For Wichita Country Club, the time was right for infrastructure updates to its Bill Diddel golf course.
Over the past decade and more, the Kansas club has regularly turned to golf architect Tripp Davis to oversee renovations to Diddel’s 1950 design; completing a regrassing in 2014, bunker work in 2016 and revamping practice facilities in 2023.
And in 2024, he returned to undertake the biggest phase of his long-range masterplan. For this work, the course was closed to allow contractor Total Turf Golf Services a clean run.
“The design objective was largely infrastructure,” says Davis. “All but a few greens were still original to when Diddel designed the course in the early 1950s, which were soil push-up greens. The putting surfaces had amazing contours, so the objective was to ‘restore’ the greens to fit modern speeds and the modern game.
“There was a significant emphasis on not doing too much for 12 greens other than to enlarge them back to the original size. For some, we’ve added a few feet of width, and in a few spots, softened the contours to get old hole locations back that can cope with faster green speeds. The other six greens, including two that we relocated, were reworked to have a similar design intent to the other 12.”
An important aspect of the greens work was the installation of new drainage in the approaches and short-cut surrounds to ensure firm playing conditions and to allow course superintendent Curtis Schriever and his team to maintain a lower height of cut for these areas.
“We also reworked all bunkers, restoring the size and shape of many original greenside bunkers, while there were opportunities to reposition, delete and/or move some to better fit the modern game and/or enhance the visual impact strategically and stylistically,” says Davis. “Uniquely, we used two different bunker liners to help promote the playing quality we were looking for – ZLine for greenside bunkers and Better Billy Bunker for fairway bunkers. We felt like we could more easily keep greenside hazards less firm with ZLine for the explosive shots, while Better Billy Bunker was a better fit for those fairway shots.”
Davis has restored the size and shape of many bunkers, as well as repositioning them for modern play (Image: Tripp Davis)
Regrassing playing surfaces has been a crucial part of the project. Myers Zoysia has been used on tees and fairways. “At Curtis’s strong urging, all rough has been regrassed with Turf-Type Tall Fescue, which also surrounds the bunkers,” says Davis. “The course previously had bermuda rough in the sun and fescue in the shade, but winter kill of the bermuda was too common of an occurrence. The Turf-Type Tall Fescue will need a little more care in the summer, but it is much easier and cost effective to reseed fescue in the fall, as opposed to having to resod bermuda rough in the spring, which can tally up to 20 acres some years. The visual contrast between the dark green fescue and the lighter greens Zoysia is striking!”
Tees have been redesigned and expanded to provide more options and spread wear. Some have been repositioned to ensure that there are interesting and challenging angles from the back tee, while the forward tee has a more comfortable angle.
“Tree removal was an important part of the project,” says Davis. “We were focused on making sure we had good air movement around the course, and we wanted to make sure that fairways were not shaded too much. Tree removal has also opened up the site and exposed the interesting roll the property has.”
Other infrastructure work has covered irrigation system upgrades, including spacing of heads and new pipes, and cart path replacements.
“While the basis of the project was renewing infrastructure, we worked hard on the details that make the layout more interesting to play – the substance of the course,” says Davis. “We enhanced angles with tees, fairway lines and bunker positions – and when restoring greens, we took some liberty to create angles to old hole locations along the edges of greens.
“This is now an enhanced version of the original Bill Diddel design that has a very strong infrastructure in place for many years to come. With some subtle design changes (bolder in a few places), the course will remain interesting and fun.”
This article first appeared in the July 2025 issue of Golf Course Architecture. For a printed subscription or free digital edition, please visit our subscriptions page.