Page 46 - The Golf Guide, Fall 2017

Feature Story

Golden Horseshoe Golf Club Gold Course
18 Karat Makeover

Nick Ciattei

One of Virginia’s premier golf courses, the Gold Course at Golden Horseshoe Golf
Club in Williamsburg reopened with full bravado after an extensive year-long
reconstruction project. “Colonial Williamsburg’s board of trustees has made a
major investment toward the renovation of the Gold Course,” said Mitchell B. Reiss,
Colonial Williamsburg president and CEO. “It is vital that we care for this precious
asset left in our stewardship so that we can offer our guests the premier resort
experience today’s travelers demand.” In what I consider a complete makeover,
golf course architects Rees Jones and Greg Muirhead regrassed the entire playing
surface, rebuilt all the bunkers, and made additional upgrades across the board.

Who could be better to oversee the facelift than Jones,
known as the “Open Doctor” for his tweaking of many
U.S. Open courses. After all it was his famous father,
Robert Trent Jones Sr., who created this masterpiece
of the Commonwealth. The course reopened to the
public on July 1st, and I was lucky enough to preview
the polished gem a couple days earlier. Having played
the Gold Course previously, I waited anxiously to see
the refurbished beauty in all its glory, and it did not
disappoint me. The course felt new and fresh again. The
Northbridge Bermuda grass on the course makes the
course much more resistant to draught while the 007
Bentgrass provides lightning quick greens. It should be
noted here that they took some of the slope out of the
greens during the restoration to compensate for the Rees Jones

quicker green speeds. Additional upgrades included
adding nine forward tees not part of the original design and releveling the iconic
“runway” tee boxes Jones Sr. made famous. For the first time I got to experience the
“Better Billy Bunker” technique that was used in the rebuilding of the sand traps
on the Gold Course. The inventor of the method used, former Augusta National
Superintendent Billy Fuller, oversaw
the upgrade, which improves drainage
and playability. As you will see, they
look fabulous and they created the
best bunkers I’ve ever experienced.
They enhanced the practice area by
substantially expanding the putting
green and added a short game practice
area as well as “target greens” on the
Gold Course "Runway" Tee Box practice range.

I could tell that they didn’t want to tamper much with the original blueprint that
Jones Sr. had cast across this unique piece of land with substantial terrain changes.
There was some shade and crowding issues with trees so they did remove some

44 GOLFGUIDEINC.COM