The reimagining of the front nine on King’s North at Myrtle Beach National, long one of the Grand Strand’s most popular layouts, is progressing on schedule as the course targets an early October reopening.
Architect Brandon Johnson is overseeing the two-year, two-part project — the back nine will enjoy an overhaul in the summer of 2025 — that will transform the experience on the Arnold Palmer design.
King’s North closed on June 3 to begin the project and the course’s greens have all been restored to their original size and in some cases expanded, claiming an additional 30,000 square feet of putting surface. The greens have been sprigged with TifEagle bermudagrass and are growing in nicely with a month remaining before the venerable layout reopens.
“The greens are going to be a lot bigger,” said Johnson, who worked for Arnold Palmer Design Company for 17 years before launching Brandon Johnson Golf Design. “It was fun rediscovering a lot of the old, original green boundaries; you kind of see where things might have been and then you start peeling back layers and go, ‘Oh, there was a green over there.’ We were able to smooth the contours we rediscovered and there is a nice roll and flow to the new greens.”
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With work on the greens and the surrounding areas largely complete, Johnson and his team are focused on the continuing renovation of the front nine bunkers, which will add to the strategic value of a course golfers have long flocked to.
“Between widening fairways, opening up the front of some of the greens so you can play the ball on the ground, and tweaking angles of the bunkers, there are going to be some new strategic locations that will present some fun riddles for players to solve,” Johnson said.
Johnson is also leaning into the already rugged aesthetic King’s North enjoys, expanding the layout’s waste bunkers to showcase the area’s naturally sandy soil.
“We are excited to welcome golfers back to King’s North in October, so they can enjoy the rare opportunity to experience an architect’s vision for a reimagined layout at the halfway point,” said Steve Mays, president of Founders Group International. “Brandon’s work will help recapture the magic of Arnold Palmer’s original design, while incorporating his own vision for one of the Myrtle Beach area’s iconic courses, and the buzz surrounding the reopening is already building.”
King’s North was last renovated in 1996 when Palmer oversaw a complete redesign of what was previously called the North Course. The layout shot to the top of the list of Myrtle Beach’s best designs and was ranked among America’s 100 Greatest Public Courses by Golf Digest.
AUSTRALIAN FIRM TAKES TO THE HILLS
The Hills Golf Club, in Arrowtown, New Zealand, which is ranked among that country’s top 10 courses, will undergo a comprehensive redesign by the Australian firm of Ogilvy, Cocking & Mead (OCM).
Owners Michael Hill and his daughter Emma have teamed with Americans Ric Kayne and Jim Rohrstaff, the driving forces behind New Zealand’s top-ranked Tara Iti and Te Arai Links, to help bring The Hills to its full potential.
Originally designed by John Darby in 2007, The Hills played host to three New Zealand Opens and co-hosted seven others from 2007-2020. The club also has a nine-hole par-3 course called The Farm, designed by Darius Oliver in 2019.
"Michael and Emma reached out early in 2022 to begin a discussion around the Hills course, the property, and how to ensure the family could achieve a great result for themselves, the club and legacy they have created here in Arrowtown," Rohrstaff told GolfCourseArchitecture.net. “Even though Michael created The Hills, he, nor the rest of the family, are developers. So, to create a sustainable club and community that maintains the aesthetics, the family said we were the only logical partners to help take The Hills to the next level. We bring a passion for the game of golf and have a track record of creating great clubs and communities with both development and operational expertise.”
One of the first moves to help realize the new vision was to bring OCM — composed of Geoff Ogilvy, Mike Cocking and Ashley Mead — into the reimagination process. The firm has produced a plan that includes an entirely new routing and architectural style that will replace its predecessors.
“One of the other important items for us was to make The Hills course more walkable,” Rohrstaff said. “The new routing does a great job of connecting greens to tees, far better than the existing layout does. This is typically done by linking them with shortgrass, which will be a beautiful change. They’re also adding a very short par three as the new second hole as well as making the 15th a more drivable par four. The new routing plays over a lot of the same ground, although at times, in the opposite direction.”
The redesign is scheduled to begin in April 2026, and will be carried out in two phases, with nine holes under construction at any given time. The completion date is slated for 2028.
TIDYING UP PHILADELPHIA CC'S SPRING MILL
Jim Nagle has commenced renovation work on the back nine at the historic Spring Mill course at Philadelphia Country Club. This follows the May 2024 reopening of the front nine, which Nagle began work on in August 2023. Located in suburban Gladwyne, Pennsylvania, Philadelphia Country Club and its Spring Mill course played host to the 1939 U.S. Open, won by Byron Nelson over Sam Snead.
“The club needed to replace aging infrastructure,” Nagle told Golf Course Architecture. “The irrigation system was over 25 years old, bunkers were draining poorly, the greens were lacking in drainage and the subsoils required replacing. The club also took advantage of the opportunity to look to the year it hosted the U.S. Open and attempt to restore as much of the course as possible, with the photos from the Open being a tremendous resource in the rebuilding process.”
William Flynn designed the Spring Mill course in 1927 and Nagle is one of the industry’s foremost experts at Flynn restorations. Prior to the current project, Nagle had successfully renovated the club’s nine-hole Centennial course and had designed and built the new Philadelphia Country Club practice facility. Together with Mottin Golf Renovations, Middletown Sprinklers and consultant Paul Roche, Nagle is tackling the back nine in similar fashion to what was accomplished on the front nine. This includes a new irrigation system, rebuilding of all bunkers, greens and tees and a re-grassing of the fairways. Tree management, new tees and bunker relocations are among the aspects of the project.
“Historic aerials and ground level photos are enabling us to recreate the bunkering as accurately as possible,” said Nagle. “The bunkers will drain better, and washouts will be significantly reduced. The playing experience will be significantly improved through the restoration of intended lines-of-play with the wider fairways and repositioned bunkers. In the instances where a bunker is being relocated, we are able to recreate the earthworks when building the new bunker further from the tee.”
Among the other restorative changes are widened fairway lines and a reduction of rough between the fairways and bunkers. The aim is to improve playability and options.
“The biggest change will be the rebuild of 18,” said Nagle. “The hole was rebuilt in 1955 and was a departure from the rest of the course in both its bunker construction and the internal undulations of the green. The new 18th will draw inspiration from the course’s original fifth, which no longer exists, as well as bunker concepts befitting a Flynn design, with an emphasis on a cluster of bunkers on the inside of the dogleg, where I drew inspiration from the 16th at Shinnecock Hills.”
Nagle also points to the results achieved through GreenScan 3D which has laser scanned and mapped the greens. “By rebuilding them, we have the opportunity to recapture over 22,000 square feet of lost putting surface, enabling the club to reinstitute lost hole locations not seen in decades,” Nagle said. “There will be better consistency through all 18 greens, having the same engineered growing medium and surface grasses.”
Anticipated re-opening of the restored back nine is May 2025. In 2026, Philadelphia Country Club will co-host the stroke play portion of the U.S. Amateur, together with Merion Golf Club.
