Friday, July 12, 2013

The Presidio Golf Course Renovation

Suny, Zokol Golf Design has been working as the consulting architect for The Presidio. Dick and I are honored to have been selected to take on this important assignment. We have been delighted to be working with Superintendent, Brian Nettz, CGCS and General Manager Don Chelemedos from Century Golf.

The Presidio is just so interesting to us since it is one of the oldest golf courses west of the Mississippi and has been touched by so many architects. And it's the fact that it was touched by so many that really created our opportunity. Our opportunity, our vision of the project was to create an era appropriate renovation with a sense or feeling of an old golf course. This allowed us a certain amount of creative flexibility in determining the flavor of the golf course. 

The work on most of the holes has been done in house by Brian Nettz and his staff. Brian has turned out to be a wonderful shaper and has shaped all of the features. He brought in Kaminski Golf to assist with the shaping and construction of #4.

Below are a series of pictures- before, concept, and after. The 4th is a drop shot Par 3 that plays 130 yards from the back tee, 118 yards from the middle tee and 85 yards from the forward tee.


Presidio #4 Before

The Concept

After 

Dick and I originally thought that there should also be a bunker on the left side of the green. But when Don and Brian explained that they needed to insure that there was an eco-buffer down to the native area to the left, we threw our version of convention out the window and you can see the results.