OSUBasketballJunkie
Never Forget 31-0
Dispatch
5/17/06
5/17/06
Scarlet makeover
Venerable course gets rave reviews after $4.2 million in changes
Wednesday, May 17, 2006
Rob Oller
THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH
<!--PHOTOS--><TABLE class=phototableright align=right border=0><!-- begin large ad code --><TBODY><TR><TD><TABLE align=center><TBODY><TR><TD align=middle></IMG> </TD></TR><TR><TD align=middle>
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</IMG> </TD></TR><TR><TD class=credit width=200>MIKE MUNDEN </TD></TR><TR><TD class=cutline width=200>Ohio State golf coach Jim Brown stands in one of the deeper greenside bunkers. </TD></TR><TR><TD align=middle>
</IMG> </TD></TR><TR><TD class=cutline width=200>A new wall of fame honoring Ohio State greats greets golfers on their way to the pro shop. </TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE></TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>
Cosmetic surgery is neither cheap nor certain to be successful, but when done right the improvements can justify the costs.
Ohio State is banking on that line of reasoning holding true when it unveils a "modernized renovation" of the Scarlet golf course next week during the NCAA Division I Women’s Golf Championship. The university is confident that the $4.2 million face-lift will conjure images of Bobby Jones, not Joan Rivers.
The renovation plan was hatched in the late 1990s but not acted upon until 2004, when OSU chose former Buckeye Jack Nicklaus to handle the redesign. The idea going in was to tweak some of the greens, lengthen some holes and restore sand traps to something resembling the original Alister MacKenzie design, which called for fingered bunkers with unconventional slopes.
An estimate of $2.8 million changed once Nicklaus saw the condition of the course. He ended up resurfacing all the greens and using sod instead of seed on some fairways to speed the renovation.
"Our objective was to accomplish what Ohio State asked of us, which was try to give the Scarlet course an Alister MacKenzie flair. I think it turned out beautiful. It might be difficult to find a better collegiate golf course in the country," said Nicklaus, whose $1 design fee signaled that the project was a labor of love.
Beautiful, but pricey. Greens fees have jumped as much as 87 percent for the semi-private Scarlet course, where only students, faculty/staff, alumni association members and select corporate sponsors with memberships are eligible to play. Students who last year paid $18 to play 18 holes without a cart now pay $30. Faculty/staff rates increased from $30 to $56, and alumni fees went from $50 to $70.
Rates for the easier and less prestigious Gray course, which received no restoration, also increased for students and faculty but on a much smaller scale.
Membership rates — a yearly fee that covers all play at both courses — held steady at $2,025 for alumni association members, not including a $1,000 initiation fee, $1,625 for faculty/staff and $550 for students. The fees will be reassessed for next season.
Ohio State athletics director Gene Smith offered two reasons for the dramatic increase in greens fees at Scarlet.
"At some point in time the course has to pay for itself and be able to maintain itself, away from" the $10 million golf endowment from Al and Martha Phipps, OSU grads from Canton. The endowment paid for the renovation.
Smith added, "These prices are based on ... prices in this community for other high-end courses. Scarlet is a high-end course. The Gray is a beautiful course, but the Scarlet is the Scarlet."
The course
Scarlet has always been the star to Gray’s supporting role. But in the big picture, even MacKenzie’s collegiate masterpiece, which opened in 1938, four years after the architect’s death, has been somewhat overlooked. The reasons are threefold: The golf boom did not arrive until the 1960s. Before then, public and semiprivate courses sat empty much of the time.
"I was in school here in the 1960s and there just wasn’t that much interest in golf then," longtime OSU men’s golf coach Jim Brown said. "You didn’t even need a tee time. Just come and play."
Second, more colleges in recent years have begun building their own courses, which makes Scarlet less unique.
Scarlet also gets somewhat lost in the shuffle because central Ohio boasts many other highly rated courses, such as Scioto, Muirfield Village, Longaberger and The Golf Club.
With newer courses being built by name architects, it’s perhaps understandable that golfers forget that Scarlet’s lead designer — MacKenzie teamed with Perry Maxwell on the project — also helped design Augusta National, site of the Masters, and Cypress Point in California.
That is not to say Scarlet is a secret. It annually is rated among the top college courses by golf magazines, and Brown thinks the renovations will bump it to the clear No. 1.
"I’d be disappointed if they didn’t rate it that," he said.
Joey Sindelar, a PGA Tour veteran who was a member of OSU’s 1979 national championship team, said the changes have turned a great course into something magnificent.
"I promise you that course is a gem and it deserved to be treated kindly," he said of the renovations. "I love Scarlet because it’s classic, old-style, non-penalty-laden golf. There’s not OB and hazards everywhere. Generally, if you get a double bogey you’ve simply hit it two too many times."
Hitting it too many times will happen more often because of the changes.
"The new Scarlet is a new animal," Sindelar said.
Nicklaus added nearly 200 yards to the course by building nine new tees, bringing the length to 7,444 yards from the back tees — "We’re maxed out on every hole now," Brown said — and pinched fairways by extending bunkers. Where fairway bunkers used to measure 230 to 240 yards off the tee, they now are about 285 to 320, making it much more difficult for long hitters to carry them.
The revamped No. 7, for example, will force college players to think and not just grip it and rip it.
"Jack put a big bunker down the left side, because for most kids it was like a driver and wedge," Brown said. "Now you have to decide whether you want to hit a driver."
MacKenzie-style bunkers become steeper as they get closer to the green, so players attempting to carry them will struggle if they come up short.
"Hit in the front of the bunker and you won’t knock it on the green in two," Brown said.
Nicklaus also leveled a few greens to allow for more pin placements.
Besides the bunkers, which now have white sand instead of brown, some of the most dramatic changes come at No. 4, which Nicklaus rerouted around the lake, and at No. 14, which was changed from a par-5 to a par-4 (par subsequently dropped from 72 to 71) and now has a larger green.
Off the course, Nicklaus enlarged the driving range, added one short-game area for members and another for the varsity teams.
The country club
Smith said the vision for the course remains the same.
"Scarlet should be a significant asset to our city and a great course for players," he said.
Smith also acknowledged that the business side of the golf operation is evolving to market Scarlet as more of an exclusive destination course more in line with a country club.
Richelle Simonson, formerly in charge of the ticket office, has been reassigned to oversee golf course operations. Brown remains head coach but will step down as course manager in July. His replacement has not been hired. In another change, Dennis Bowsher has replaced Gary Rasor, who is retiring after 36 years, as course superintendent.
Smith and Simonson are still assessing what changes need to be made, but possibilities include increasing the gap between tee times, maybe to 10-minute intervals, offering breakfast in the restaurant and marketing the tavern as a place to gather after work and play. The university also plans to advertise Scarlet in national golf publications, beginning in the fall.
"I think a lot of those decisions in the past were made within a window of time, as opposed to saying this is a business plan and in 2010 this is where we’re going to be, and that includes concessions, food service, restaurant operations and having merchandising out there," said Smith, who foresees putting an official team shop at the course, similar to what exists in the Schottenstein Center.
The golf courses generated more than $740,000 last year, with nearly $500,000 going directly to the university.
The course changes require more upkeep — bunkers will need hand-raking, for instance — which is another reason greens fees will increase, as will memberships, which stand at 836, compared with the peak of 1,300 in the late 1990s. Smith does not expect them to top 1,000.
Smith also does not see the price increases coming at the expense of students, because the option remains to play the Gray course at a more economical fee.
"We have 36 holes, so we can serve a diversity within our constituency, and the Gray is a great option," he said. "And don’t think some students won’t be playing Scarlet."
With the changes, it may be harder to resist than ever.
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