TOLEDO, Ohio — The new year brought with it a trio of awards feting a pair of just-opened golf courses designed by Arthur Hills/Steve Forrest and Associates.
In its December 2005 issue, Golf Digest magazine named Eagle Ridge Golf Course at Yatesville Lake State Park, one of the nation’s Best New Affordable Public courses to open during 2005. The 6,630-yard par-71 layout, carved from the vertiginous Eastern Kentucky mountain town of Louisa, ranked third on the magazine’s annual list.
Half a world away, Hills Golf Club in Gothenburg, Sweden, recently received 18 stars out of 20 from the prestigious 2006 Peugeot Golf Travel Guide. Only four other courses in Sweden were rated so highly, and only 19 courses in all of Continental Europe received a higher rating. Hills GC has already been hailed as a potential Ryder Cup venue. Indeed, in its January/February 2006 issue, Travel + Leisure Golf magazine named Hills GC one of the Top 10 private courses to open worldwide during 2005.
"We were very pleased with the way both Eagle Ridge and Hills Golf Club turned out, so it’s gratifying to see the wider golfing world taking notice," said Steve Forrest, the Hills/Forrest partner who spearheaded the design of both courses. "I think it’s worth noting that Eagle Ridge is a very affordable golf course — weekend rounds there are just $30 — while Hills GC is about as fancy and exclusive as golf clubs get."
"We pride ourselves, as a firm, in designing the best possible golf course a piece of property will yield — regardless of how much a client is willing to spend or capable of spending. The recognized quality of Eagle Ridge and Hills GC shows how we worked together with our client to maximized the site’s potential."
Arthur Hills, the 75-year-old founder and principal of Arthur Hills/Steve Forrest and Associates, believes the awards garnered by Eagle Ridge and Hills GC prove something else.
"These course honors show that Steve Forrest is one of the finest architects working today," Hills said, noting that Forrest will assume the role of president of the American Society of Golf Course Architects in 2007. "I also feel strongly that each time a course of ours is honored, it vouches for the collaborative approach we bring to all our projects.
"We have built Hills/Forrest into one of the top four or five course architecture firms in the world by working to together to design outstanding golf courses that amateurs and professionals alike love to play, across North America, Asia and Europe. My name has been out on the shingle — for 40 years now — but I didn’t design 200 golf courses around the world by myself! We’ve always relied on the talent we’ve worked hard to assemble here. We’ve made a point of giving our partners" — Forrest, Chris Wilczynski, Drew Rogers and Brian Yoder — "the sort of responsibility and artistic autonomy that inspires them and keeps them here, because we want to provide all our clients the most outstanding golf course possible, and we intend to keep on doing that long after I’m gone."
With more than 200 original designs to its name and projects under construction on three continents, Arthur Hills/Steve Forrest & Associates is one of golf’s most prolific and respected course designers. The firm was recently commissioned to design its first course in Bahrain; a fall 2006 opening has been scheduled for Paraiso del Mar on the Baja Peninsula; and the eagerly awaited Club at Olde Stone, a new private club project in western Kentucky, is set to open this spring.
Contact:
Hal Phillips
Phillips Golf Media
207-926-3700
onintwo@maine.rr.com
Quentin Lutz
Arthur Hills/Steve Forrest and Associates
419-841-8553
qlutz@arthurhills.com
