By Design – Issue 53, Summer 2021

9 DIGEST Here are links to other recent “Tartan Talks,” now featuring over 50 episodes: • Tom Clark, ASGCA, shares stories from his 50 years working for Ault, Clark & Associates. • ASGCA Past President Doug Carrick discusses his career and working in golf-rich Ontario. The latest podcast from Golf Course Industry’s “Tartan Talks” series sees Bruce Matthews, ASGCA, discuss his family’s golfing heritage and how working as golf course superintendent for 13 years prepared him for golf course design. This experience, Matthews says, has played a role during his career as a golf course architect. “I look at what I can do to balance aesthetics with efficient maintenance,” he said. “Being a former super, maintenance is key to a lot of my designs. Also, golf is a people business. The people always come first.” Golf runs in the family. Bruce’s father Wallace managed Grand Haven GC in Michigan and, in his youth, Bruce visited many projects with his grandfather, W. Bruce Matthews, who was a golf course architect, ASGCA member and Michigan Golf Hall of Fame inductee. His uncle, Jerry Matthews, ASGCA, is also a golf course architect. “My grandad designed functional, playable and pretty golf courses. He started in 1925… I’m aiming to do four more years to get to 2025, so I can say the Matthews have been in the business for 100 years,” he said. Listen to the full “Tartan Talk” at golfcourseindustry.com. “ Golf is a people business” Bruce Matthews , ASGCA Photo: Bobby Weed Golf Design Grassing is in progress on a new golf course in northeast Florida. The Stillwater layout, designed by Bobby Weed, ASGCA, will sit within a new 550-home community and is the first new golf course to be built on Florida’s First Coast since 2004. “Don’t expect a golf course from the past,” said Weed. “We’ll have things you don’t see on north Florida courses, such as sod wall bunkers, lay-down walls... they will be angled, with a much cleaner, elegant finish.” According to Weed, the course will have numerous wetlands, undisturbed native areas and strategically placed bunkers, as well as having no rough. Weed’s routing can also be played as loops of three, six, nine, twelve or fifteen holes, with every third hole returning to the clubhouse. Grassing should be completed by the end of August, and the course is expected to open by Thanksgiving in November. Bobby Weed course to debut in November