Popular golf course designer still going strong after opening three highly acclaimed projects around the world
Traverse City, Mich. (July 6, 2006) – For Tom Doak and his crew, 2005 was a banner year. Renaissance Golf Design opened two new projects, put the finishing touches on two others, and started work on three more, which will keep them busy through the end of 2006.
For critical acclaim, it’s hard to surpass their showing of Pacific Dunes in Oregon, Cape Kidnappers in New Zealand, and Barnbougle Dunes in Tasmania, designed in association with Australian Michael Clayton.
Doak will also have trouble surpassing the last four, which occupied him in 2004-05:
Tumble Creek Golf Club at SunCadia, in Cle Elum, Washington, opened in the fall of 2005. Ninety miles east of Seattle, the hilly, wooded layout serves as the centerpiece of a second-home community. Tumble Creek is the private course of the three, while SunCadia’s Prospector course (by Arnold Palmer) and Rope Rider course (by Peter Jacobsen, now under construction) are part of the SunCadia Resort operation.
Stone Eagle Golf Club, in Palm Desert, California, opened for play last Thanksgiving weekend, and has quickly become the talk of the Palm Springs area. A small development component is set near its clubhouse, but the golf course is set on a plateau of its own, 400 feet higher, right up against the Santa Rosa Mountains. Stone Eagle’s jagged bunkers, dramatic elevations and lack of surrounding housing are unlike other courses in the area, yet the course has been enthusiastically received by members for its playability as well as for its stunning visuals.
Sebonack Golf Club in New York, the highly anticipated design collaboration between Jack Nicklaus and Tom Doak, has already received an enormous amount of attention, from its groundbreaking press conference during the 2004 US Open at neighboring Shinnecock Hills, to an eight-page article in the December, 2005 GOLF DIGEST. It will likely be the toughest ticket in town once the course actually opens for the start of the summer season in the Hamptons.
Ballyneal Golf Club is the sleeper of Renaissance Golf’s 2005 projects, located in the quiet northeastern Colorado town of Holyoke. Holyoke is roughly halfway from Denver to the highly acclaimed Sand Hills Club, and not surprisingly, Ballyneal is where the first wave of sand dunes begins in the west, a thousand acres of dramatic dunes and valleys. The eighteen holes which Doak and his associates have carved from those dunes will open this summer.
Ballyneal Golf Club in Colorado
For 2006, Renaissance Golf has the following projects on tap:
Rock Creek Golf Club, a private golf and fishing retreat in Deer Lodge, Montana, where shaping has already commenced;
The Bay of Dreams, south of La Paz, Mexico, which started construction in January;
The Renaissance Club at Archerfield, a resort golf course being developed by an American/Scottish partnership in Gullane, Scotland, adjacent to the famed Muirfield links, started construction in March;
And Wicked Pony for Winchester Golf Development, in the hot golf market of Redmond/Bend, Oregon, which will start construction in the fall of 2006.
Doak started young, and at 45, he isn’t ready to retire just yet. With eight creative associates to keep happy, he’d like to continue to build three or four courses per year for the next several years, cherry-picking the most interesting properties and clients who appreciate their hands-on approach.
Doak has inspected over 1,000 of the world’s best golf courses on five continents and has established himself as an expert in classic golf course architecture. His designs are thoughtful and strategic, and he strives to make each new course an original work of craftsmanship. His firm, Renaissance Golf Design, is based in Traverse City, Mich., and its website is www.renaissancegolf.com.
Contact:
Kevin Frisch
(989) 614-0241
kevin@resortandgolf.com
Dave Richards
(248) 642- 6420
dave@resortandgolf.com
