By Richard Humphreys |
The Rose, a new private golf club near Athens, Georgia, has opened its Tripp Davis-designed golf course.
The club was founded by Nick Cassini, a two-time All-American golfer and member of the 2001 Walker Cup team, and his brother Dimitri. The Cassinis have been joined by three professional golfers as founding members, two-time Masters champion Bubba Watson and multiple-time PGA Tour winners Brendon Todd and Chris Kirk.
“I was able to spend some time with Nick and Dimitri looking at sites,” said Davis. “There were a couple that we were not that enthusiastic about, but when I got the topographic maps for the site we ended up with, I saw it had interesting movement. We walked it a few times and I suggested this was a worthy place.”
The site in question is a 588-acre property located 10 minutes from downtown Athens that has 102 feet of elevation change, although it is generally gradual across the site.
“We ‘saw’ a few holes that were just there on the first visit, notably what turned out to be our par-five twelfth,” said Davis. “The site did not have an abundance of great trees, so Nick and Dimitri came to me and said this feels a lot like Shinnecock, and in that I saw the same thing. This site has roll and elevation changes that we knew could mimic Shinnecock.”
Davis developed a routing that brought the site’s ridgelines and knolls into play either off the tee or at the green. The clubhouse is located on the northeast side of the second-highest point on the property. This allowed Davis to allocate some of the best land to the opening and closing holes of each nine.
‘The routing fits on the ground really well,’ says Tripp Davis (Photo: The Rose)
“The routing fits on the ground really well,” said Davis. “We ended up moving the seventeenth green a little to get it higher and be more dramatic as a short par three that now has a 40-foot drop left of the green; we moved the tenth up more on top of a ridge as well; and moved the thirteenth green left to fit better on a ridge and make room for a better tee location for the fourteenth.”
Duininck Golf has handled construction. There was relatively little earthmoving; Davis estimates around 80 per cent of the holes required shaping only. “Even where we did move some dirt, you can’t really tell we did,” said Davis. “We used the ridges and knolls so the course flows really well over the ground.”
The brief given to Davis by the Cassinis was to design a course that would be strategically challenging. He has aimed to produce a layout where angles matter depending on hole locations and where every par four can be set up so that driver may not always be the play.
“As a golf course architect, I prefer giving players a lot of meaningful options that require the scratch player to take on more aggressive lines to play at or near par, while providing more conservative options the average player can use to play to their handicap,” said Davis. “Providing room to be conservative also provides the better players a perceived place to miss, which I have found draws their focus away from the aggressive lines they need to take. It makes it more of a challenge to see the shot, feel the shot and commit.
“To that end, there are no two shots that are the same. Every hole is quite different and so are the meaningful options. When you couple this with bermuda greens that are not overly severe but have changes in direction of slope – and changes in speed because of the slopes – it requires a better player to position their ball well to leave themselves putts where they can more easily match line and speed. These subtleties are a challenge for the better players trying to play at or near par, but the average player is not going to be taking four or five shots to get up and down from around greens, or three-putting a lot during the day.”
The Cassinis have said that the par five twelfth is an early favourite of the members who have played the course during preview play. “This is the hole where we parked on the first day to start our walk around,” said Davis. “The tee location was just there on a knoll and ridgeline, with the fairway falling pretty gently from the tee as it drops about 30 feet to the landing area, and then a layup area nestled between a huge old oak on the left and the largest pine on the site to the right, and finally a green on a subtle ridge that has an infinity backdrop.”
Davis also highlights the eighteenth as one of his favourite holes on the course. “It is a hole you play down the right to be safer, but that leaves you a really long approach,” he said. “At 510 yards from the back tee, the big hitters can try to cut the corner and take on a creek that’s around 300 yards, leaving them with a shorter approach.”
Davis and Duininck Golf were supported on the project by general manager Adam Kushner, golf course superintendent Jimmy Humston and Davis’s shaper Jason Gold. All fairway bunkers feature liner from Better Billy Bunker.
EC Design Group designed Rain Bird’s integrated control system, incorporating CirrusPRO, with Carter Engineering Consultants providing technical support.
“We worked hard to give the course an older feel, a lot of stunning visuals, and a walk to remember, but this is all grounded in a golf course where the play of the game was the focus,” said Davis. “Substance was the focus and we worked style into it.”