Cornerstone Club, a 4,800-acre four-season private club in Montrose, Colorado, announced in August a major expansion led by Reef Capital Partners. The plans include golf course renovations, expanded amenities, new overnight accommodations, enhanced wellness offerings and exclusive ski access in Telluride.
“Reef Capital Partners is honored to guide Cornerstone Club into its next chapter,” said O.D. Vincent, vice president of golf operations for Reef Capital Partners.
The primary project is renovating the Matt Dusenberry-designed golf course, scheduled to be completed in summer 2027. Included will be upgraded turfgrass, refined fairways, revitalized bunkers and improved cart paths throughout the course, along with the transformations of two signature. The 12th hole will become a dramatic short par-4 that rewards strategic play, while the 18th will be reimagined as a memorable par-5 finishing hole.
Adjacent to the 18th green, Cornerstone will open a bar and grill overlooking a putting course. The venue complements the Cap Rock restaurant in the clubhouse and the Elk Shack on the course. The clubhouse campus will also expand to include a resort-style pool and hot tub, an event lawn for family gatherings and club events, and new locker rooms serving golf and pool guests.
Nearby, Cornerstone is upgrading its training facilities into a performance center featuring racquetball and fitness equipment. A new spa and thermal village will include indoor and outdoor thermal pools, private treatment cabins, cabanas and a juice bar.
Depending on the season, outdoor activities include hiking, horseback riding, pickleball and tennis, along with indoor golf simulators. Real estate members will soon gain access to Crest Club Telluride, a private retreat at the Madeline Hotel & Residences of the Auberge Resorts Collection.
Cornerstone will also add eight overnight cabins.
“Cornerstone has always been more than a golf course; it’s a retreat, legacy and a way of life,” said Andy Deiro, Cornerstone Club’s general manager.
El Once :: Agustin Piza
Landscapes Unlimited is nearing first phase completion of El Once in Los Cabos, Mexico. The private 11-hole, par-3 course was designed by Agustín Pizá for members of The Reserve Club at Palmilla Reserve, the final residential offering and private club within Palmilla, a master-planned resort community.
When six of the 11 holes open later in 2026, El Once will be the newest golf course in Los Cabos and the first with two pins on every green.
“Our talented team is off to a flying start constructing what is an amazing golf course with a setting to die for,” said Marvin Cruz, who directs Landscapes Unlimited’s operations in Mexico and the Caribbean. “In only a handful of months, we completed shaping to precise specs, with lake construction, pump station and drainage activities in progress, and grassing to soon follow.”
El Once, Spanish for “11,” spans 1,017 yards across 17 acres in the valley at the western end of Palmilla Reserve on rolling ground cut by a network of arroyos. The course plays between Valley Estates homesites on one side and the ridge on the other. The Summit homes sit along the ridge on Palmilla’s highest point with 360-degree views stretching from the mountains to the Sea of Cortés. Each green is carved into the mountainside above the course and designed across varied elevations with two flags.
“We are reimagining golf with a one-of-a-kind experience with multiple elevated tee areas, target greens and a variety of ways to experience the more casual, social side of golf,” Pizá said. “El Once is the epitome of exciting, ever-changing challenges for every level of golfer, and Landscapes Unlimited is executing construction with trust and precision.”
El Once is part of the new amenities at The Reserve Club, which is exclusive to Palmilla Reserve residents. In 2029, Palmilla Reserve will add SIRO Palmilla — a wellness hotel and residences. It will be SIRO’s first North American location.
The Social Aspect
In my opinion, Fall golf is the best golf. To prove it, here are some great photos of the renovation of Merit Club (north of Chicago) that @QuitnoGolf and I did last year. Phenomenal project with a great team and a great club!
Photo credits to @wiscogolfaddict (visit his feed!). https://t.co/Te5ORGBfIR
— Nathan Crace, ASGCA, PLA (@lipouts) October 26, 2026
The Piper :: Ken Baker
Legends Golf Resort opened its Ken Baker-designed par-3 course, The Piper, on Oct. 2 in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina.
With holes ranging from 54 to 120 yards, The Piper, which takes its name from the wandering musicians of Scottish folklore, meanders across an intimate 12-acre footprint. Play will flow in three-hole loops past food and beverage stations with lights and a music-driven social atmosphere unlike anything else currently offered along the Grand Strand.
“We’ve watched this course come to life hole by hole over the last year, and it’s exactly the experience that we set out to create for our guests and for the local community,” said Larry Woodberry, director of operations for Legends Golf Resort.
The Piper is situated within the 30-acre practice facility, near a lighted grass range, a 50,000-square-foot putting green and a short-game area. For the remainder of 2026, Legends Golf Resort will host limited play on the new course.
The Piper’s opening is the first step in a multiphase initiative to expand the golf and entertainment experience at Legends Golf Resort. Additional amenities and experiences will be unveiled in advance of the 2027 golf season.
The Bandana :: Forrest Richardson
Scottsdale Country Club, the first course built in Scottsdale, Arizona, has opened a putting course, The Bandana.
Designed by Forrest Richardson, the course was created for what was then called Starfire Golf Club, but on the same day The Bandana opened in March, Starfire reverted to the name the facility used from 1958 through 2000, Scottsdale Country Club.
The 20,000-square-foot putting green and nine-hole putting course was designed to appeal to all skill levels and to serve as a relaxed place for golfers and nongolfers alike to gather and play. Dave Ashton and Jeff Lundgren, co-principals of course owner Swing First Golf, were inspired by St. Andrews in conceiving the course.
“Dave [Ashton] and I had long talked about doing a big putting green, like the Himalayas at St. Andrews in Scotland, or the kind you see at major resorts, such as Bandon Dunes,” said Lundgren. “When we bought Starfire in 2024, we had an old range tee deck that we wondered how it could be utilized. We eventually landed on the big putting green idea. Once we met Forrest, he helped with the vision. For Dave and me, The Bandana putting green makes it very easy for people of all ages and abilities to connect with the game of golf, to feel welcome and not feel intimidated.”
The Bandana offers nine holes daily and will change direction and hole locations every few days. Some putts provide traditional, straightforward, point-A-to-point-B challenges. Others ask the player to navigate wild slopes and swales, calling for imagination and green-reading acumen.
“I grew up near Scottsdale Country Club,” he said. “Besides playing there as a kid hooked on golf, my brother and I rode dirt bikes in the desert just north of the course. At one time it was on the edge of town, with nothing but desert beyond the course.”
The championship course embodies mostly a parkland feel, but Richardson and Swing First Golf have infused desert accents into The Bandana. The course’s centerpiece is a rock garden dotted with native cacti, flowers and plants. The regionally sourced rock features veins of chrysocolla, a silicate material often found with copper.
Shortland Golf Club :: Jackson Kahn
Shortland Golf Club, located in the Portland, Oregon, suburb of West Linn, recently opened its 19-hole short course, designed by Jackson Kahn. The public-access par-3 course was developed by Mike Fritz on a 31-acre parcel that was once part of Sandelie Golf Course, which shuttered in 2022.
With holes ranging from 59 to 104 yards, the layout is distinctive because all tees, greens and bunkers were constructed of synthetic turf from Celebrity Greens, with the “sand” in the bunkers made of a 2-inch layer of artificial turf painted white.
“The artificial turf greens and bunkers were always part of Mike’s vision, so it ultimately came down to selecting the turf supplier that made the most sense in terms of cost and quality of installation,” said Connor Dougherty, a Portland-based design associate with Jackson Kahn, in an interview with GolfCourseArchitecture.net. “A turning point for us was visiting a backyard project built north of Portland where we could hit shots onto a synthetic surface. Seeing how realistically the ball reacted opened our eyes to what was possible and gave us confidence to incorporate more movement in the greens — movement that defines so much of Shortland’s character. Celebrity Greens, their local dealer, GreenImage Golfscapes, and Corey Billings did a great job of capturing the vision that we had for the green complexes.”
Greens average 2,500 square feet, with a surprising amount of contour, and require rolling and sanding to keep them smooth and quick. Over time, the fibers on the synthetic turf get pressed down by foot traffic, which makes the putting surfaces faster. Regular brushing to bring up the fibers restores the desired performance. The green surrounds are composed of natural grass, mowed to a height that accommodates pitch shots. A companion 19-hole putting and chipping course, The Nest, also designed by Jackson Kahn, opened soon after the short course.
The Hawthorn :: Christy O’Connor Jr.
Golf at The Hawthorn has concluded a major bunker redevelopment project ahead of the opening of The Hawthorn by Galway Bay hotel on Ireland’s west coast.
Led by contractor European Golf Services, the project has transformed the visual character and strategic challenge of the Christy O’Connor Jr.-designed course, reducing the number of bunkers by 59 and cutting total bunker surface area across the layout by approximately 70%.
The redesign is part of a wider effort to elevate the playing experience at the par-72 layout.
A key objective was to move away from traditional parkland-style bunkers, replacing them with a more refined and strategic bunker style that better reflects the natural landscape and modern course design principles.
The course features 55 bunkers. Many of the larger hazards have been removed or reduced in scale, while several greenside bunkers have been replaced with carefully contoured runoff areas designed to introduce a broader range of recovery shots around the putting surfaces. Smaller pot bunkers have been introduced in select locations to add challenges while improving visual definition on key holes.
All the remaining bunkers had drainage renewed and a resin-bound liner installed to ensure consistency, longevity and playability.
“We wanted to take a considered approach to the bunker strategy, look at how the course could be improved both visually and from a playing perspective while respecting Christy O’Connor Jr.’s design,” said Dean Montgomery, director of golf. “By reducing the number of traditional parkland bunkers and introducing smaller pot bunkers alongside more natural runoff areas, we have created something that is more in keeping with the landscape while also adding greater variety to the challenge for golfers.
“The other key part of this project has been around reducing the maintenance strain that our previous bunkering had on our greenkeeping team. This project will enable them to focus more of their time on other areas of the golf course,particularly the greens, fairways and tee boxes.
“The work undertaken has been about elevating the overall experience for players. With the opening of The Hawthorn by Galway Bay approaching, it was important for us to ensure the golf course reflects the same level of quality and ambition as the wider destination.”
