Island Resort & Casino, located in the town of Harris on Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, recently announced a $19 million capital investment as the Island continues to expand and prepare for future growth. The two-year project will feature the development of a new nine-hole golf course, golf shop and additional convention space.
With the increased demand for golf, Island Resort will add Cedar Course, a nine-holer on the resort’s existing Sage Run course site. The 3,630-yard, par-36 course will be designed by Paul Albanese, who also crafted Sweetgrass and Sage Run. The layout will be inspired by golden age architecture, focused on natural landscapes and featuring popular template green complexes designed into the natural environment. Green complexes will take on a C.B. Macdonald feel from his work at National Golf Links and overseas at Prestwick.
“We are very busy in the summer and often booked on both of our courses in the morning,” said Tony Mancilla, general manager for Island Resort & Casino. “We decided to add nine holes to accommodate our guests looking for early morning tee times before they head home. We are not adding to Sage Run but making these nine holes their own course.”
The name Cedar (“Kishki” in the native Potawatomi language) is derived from being one of the four sacred medicines known for its protective and purifying properties. The logo design will pay tribute to tobacco, another sacred medicine. Cedar complements the existing courses — Sweetgrass and Sage Run — to complete the representation of medicines that, in Potawatomi culture, represent the connection to the earth.
“We are taking some great concepts from the golden age of architecture in the early 1900s and incorporating them into the Cedar course,” Albanese said. “The course will feature some of the game’s most popular green templates like the Punchbowl, Double Plateau, and even a Juniper hole like the famous sixth hole at Augusta National. Many Midwesterners have not experienced this kind of architecture, so we wanted to give them a flavor of what it would be like to play overseas or from that era.”
Added Mancilla: "We are also going to have a variety of different-length holes, short par-4s inspired by holes like No. 10 at Riviera, maybe a short par-3, and even church pew bunkers like Oakmont."
The new course will be routed on rolling land adjacent to the front nine of Sage Run.
"The land we have for Cedar is perfect for the concept," Mancilla said. "The course will wind through a valley with gently rolling hills and some elevation. It will be less severe land than Sage Run but have more movement than Sweetgrass — somewhere right in-between."
In addition to the course, Cedar will offer a multi-hole complex featuring multiple greens with varying short and mid-level par 3 shots that can be played in all directions. This will be a fun golf experience for groups and golfers looking for extra golf that can be played in about an hour.
AUSTIN ADDING GOLF TO BEACH CLUB
Hometown golf course architect and land planner Roy Bechtol is collaborating with renowned designer and shaper Jim Fazio on the most modern of projects — a 12-hole par-3 lakeside course that will combine golf and social fellowship with a Texas-friendly influence.
The new, members-only project is called Austin Beach Club, in Austin, Texas and is in the final stages of planning and permitting, with ground set to be broken in September, pending city of Austin approval. The 63-acre site sits on a former mining hub that’s flush with sediment from the Colorado River just east of the Texas capital’s burgeoning downtown sector and two miles from Austin-Bergstrom International Airport.
Bechtol, Fazio and club founder Lauren Carson call the club, “a nature getaway 15 minutes from downtown.” The site has traditionally been family-owned ranches and farmland, and much of the surrounding area will not be touched, preserving that rural charm.
“The property is so magical,” said Carson, an entrepreneur and founder of Kinect Solar, a solar industry services company. “We have downtown views, and there’s just this feeling you get when you go out there. Whether you want to golf or just decompress, Austin Beach Club will be about getting into nature and connecting with other people.”
Holes at the golf course will be connected with the routing designed to be a test for good players, an introduction to golf for those new to the sport and a low-pressure escape for folks looking to just decompress. A four-acre lake is the centerpiece of the course and of the club as a whole.
Bechtol, who designed the six-hole par-3 Spieth Lower Forty at the University of Texas Golf Club in Austin as well as celebrated short-game areas on a handful of his courses, understands that untraditional courses like the 12-hole track planned at Austin Beach Club are the wave of the future. He expects the course at Austin Beach Club to be played with two or three clubs and a putter — and likely a drink in hand. There will be stations to set down your beverage on each tee box and green.
"Millennials want to play golf in a way that takes less time and is more fun," Bechtol said. “This is a much quicker way to enjoy golf and opens up the experience to more people who we know will fall in love with the game. What we’re trying to create at the Austin Beach Club is to play real golf, get outdoors, get away from computers and other everyday stresses.”
Austin Beach Club’s course will have holes ranging in length from 78 to 120 yards and each teeing area will have two sets of boxes. The sixth hole will finish at the clubhouse to facilitate truncated rounds when time is short. Greens will be protected by bunkers and will average about 3,000 square feet in size.
“The land here is fabulous, and we let the terrain and what Mother Nature has given us dictate how the holes will be routed and how it will be played,” Bechtol said. “Mature live oaks are spotted around the layout and there will be plenty of native grasses on the edges to frame the holes and the property as a whole.”
Fazio said Austin Beach Club’s golf course will be a place where grandparents can play alongside their children and grandchildren.
“We envision a course that is friendly and unintimidating but also good enough to be challenging and memorable,” Fazio said. “At Austin Beach Club the golf will be a huge part of an experience in which the members and their guests can socially interact in a way that’s fun — it will have the Austin vibe.”
Along with the golf course, plans include walking trails and a clubhouse with fine dining. There will be kayaking, paddle boarding and canoeing as well as wellness classes and social interaction with an Austin style, with the club designed to create a community for startup founders, downtown tech workers, families and anyone else interested in outdoor recreation.
Austin Beach Club’s mantra is “disconnect to reconnect,” and the golf course reflects that ideal. The plan is to light the golf course and for it and the club’s other recreational services to be open through evening hours, even as late as 2 a.m.
THE SOCIAL ASPECT
NebGolf staff got its first look at @GrayBullClub yesterday on a Course Rating visit 😍.
Another world class golf course opening in Nebraska soon! pic.twitter.com/h2yn81Kipo
— NebGolf (@NGAgolf) July 3, 2024
TAMARACK CC REOPENS
Tamarack Country Club in Greenwich, Connecticut, reopened in late May following a nine-month renovation by Brian Schneider of Renaissance Golf Design. Tamarack debuted in 1929 with a design by Seth Raynor protege Charles Banks, who earned the nickname, “Steamshovel,” for utilizing that equipment in creating dramatic, sharp-edged features on his layouts. Assisted by aerial images of the course in its Golden Age glory, Schneider restored all the course’s bunkers to Banks’ original specifications.
“I am deeply grateful to the club for the opportunity to restore the drama of Charles Banks’ work and for their gracious hospitality throughout this wonderful project,” Schneider said.
Work included eliminating non-original bunkers, restoring green surrounds, installing new bunkers, rebuilding tee complexes, adding new tees, enhancing berms and mounding and creating a tree management program to re-introduce sightlines, along with improving turf quality and playability.
“With Brian Schneider’s masterplanned renovations completed, the stature of our award-winning golf course will continue to grow, and our members will enjoy a truly spectacular test of golf,” Tamarack Country Club president Chris Thompson said.
