on the Wyoming side of Grand Teton and the sun set that same day on the Idaho side while playing golf at the Links at Teton Peaks.
Deer playing “King of the Mountain” on the Principal’s Nose bunker at Hollywood.
Wouldn't be the first day back to work at Teton Pines without an elk herd encounter right where you are to begin work
Kermit the Frog at The Tree Farm
This is cheating a bit since it wasn’t on a golf course, but seeing a badger in person in the daylight is rare enough to make an exception. Seen at the Wildlife Art Museum in Jackson, WY.
Part of the maintenance crew at Brambles
A lot more foxes on the back nine at Teton Pines; this is one of many sightings throughout the spring
A bald eagle flying high over—appropriately enough—Philadelphia at Cedarbrook
A golf hawk at Lake Merced (not THAT Golf Hawk)
Moose encounter on my walk into work at Teton Pines
And last but not least, #BucketShots
A beautiful fall morning wrapping up the back bunker on 12 at Cedarbrook
Building the upper tee on the par three 13th at Lake Merced required some (occasionally hilarious) ice plant stripping but also afforded incredible views
I’ll miss almost always having a view of Grand Teton from the excavator seat
Finishing off Josh McFadden’s left fairway cross bunker on the 8th at Lake Merced
Mini mountain making at Teton Pines
Chunking on the 4th at Tree Farm. Loved the views from up here!
Undoubtedly the biggest stumps I’ve pulled out to date, dug up along the Wissahickon at Cedarbrook
It was a true joy to get back and enjoy proper Fall color at Cedarbrook
8th hole greenside bunker in progress at Lake Merced, with a tiny peek of Lake Merced itself in the distance.
Totally normal May weather at Teton Pines
A Final Word…
Thank you to all who have made it down this far, and thank you as always to all those who surround me and support me to make this crazy life possible, especially my wife and kids. It’s not easy, and I appreciate it more than you can know.
What was probably the best part of 2022 doesn’t show up in these images, as it was more the behind-the-scenes type of groundwork to set up what should be a more exciting 2023. Stay tuned for some potentially exciting announcements from us soon!
Thanks for reading, and Happy New Year
-Brett