Golfweek Sen. Champ.; '13 POY

Golfweek takes its first national ranking tournament of 2014 to Saddlebrook Resort where Bill Zylstra and Bob Howe will try to defend their 2013 titles. The 54-hole event will be contested on the Saddlebrook course, which was designed by Arnold Palmer. This lush 6,564-yard par-70 layout will transport you back in time to the Florida of the Conquistadores.

The fairways are framed by towering cypress trees filled with Spanish moss while white faced bunkers protect the landing areas. The Saddlebrook course will be a challenge, offering a wide range of shot-making opportunities to the top senior amateur golfers in the country.

When: January 16-18, 2014

Where: Saddlebrook Resort, Tampa, Fla. - Saddlebrook course

Register: www.golfweekevents.com thru January 6, 2014

Of Note: This Golfweek 800 point event is also a certified WAGR international ranking tournament. (World Amateur Golf Ranking)

Golfweek’s Senior Player of the Year awards: During the luncheon following the tournament on January 18, Golfweek will honor the 2013 Player of the Year in both the senior, as well as super senior divisions.

After an explosive start to the 2013 season, Bill Zylstra, a Plymouth, Mich., native, who now winters in Ocklawaha, Fla., was propelled to the top of the national rankings where he finished for the second straight year. Following his January wins at Old Corkscrew, The Gateway Invitational, and the Golfweek Senior National Championship, the rest of the field was forced to play Zylstra’s version of, catch me if you can.

Dr. Doug Hanzel, the 2013 U.S. Senior Amateur champion from Savannah, Ga., wound up as Zylstra’s closest rival, and finished in second place. Hanzel, who played a limited schedule in 2013, moved to within 1,130 points of Zylstra after late season victories at the Dale Morey Championship and in the senior division of the Dixie Amateur.

Rounding out the top five in the senior division are; No. 3 Paul Schlachter of Pittsburg, Pa., with 4791.5 pts., No. 4 Chip Lutz of Reading, Pa., with 4603.3 pts., and Ron Carter of Monticello, Ind., who finished at No .5 with 4005 points.

In the Super Senior Division there were no surprises, as Ted Smith is set to receive the Player of the Year trophy for the second straight time. His incredible 15,527.5 point season included victories at Old Corkscrew, the Society of Seniors Spring Classic, the Golfweek Senior Amateur, the John Kline Invitational, the U.S. Senior Challenge, the Hessler, the Dave King Invitational, the Porter Cup, the Sunnehanna, the Senior Azalea, the John Owens Invitational, and the Chechessee Invitational.

Count them, that’s twelve wins in the same year against some of the strongest fields in senior amateur golf! We might have witnessed a winning season that will never be duplicated.

Smith had a 10,082.2 point lead over his closest rival Walt Martin of Oakton, Va., who finished the year in second place with 5445.3 points. In third place was Bill Engel of Alexandria, Va., with 5185.5 points. Followed in fourth place by Joe Pavoni of Prospect, Ky., with 5119.3 points and the fifth place finisher was, John Blank of Frostburg, Md., who amassed 4615.3 points.

On the schedule: April 13-15, 2014 - The Golfweek Senior Amateur at PGA West in La Quinta, Cal.

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Brea Creek Golf Course

Brea Creek Golf Course - located in North Orange County - is a nine hole executive golf course and has established itself as a great course for golfers of all levels. 

The par 29 layout is complimented by beautiful vistas, peaceful surroundings, improved playing conditions and a friendly staff. A combination of par-3’s and par-4’s will reward good shots and provide for an enjoyable round. 

Brea Creek also features a practice area with a large driving range and putting green. We look forward to seeing you soon at Brea Creek Golf Course!

COURSE STATISTICS

Holes:           9

Par:             29

Tees        Yardage

Back          1,733

Front         1,412

 

AUDUBON INTERNATIONAL

Brea Creek Golf Course is enrolled in Audubon International's Cooperative Sanctuary Program for Golf Courses to ensure that the course helps to protect our local environment, conserve natural resources, and provide wildlife habitats.

GOLFERS WITH DISABILITIES

We welcome golfers with disabilities. The course will make reasonable accommodations to ensure that golfers with disabilities are able to enjoy the course. Please contact the General Manager or Head Golf Professional at the course for more information.

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Royal Vista Golf Club

Royal Vista Golf Club’s 50 year old course carries a traditional layout of wide open fairways and small greens along with bunkers and lakes strategically placed throughout. Whether you are just beginning to play the game or a professional, the course is challenging yet enjoyable for everyone.

Slope/Rating	Yds	Blue	Yds	White	Yds	Red	Par
East/North	6435	125 / 70.6	5916	123 / 69.1	5478	121 / 71.2	71
North/South	6211	125 / 69.1	5698	123 / 68.0	5280	118 / 70.0	71
South/East	6304	123 / 69.5	5840	121 / 68.1	5554	117 / 71.4	72

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Azusa Greens Country Club

The “Best Value in Los Angeles” is more than a slogan to the staff of Azusa Greens Country Club. We pride ourselves on the quality of our facility and the level of service we offer our customers. The golf course at Azusa Greens reflects our commitment to quality and value. At almost 6200 yards from the back (blue) tees, Azusa Greens provides a true test of golf for all level of players with its narrow, tree lined fairways and well bunkered, undulating greens. A typical round of golf can be played in approximately four and one-half hours.

Our course is open year-round and presents some of the most visually stunning panoramas in the Los Angeles Area. Come play Azusa Greens Country Club and enjoy our country club approach to public golf.

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Westridge Golf Club

Golf Course

Few golf course designers have left a bigger mark than Robert Muir Graves, whose impressive body of work spanned a 50-year career. Graves designed a host of celebrated courses in California, including La Purisima,Boundary Oak, and Qual Lodge Golf Club. He worked primarily on the West Coast, but built courses as far awat as Portugal.

Highly respected by his peers, Graves served as President of the American Society of Golf Course Architects (ASGCA) in 1974-75 and co-authored Golf Course Design and Classic Golf Hole Architecture with Geoffrey Cornish. At Westridge Golf Club, Graves collaborated with protégé Damian Pascuzzo, a distinguished architect in his own right.

Architects Robert Muir Graves and Damian Pascuzzo utilized all this and more to craft one of Orange County's most popular courses. Westridge Golf Club's challenges include more than 60 sand bunkers protecting fairways and greens, water hazards on holes 4, 16, and 18, a ravine crossing the 14th fairway, sloping greens that match the rolling landscape, and uphill and downhill shots requiring instinctive club section. The varied topography and Pacific breezes present subtle obstacles that reward versatile golf skills. The course's elevation opens to grand vistas of Orange and LA counties with the towering San Gabriel Mountains nearby, while native flowers and wildlife create a sense of seclusion. Westridge Golf Club was recently named 2012 Best of La Habra for public golf courses. We are conveniently located only a short distance from three major freeways on Beach and Imperial. Opened in 1999 and tucked away in the hills of La Habra, Westridge offers golfers a challenging par-72 layout measuring 6,256 yards.

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Industry Hills Golf Club

Eisenhower Course (The Ike)

Designed by both William F. Bell and Casey O'Callaghan, locals and fans affectionately call this national golf treasure "Ike". Because it attracts golfers from around the world, it is fitting that the 18-hole, classic par 72 course be named for a popular world leader who also happened to love the game. Since reopening in late 2006 after a multimillion-dollar renovation, the Ike continues to win over fans with its traditional features: lush fairways and large undulating greens.

This Ike has earned its place among the most challenging golf courses Los Angeles and Southern California can lay claim to. It stretches 5,662 yards from the forward tees to 7,211 yards from the championship tees, with slope ratings from 130 to 145. It's no wonder that the Ike has been the proud host of many U.S. Open Qualifying tournaments as well as LPGA tour events.

The Industry Hills Golf Club at Pacific Palms Resort offers 650 acres of lush green featuring 36 holes of championship golf! Players have access to two legendary courses, the Eisenhower (Ike) and Zaharias (Babe). Before hitting the links, feel free to warm up at our onsite practice facilities. Whether you're a pro or a beginner, these standouts among the public golf courses in Los Angeles and nearby areas offer have something for everyone. View our course information below and book your tee time today!

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Friendly Hills Country Club

Friendly Hills Country Club, with its spectacular 18 hole Championship Golf Course, was established in 1967.

Noted for its spectacular beauty, this James Wilfred Hines masterpiece is considered one of the finest and most challenging courses in the Los Angeles-Orange County area.

Friendly Hills Country Club has hosted many qualifying tournaments for the SCGA Amateur, Mid-Amateur, the US Amateur and the US Open.

Today's golfers play the same fairways that have challenged US Open Champions Scott Simpson, Jerry Pate, Lee Janzen, Curtis Strange and Tom Kite along with British Open Champion Bill Rogers and PGA Champion Bob Tway. 

Friendly Hills Country Club is the proud home course for Eric Meeks, the 1988 US Amateur Champion. USC star Jordon Nasser, who literally grew up playing on the course at Friendly Hills, claimed the 95th California Amateur Championship in 2006.

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Northlands Golf Course

Course Highlights:

• Opened in 1997 and named by Golf Digest as Runner-Up Best New Course in Canada for 1998.
• Cut-out of a 100 year old mountainside forest, the golf course was designed by Les Furber, Canadian golf architect renowned for his work on mountainside courses.
• The black tees present a challenging 6,504 yards where most shots must be shaped to reach ideal landing areas. Even long hitters will find the par 5′s better played as 3 shot par 5′s.
• The blue tees enable landing areas to be more easily reached and the white tees open up the fairways even more again.
• Water comes into play on the back nine on several holes. The Thomas Creek crossings, which are environmentally sensitive, provide special interest on holes 15, 17, and 18.
• The beautiful downhill par 3′s provide mountain back drops and spectacular views, designed to enable you to see your hole-in-one go in!

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When Clint Eastwood took on Mount Juliet

On the face of it, WB Yeats, Tiger Woods and The Man With No Name would appear to have little in common. But that’s before you speak to Francis Reynolds, who has seen some of world’s most famous faces pass by in the 22 years he’s been golf manager at stunning Mount Juliet in Thomastown, Co Kilkenny.

Conceived by the late Dr Tim O’Mahony, the magnificent Mount Juliet estate has long been associated with Yeats’ lyrical poem, the Lake Isle of Innisfree: 

“And I shall have some peace there, for peace comes dropping slow,

Dropping from the veils of the morning to where the cricket sings;

There midnight’s all a glimmer, and noon a purple glow…”

It’s about as far removed from Sergio Leone’s wild west or the Magnum blasting violence of Inspector Harry Callahan of “Dirty Harry” fame as it’s possible to get. And that’s precisely what made Clint Eastwood’s presence at Mount Juliet so incongruous, when Paramount Pictures booked the entire course for the Holywood icon when he paid a visit to Ireland in 1997.

The par-three third at Mount Juliet. Picture © MountJuliet.ieNow 83, Eastwood was a sprightly 67-year old when he stopped off a Mount Juliet to play golf. Horse-riding and clay pigeon shooting are also available at one of Ireland’s great resorts, but Clint had the course to himself, intent on shooting birdies not baddies.

There was no one around to hear if he muttered, “Do you feel lucky, punk?” to a brand new Titleist as he teed it up on the Jack Nicklaus designed course that has hosted three Irish Opens and two WGC-American Express Championships.

Far from the image he often portrays in his movies — the growling, dangerous loner with the itchy trigger finger – Eastwood is, in fact, a soft-spoken artistic type with a love of the great outdoors and the quiet life.

“I am not sure what it cost Paramount to close the course for him,” Francis says. “He was just touring Ireland and he was a lovely man, a real gentle man. His voice doesn’t match his image at all, he was very soft spoken. A shocking nice man…”

Of course, Eastwood has Irish blood in his veins.

Mature trees are a constant factor. © MountJuliet.ie

“The best part of me is the Irish part, Egans on my mother’s side,” Eastwood said a few years ago. “She had roots in Monaghan and I’ve been to Ireland many times. It’s one of my favourite places to golf.”

His love of Ireland has as much to do with his admiration for the great film maker John Ford as his Irish ancestors.

In 2011, he was presented with the first John Ford Award by the Irish Film and Television Academy at a special event at Warner Brothers in Los Angeles. 

“It’s a great privilege for me to be associated with John Ford in this way, as he was such a pioneer of American film-making. Every film-maker I know is very influenced by Ford, whether it’s his westerns or the Grapes Of Wrath.

“When I worked with Sergio Leone he often talked about Ford’s influence on him. I’m sure he would have persecuted me like he did many of his other actors, but I would have been able to take it.”

There is no question of being persecuted at Mount Juliet, were Francis reveals that “nothing is too much trouble.”

The view across the lake to the 18th green. © MountJuliet.ie“As resorts go, it is as easy going a place as you will find anywhere in the world,” he says. “It is all about friendship and the welcome and as Tim O’Mahony used to say when quoting WB Yeats, it’s ‘where peace comes dropping slow.’” 

Irish golf fans certainly saw the friendly face of a peaceful Tiger Woods when he played in the WGC-American Express Championships at Mount Juliet in 2002 and 2004.

“Tiger was a lovely man too,” Francis says of his locker room chats with the 14-time major winner. “He was a real gentleman and chatted about Ireland and coming over here on holidays. He was down in the river several times to fish, he loved that.” 

Woods also loved the greens, describing the course as “immaculate.” 

“As good as anywhere in the world,” he said.

It’s no wonder people keep coming back.

“Our repeat business is tremendous,” Francis says. “Seventy percent of our clients have rebooked for corporate business and that’s how I judge how we are doing. The course is also improving all the time because we have he best greenkeeper in Ireland and probably one of the best in the world in Aidan O’Hara.”

Avoiding the sand is just part of the tactical challenge. © MountJuliet.ieOf course, every artist needs good material and both O’Hara and course designer Jack Nicklaus have made the most of the stunning estate on the banks of the Nore, just nine miles from Kilkenny City.

“Other promoters and golf course managers should come here to see just how good a course can be,” said Nick Faldo, who completed a hat-trick of Irish Open wins at Mount Juliet in 1993.

Every golfer who takes on this Nicklaus delight — a par 72 that can play up to 7,300 yards from the Championship tees — will leave with happy memories of some great holes, some delightful countryside and perhaps even a glimpse of the wandering pheasants.

But like so many more of the great resorts, Mount Juliet provides more than a fine course on its 1500 acres. Not only is there an award-winning spa, an equestrian centre, trout and salmon fishing and facilities for tennis and shooting, there is accommodation of all types from romantic rooms in Mount Juliet House to self-catering facilities for families in the wonderful Rose Garden Lodges. 

Add that its three wedding venues, two restaurants — one just recently voted the best hotel restaurant in Ireland - and it’s easy to see why guests are loathe to leave and keen to return.

Clint Eastwood might just amble through the gates any day now as he scouts for locations for that long-awaited Irish movie he wants to make. 

No doubt, Francis Reynolds will be waiting, keen to make his day.

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Sanford Golf Design to Rebuild Bonita Springs Club

After putting the finishing touches on one of the most prominent new golf courses in the country, Trump Golf Links at Ferry Park in New York City, architect John Sanford of Sanford Golf Design is heading back home to Florida for another project.

In April, Sanford and his Jupiter, Fla.-based firm will begin construction in Bonita Springs, on Florida's west side, where they will rebuild the Spring Run Golf Club from the bottom up. The Sanford team will replace worn out infrastructure with a new irrigation system, establish new drainage for the course, rebuild the deteriorated cart paths, and reposition tee boxes, greens and bunkers.

"The golf course was built 15 to 20 years ago so it's not that old but it needs upgrading," Sanford said. "It's what I call a developer's golf course. They skimped on the infrastructure, so the guts of it are falling apart."

Sanford's assessment is shared by Spring Run's general manager Mike Zigler, who said that while the course on the surface looks to be in wonderful condition, below ground its faltering irrigation system was only 57 percent efficient. The depth of the greens did not meet the industry standards. In the winter months, the course normally does more than 300 rounds daily, exacting a severe toll on greens and fairways.

"This project has been three years in the making," Zigler said. "We were looking for a different way to go. We wanted some fresh ideas."

In Sanford and his firm Zigler said they found the right talent for their needs. "We were thinking more in the way of graphic design to show our members what the course would look like and we're very happy with John's ideas, design, landscaping, and graphics," he said.

The Spring Run club is a residential community anchored by the 18 hole 6,989-yard golf course. Zigler said the development consists of 847 units with an average of two residents per unit, which translates into a club with a healthy membership roll of more than 1,600 persons.

Sanford said because Zigler and club officials had done extensive homework it was easy to reach agreement on his assessment of what needed to be done.

"When we started the master plan, I said as long as we are putting in a new irrigation system, new drainage, we are going to build all new greens and bunkers, it doesn't cost more money to give you a great course with strategic quality. "If you build a green and you put it here or over there it is the same cost. The same goes with tees and bunkers. We were able to show the club that we could not only improve the infrastructure and conditioning, but also the aesthetics and the strategic quality of the golf course."

Sanford said because the club initiated the master planning process a year in advance, he was able to get the plan approved, completed his detailed design and document stages, and put the job out to bid months ago. "We were able to negotiate with the some of the best contractors and get the club very good value, for a comprehensive reconstruction of the golf course," he said. The club will only lose its off-season as the project will be completed in November. 

With the existing real estate, the routing will be unchanged. Each hole, however, will be different and each will have a distinct character and strategy making it enjoyable for all skill levels," Sanford said. 

He said his group will work with dirt already on site. The existing lakes and ponds, which handle all the storm water retention and drainage, will be unchanged. Those factors will keep costs down. The fairways will be sloped inward to contain errant shots and speed up play. 

"One of the things that I'm proud of, we are going to completely rebuild this golf course, including, all infrastructure - for about $3 million". Five or six years ago a job like this was $5 or $6 million bucks." 

Zigler said the timing of the reconstruction neatly positions the club for the future. "We never looked at this project as an opportunity because the economy is improving, but rather as a project that needed to be done now," Zigler said. "With the new course being ready for the winter season of 2014, Spring Run will be in a strong position to take advantage of the improving economy and housing market in Bonita Springs." 

Sanford's recently completed assignment, the Ferry Point golf course on the East River in the Bronx, N.Y., is a Jack Nicklaus Signature Design where he collaborated on the design with Nicklaus whiling serving as the project manager. 

In early 2013 Sanford's work on Granite Links, a golf course reclamation of two Boston area landfills, was honored by the American Society of Golf Course Architects (ASGCA) with one of six inaugural Design Excellence Recognition awards. 

Sanford Golf Design is also renovating the Kona Country Club on the Big Island in Hawaii, as well as the Kosaido CC outside Sapporo, Japan. The company has produced or renovated more than 60 courses across North America and Hawaii, the Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico, Egypt, Japan, and Vietnam.

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