Climbing the Hill: Calusa Pines
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Climbing the Hill: Calusa Pines

We hear stories of people in all walks of life who chase their dreams, overcome adversity and achieve moments of triumph. These stories provide us with inspiration to tackle our own challenges. To go one large step further, what about a person who stares death in the face while simultaneously working to build something great enough to outlive them? That is the kind of example that stops us in our tracks as if to ask, “What is your excuse for not living your best life today?” Just such a story unfolded outside of Naples, FL, at Calusa Pines Golf Club, and continues today with a vibrant membership, a beautiful golf course, and a surprisingly tall hill.

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Arcadia Bluffs South Course – A True Modern Classic

Arcadia Bluffs South Course – A True Modern Classic

Thankfully, public golfers now have another opportunity to play the sort of course Macdonald and Raynor would have designed, the South Course at Arcadia Bluffs, at the resort of the same name in northern Michigan. When pictures of the new layout—a mile inland from the resort’s tremendously popular first course, which fronts Lake Michigan and was designed nearly 20 years ago by Warren Henderson and Rick Smith—began appearing last year, the reaction was almost universal shock and astonishment at the rectangular bunkers cut into wide, straight-edge fairways or bordering huge, square greens, geometric features common to Macdonald/Raynor courses.

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New Arcadia Bluffs course offers a fresh take on a familiar idea

New Arcadia Bluffs course offers a fresh take on a familiar idea

Once you start playing the South Course, you’ll realize that all its right angles and parallel lines are less noticeable at ground level than from aerial views or diagrams in the yardage book. What is important isn’t the trigonometry of the various features. It’s their positions on each golf hole that make the difference. In carving this course out of a bland barley field, Dana Fry ran the risk of producing golf’s equivalent of a game of Checkers. But his brilliant bunker placement and green contours elevate Arcadia Bluffs South to a game of three-dimension Chess.

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A sight for square eyes at Michigan’s Arcadia Bluffs

A sight for square eyes at Michigan’s Arcadia Bluffs

Last summer, a few photos started to leak out on social media and elsewhere on the internet, to a reaction of ‘What the #$@&! is that?’ from incredulous viewers. The first word that springs to the mind of anyone who sees pictures of Arcadia South is ‘square’. For what Fry has built is a love letter to Chicago Golf Club, one of the oldest clubs in America, possessor of a CB Macdonald/Seth Raynor course that, although rarely seen by outsiders (the club’s membership is tiny and a guest invite is among the most highly sought-after tickets in golf), is universally regarded as among the world’s finest.

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Changes at former Sand Barrens course following Union League’s purchase

Changes at former Sand Barrens course following Union League’s purchase

The Union League of Philadelphia has acquired the former Sand Barrens Golf Club in Swainton, New Jersey, and hired Fry/Straka Global Golf Course Design to create a masterplan for the club.

The firm has been tasked with beginning the process of moving from a public and resort facility to an upscale private club, which will be known as Union League National Golf Club moving forwards.

GCA spoke to Jason Straka of Fry/Straka Global Golf Course Design to find out more about his firm’s plans.

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