Architect speaks to GCA about his design approach for ‘reimagined’ course at Ohio club
Walden Club in Aurora, Ohio, has hosted a ‘soft opening’ of its golf course following a renovation by Mike Nuzzo.
The course was originally designed in 1974 by William Mitchell. “Walden already had a very distinct identity,” said Nuzzo. “When Manny Barenholtz began developing the property in the early 1970s, the larger idea was a community integrated with nature. Historical material describes him as ‘a true preservationist’ who began building into the natural landscape while disturbing as little vegetation as possible.”
The 1,000-acre property is owned by Rob Rosencrans and continues to emphasise the connection between club and nature. The Barn, for example, Walden’s gourmet dining room, is connected to the original farmland through an organic farm and market. There is also an inn, spa and other amenities, all of which are designed to deliver a high-end experience with natural simplicity. The inn was the first, and for many years the only, Ohio lodging property to receive AAA Five Diamond recognition, the highest tier of the American Automobile Association's rating system for hotels and restaurants in North America.
“My ambition was for the golf to reach that same level of experience, service and enjoyment, while feeling equally particular to Walden,” said Nuzzo. “I had been visiting Walden for roughly 20 years before the renovation, so my understanding of the property extended well beyond the golf course itself. The course work eventually became an attempt to bring that same sense of belonging into the golf.”
Nuzzo began early planning in 2021, and his initial approach was to shift a couple of greens and make some targeted architectural improvements. As discussions developed, the club’s agronomic consultant determined that Walden would be able to support new grasses.
“Once the decision was made to regrass, we no longer needed to protect large areas of existing turf,” said Nuzzo. “That gave us an unusual opportunity. Instead of limiting disturbance to a few isolated features, we could reconsider the playing ground much more broadly. Every hole changed significantly, greens could be relocated, reshaped or essentially refloated. Fairway contours, approaches, bunker relationships and circulation could all be adjusted while the course was being regrassed.”
Detailed design began in 2024, with work on the eighteenth fairway and irrigation pond starting in the winter of that year. The course then closed in July 2025; major construction lasted about 14 weeks, with shaping about 12 weeks. Superintendent Ron Skok and assistant superintendent John Dema were involved with agronomic, irrigation, operational and grow-in aspects of the project. Nuzzo says shapers Scott Clem, Slade Grant, Scott Powers and Joe Hancock played a major role in how the golf architecture developed in the field. Golf Preservations (GP) installed new drainage and irrigation associated with the renovation and connected that work into Walden’s existing systems. It also performed demolition and finish work, with Cristobal Pernales leading GP crews in the field.
“The design began with the land and the routing, rather than with a predetermined collection of golf features,” said Nuzzo. “The existing ground was the primary material.
“I am interested in strategy created through angles, lines, slopes, recovery and the behaviour of the ball. Bunkers are one tool for creating those decisions, but the land itself can often do more interesting work. At Walden, that meant repeatedly looking for opportunities to make an existing part of the property participate more directly in the golf. Sometimes the intervention was substantial. Sometimes the best architectural move was subtraction.
“It also meant looking beyond individual golf holes. Circulation, drainage, irrigation, maintenance, construction and the relationships between adjacent holes were part of the design process. One of the things Walden reinforced for me is that golf architecture works as a system rather than as a collection of objects. A green location can affect the next tee, circulation, mowing, drainage, views and the experience of the surrounding landscape. Fairway lines affect strategy, presentation and maintenance at the same time. Even the sequence between holes matters. At Walden, many of the best decisions improved several of those relationships at once.”
Nuzzo felt the underlying land had considerably more character than the golf architecture was revealing. He saw the previous course as being defined by conventional containment or framing bunkering, particularly around greens.
His work included relocating greens five, seven, nine, eleven and twelve – plus the putting green. All other greens were expanded, resurfaced or reshaped.
The total number of bunkers has remained the same (45), but Nuzzo’s plan has seen 19 of the original greenside bunkers removed and replaced with a combination of short grass, low ground and slopes. Elsewhere, he has added bunkers in areas that he felt would improve playing experience.
“The goal was not fewer features, it was more purposeful architecture,” said Nuzzo.
Every green was expanded, resurfaced or reshaped (Photo: Evan Radzanowski Photography)
“The finished course has considerably more drama and strategic variety, but I think the larger change is that more of Walden itself now participates in the playing experience,” said Nuzzo. “The basic routing was recognisable enough to preserve, but there were many opportunities to improve the relationships between holes and between golf and the existing landscape.
“The larger change is that the player encounters more of the property. Natural low areas and existing slopes matter more. Creeks, ponds, bogs and ravines have stronger relationships with the golf. There is more width, but the width creates positional decisions. There are more opportunities to use the ground and more varied recovery possibilities around greens. And movement from one hole to another is more coherent. The course became better golf partly because it became more connected to the place where the golf exists.
“The renovation was about making the golf course more fully itself – and, in doing so, making it more fully part of Walden.”
The renovated sixth hole… (Photo: Evan Radzanowski Photography)
… and the updated third hole (Photo: Evan Radzanowski Photography)
Walden: The whole, by hole
Mike Nuzzo details some specific hole changes that epitomise the entire project
Hole two
An existing pond was converted into a more naturalised creek. That change allowed us to integrate the adjacent hillside into the playing strategy, and the bunker was shifted to accommodate that new relationship. The hierarchy is important to me: the land and water establish the golf, and the bunker responds to them.
Hole four
We removed both the left fairway bunker and the left greenside bunker. That allowed the naturally lower-lying ground on the left side of the hole to become the strategic feature. Instead of constructing another hazard, the existing land now provides the consequence.
Hole five
The fifth green was shifted back and lowered so the large pond behind it could become much more visible and allows the green surface to work with the natural fall of the site. What I particularly like is that the landscape connection begins before you reach the hole – the pond starts becoming part of the experience from the fourth tee.
The new green also works with the natural fall of the property. Much of the surface gently runs away from play, which is nearly the opposite of the artificial ‘ski-slope’ green form that was common in the era when the original course was built. That creates a more sophisticated strategic problem, introduces greater variety into the overall green set, and allows a significant piece of Walden’s landscape to become part of the golf experience.
Hole seven
The seventh green was relocated to create a much more interesting short par four. Moving the green, which has a distinctive MacKenzie tooth-shaped character, also brought golfers roughly 50 yards closer to the eighth tee. This is a good example of how we approached the course. A decision on a green location could simultaneously improve a golf hole and improve movement through the property.
Hole eight
We removed the path and stairs near the green and substantially changed the low ground in front of the putting surface. The low area was dropped approximately six to ten feet and developed into something much more ravine-like, with the landform continuing across the seventh fairway.
Our agronomist on the project commented that the resulting macro-landform looked more like the natural topography of the surrounding region. I thought that was an interesting independent observation because it was exactly the direction we were trying to move the golf – towards landforms that felt more connected to the place.
Nuzzo’s plan for holes seven and eight (image: Mike Nuzzo)
Hole nine
Moving the ninth green was part of a much larger reorganisation of the golf course entrance. Previously, one of the first views of the course when driving into the parking area was an awkward practice tee behind the ninth green aimed towards a collection of fairly weak practice and putting greens. Cart paths crossed and divided the area, and the overall landform felt artificial and fragmented.
The new ninth green, putting green, first tees and circulation were designed as one landscape. The new putting green is approximately 9,000 square feet and blends directly into the first tee environment. The grass around it, and towards the first tees, is maintained at the same fairway height, so the practice area and opening hole read as one continuous piece of ground.
The first tees were shifted to reduce the acute angle of the opening tee shot.
The ninth hole cart path was removed from the centre of the area and moved toward the perimeter of the property. The first tee path was also shifted, eliminating much of the previous redundant path circulation around the various tees. It is much cleaner, more effective, more playable and more natural. More Walden.
The ninth green, first tees and putting green have been designed as one landscape (image: Mike Nuzzo)
Hole eleven
The eleventh is a useful example of a hole that became more dramatic architecturally without necessarily becoming more ‘environmental’ in the same way as some of the other holes. We added a bunker more than 50 yards long on the inside corner of the hole to create a much stronger angled tee shot.
The green was shifted back and rebuilt as a more original complex, with a strong new greenside bunker. The old left greenside bunker was eliminated.
Moving the green also substantially improved the relationship between eleven and twelve. Previously there was a significant elevation drop behind the eleventh green, with a cart path separating the green from a collection of independent twelfth tees. Now the new green and twelfth tees form one cohesive landform.
Holes twelve and thirteen
The twelfth green and thirteenth tees essentially exchanged locations. Moving twelve allowed us to place the green immediately adjacent to an existing bog. That landscape feature now gives the hole an identity that was already sitting there waiting to be used.
The new arrangement also allowed the thirteenth to play along the existing natural creek. Both holes were greatly enhanced simply by changing where the golf occurred in relation to the existing landscape. That is probably the clearest expression of my routing-first thinking on the project.
Hole fourteen
We have opened the entire green site and made the setting much more dramatic. The green surface itself changed relatively subtly compared with the much larger transformation of the perimeter and surrounding landform. Slade Grant, one of the shapers on the project and someone with around four decades of shaping experience, described the fourteenth as his favourite green he had ever shaped.
Hole sixteen
The sixteenth shows another part of the design philosophy at Walden. The shorter back tee, at approximately 333 yards, brings the player immediately into the strategy of the hole. A broad string of carry bunkers influences the line from the tee, while a much wider fairway gives players room to avoid the bunkers – but the safest position produces the more difficult approach angle. The string of bunkers also connects visually to the greenside bunker on eleven.
The sixteenth features a string of bunkers, a wide fairway and a green that runs subtly away from shots played from the right (Photo: Evan Radzanowski Photography)
The preferred approach is from the left side of the fairway, where the player gains a better angle into a green that runs subtly away from shots played from the right side. That advantage is intentionally balanced with greater risk from the tee.
The left greenside bunker was removed, the recovery contours were expanded, and subtle pitch changes around the front of the green make position and ball behaviour matter. Three trees behind the green were also removed, reducing the artificial framing of the green and weakening some of the background references players use for depth perception. The transition from fifteen was improved as well, eliminating the extra walk to the average-player tees.