Quintero Golf Club, the top 100 public course in Peoria, Arizona, recently began a multimillion-dollar, four-month golf course renovation project that is expected to be completed by the end of September. The fully-overseeded course will then reopen for play in October.
Rees Jones, Quintero’s original course architect, is overseeing the course renovation and Total Turf is the contractor.
This summer’s course renovation marks the first major changes to the award-winning course since it opened in 2000. During the renovation, crews will rebuild all 18 green complexes and resurface them with 007XL Bentgrass. All tee boxes will be laser-leveled and resurfaced with a new 419 Bermudagrass. All 65 bunkers will be renovated — receiving new drainage and bunker liners, and filled with new Augusta white sand.
“We are so excited to have RJI and Total Turf involved in this project with the primary focus on making Quintero Golf Club even better than before,” said club general manager Mike Poe.
Quintero’s expansive practice facility will also be renovated during this summer’s closure. The practice tee will be leveled and resurfaced, and the practice green rebuilt and resurfaced.
Currently No. 93 on Golf Digest’s ranking of America’s 100 Greatest Public Courses and #1 Public Course in Arizona, Quintero was carved out of a secluded stretch of Sonoran Desert by architect Rees Jones. Since opening for play in 2000, the 7.249-yard, par-72 layout has received numerous accolades including multiple best-in-state and most-scenic course rankings. With elevated tee boxes perched on mountain tops—with the 219-yard, par-3 sixth providing the most precipitous plunge at 110 feet--and fairways ribboning through giant saguaro cacti, Quintero provides a unique Arizona golf experience for guests.
THE SOCIAL ASPECT
Having grown up in Marietta Ga, it’s quite rewarding to begin our renovation to Marietta CC. On top of that, it’s a Bob Cupp original and I began my career working for Bob. pic.twitter.com/denqbXYvKN
— Bill Bergin, ASGCA (@bergingolf) May 6, 2025
THE 'NECK' REOPENS BACK NINE IN OAK BLUFF
Massachusetts’ Farm Neck Golf Club, in the town of Oak Bluff on Martha’s Vineyard, reopened its back nine in late May after renovation work by Mark Mungeam.
Carved out of a handsome peninsula or "neck" of farmland along the eastern edge of the island, abutting Vineyard Sound, Farm Neck darts in and out of woods and salt marshes for much of its route, then emerges at just the right time to burst into view of the Atlantic Ocean.
Farm Neck opened its first nine holes in 1976, with a design from prolific New England architect Geoffrey Cornish and his soon-to-be design partner, Canadian Bill Robinson. Patrick Mulligan later added nine more holes, though Cornish continued to consult for the club into the early 2000s, together with then design partner Brian Silva. Mungeam, another member of the Cornish firm, assumed the consulting architect role after Cornish and Silva. The club rebuilt all 18 greens to USGA specifications between 2011 and 2014.
"Many of the bunkers had been renovated in the 1990s by Brian Silva," Mungeam told GolfCourseArchitecture.net. "My consultation had included the new greens, path changes, tree removal and additional tees, but there was never a comprehensive masterplan developed until 2022.
"Many players complained that the front and back nines were too dissimilar in character and difficulty, so the primary goals were to make the course more cohesive and make better use of the natural beauty of the site. With 91 bunkers, a key issue was a reduction in the number of formal sand traps, and a conversion of wooded areas and less frequently played rough to native grass and waste sand. A great example of this is the space between holes 3 and 5. When the course was built, this was a borrow area for fill, which created some abrupt contours. Over time, pitch pine trees took over the area that separated the holes."
Pursuant to Mungeam’s vision for the course, sections of rough have been transformed into native grasses and waste bunkers and trees have been thinned. With better visibility thanks to the now absent trees, Atlantic Ocean vistas have been enhanced, notably from the third tee.
"Playability and speed of play are important elements of our redesign work, but so are strategic interest, design variety and aesthetics," Mungeam said. "The challenge is to meld these goals together and not let one aspect overly dictate the design."
Farm Neck’s front nine was under the knife from autumn 2023 to spring 2024. The second nine began its transformation in October 2024 and concluded in May 2025.
"A unique aspect of this project is the scheduling and delivery of materials," Mungeam said. "Martha’s Vineyard is an island, and all materials must be brought on barges or ferried to the site. Barge deliveries have to be scheduled months in advance of when the materials will be needed, and sod trucks can’t just drive to the course, they must be offloaded to a different carrier on the mainland, who brings them across on the ferry to the site. As a result, we have reused many acres of existing turf rather than dispose of it. Course superintendent Andrew Nisbet has done a great job arranging all the material deliveries and overseeing establishment of the new turf."
BAD EMS GETTING GOOD VIBES
German architect Thomas Himmel has begun a renovation of Bad Ems Golf Club in Rheinland-Pfalz, Germany, roughly midway between Cologne and Frankfurt.
Originally designed in 1930 by Karl Hoffmann, Charles A. MacKenzie (Alister’s youngest brother) and Major Fahrenholtz, Bad Ems is one of Germany’s few Golden Age courses. Hall-of-Fame British star Henry Cotton won the German Open on the course in 1937 and repeated the feat in 1938 and 1939. In 1955, after the course had gone fallow in the post-World War II era, Bad Ems came back in a renovated form.
Perhaps it’s appropriate that Himmel earned the Bad Ems commission. A successful practicing architect since 1992, Himmel owns a three-peat himself, winning three consecutive German Amateur Championships in 1991, 1992 and 1993. His two-phase project (2025 and 2026) includes some fairway regrading, the remodeling of greens and bunkers, additional front and back tees, sandcapping on the poorer-draining holes, a tree-thinning program, new irrigation and a new short game practice area.
"The facility was getting old and out of shape due to lack of investment," Himmel told GolfCourseArchitecture.net. "And some beautiful, old oak trees were visually lost due to the wild growth of plants around them. The redesign will give the course a more open, parkland feel and other alterations to ensure the course is suitable for the modern game. Changes include expanding the greens to add more strategic variety and spread the wear, as well as improve their drainage and to extend the playing season."
Himmel acknowledged that he will rework holes that he called, "slightly boring and featureless." Eliminating some greenside bunkers, adding more contoured low-mow areas around the greens and repositioning fairway bunkers for better visual presentation is intended to inject more variety and strategic options. All bunkers will be redone with the CapillaryFlow treatment.
"There will be some steeper but maintainable grassy steps and edges within the fairways," Himmel said. "The addition of fescue grasses in out-of-play areas will help promote a more natural parkland look. Some trees and shrubs will be trimmed to let in more light and improve air flow."
Among the most significant changes to the course will occur at holes two and 11.
"The second green will be raised by three-and-a-half meters to lift it out of a shady and humid sink surrounded by trees," Himmel said. "And the 11th will be significantly flattened to improve playability across what is currently an almost unplayable cross slope at the first landing area."
Bad Ems is slated to reopen in 2027, one year before its 100th birthday.
