By Design - Winter 2019

26 | By Design CASE STUDY: SHADOW WOOD CC The way forward ASGCA Past President Steve Forrest, ASGCA, has introduced a new set of forward tees on the Preserve course at Shadow Wood CC, to offer members a fun, enjoyable and attractive playing experience. T he Preserve course is one of three at Shadow Wood Country Club, an upscale private club community in Estero, Florida. Its North and South courses were originally designed by Bob Cupp, ASGCA Fellow, and were renovated in 2017 and 2018. ASGCA Past President Rees Jones and Bryce Swanson, ASGCA, oversaw the renovation, which included adding new membership tees, expanding selected ones, and relocating some to help offer more variety. The Preserve course is a twenty minute drive north of the club's original two courses. It was originally designed by ASGCA Past President Arthur Hills and opened for play in 2003. It was initially well-received, but as the membership aged, only about 20 percent of the club’s total rounds were being played on the Preserve. Shadow Wood retained the golf architecture firm Hills Forrest Smith to develop a master plan for improvements aimed at making the Preserve course more fun, enjoyable and attractive for the membership. The plan identified four factors that contributed to the difficulty of the layout, including long and elevated side slopes along the wetlands and water hazards that effectively reduced the playable widths of the hole corridors; highly elevated green complexes; excessive bunkering and feature shaping; and the absence of an appropriate set of forward tees. The first phase focused on the second hole and was implemented in summer 2016, with the hole playing back to the clubhouse and highly visible. It was selected as the ‘test case’ for trying out new ideas. A timber wall was installed along the lake edge to widen landing areas and a bunker was added near the green complex to reduce its height above surrounding grades. Bunkers were renovated and made more playable and manageable and a new forward tee was added to shorten the length of the hole. “On hilly sites, one of the primary goals is to avoid putting forward tee players down in a valley while everyone else is hitting from a lovely, Factors that contributed to the difficulty of the layout included the absence of an appropriate set of forward tees