P H O T O G R A P H C O U RT E S Y O F T H E B R OA D M O O R
efore The Broadmoor’s easT Course hosted the 2008 U.S. Senior Open, PGA Director of Golf Russ Miller and Director of Golf Course Maintenance Fred Dickman embarked on a plan to restore many of the original characteristics that course architect Donald Ross had created in 1918. It wasn’t just a lark. “It was an accumulation of research and travel and me growing up at a Ross course at Pinehurst and Freddy growing up at one in Chicago,” says Miller. “We spent hours and hours and months and years, gathering information to understand
BUNKERING DOWN: The renovation restored depth and definition to the four greenside hazards on the par-4 eighth.
Co l o r a d o A v i d G o l f e r. c o m
his philosophies.” They hired architect Ron Forse, a Pennsylvania-based Ross restoration expert and used Ross’s original drawings and aerial photographs of the course from the 1930s to execute their plan. Over the years, many hazards and other elements had disappeared to speed play along the course. But by 2008, cross-bunkers, false fronts and mounds reappeared. Bunkers deepened and grew eyebrows. Fairways and greens changed shape and width. The entire course reverted to a more “classic form” that drew rave reviews from members, guests and competitors in both the senior event and the 2011 U.S. Women’s Open. This year, thanks to four years of off-season renovations, hosannas can now also rain on the resort’s less-heralded West Course, which, like the East, combines “lower” holes designed by Ross and “upper” holes (across Cheyenne Mountain Boulevard) designed in 1964 by Robert Trent Jones. “Re-Rossing” the West meant reintroducing many of the touches (cross-bunkering, etc.) that redefined the East, as well as other enhancements, such as hiding the views of the front tees from the back ones; removing cart paths that crossed fairways on holes 8 and 10; realigning fairways and adjusting the heights of teeing areas for improved sightlines; removing a number of fairway bunkers at the elbows of doglegs, while upping the total number of bunkers on the course to 75 and flashing them; removing or pruning trees that constricted landing areas; removing ponds on holes 5 and 11; and letting Spring Run flow symbolically in front of the eighteenth green to the first hole on the East course. Dickman believes the course will play harder because of the changes, and its revised blue-tee slope/rating of 134/71.8 (up from 130/70.7) bears him out. Miller, however, says by keeping the rough at two instead of three inches and insisting golfers play from appropriate tees will offset any pace-of-play issues. The pace of change at The Broadmoor over the next two years will be astounding. The resort, now under the ownership of Phil Anschutz,
Fall 2012 |Colorado AvidGolfer
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