
Harrison Michew with his mentor Arnold Palmer
PENSACOLA, FLORIDA — With an eye toward
transforming the area’s only municipal golf course into a more
profitable operation, the City of Pensacola and the Parks and
Recreation Department invested $750,000 on what many would call a
long overdue, “extreme makeover” to Osceola Municipal Golf
Course. Its new marketing slogan is: “Come Play Osceola Again For
The First Time.” The First Tee facility now includes a
full-service, 70-person practice facility — complete with a
massive, new putting and pitching green, and separate sand bunker
— while golfers on the course will enjoy reconstructed green
complexes with the finest putting su...
Full Story
SOUTH BOSTON, VIRGINIA — The pace becomes syrupy
slow as you gently wind your way along an inconspicuous farm road
through the rustic countryside of South Central Virginia, just
across the North Carolina border on the north side of the Dan River
about three miles west of South Boston. My destination is the Berry
Hill Resort & Conference Center, a former antebellum plantation
estate that now serves as a Four Star retreat rapidly gaining
renown as a sought-after destination for romantic getaways, wedding
celebrations, corporate events and social gatherings. The
breathtaking landscape of the surrounding countryside is lined with
long strands of white picket fences, lu...
Full Story

The Carolina Club and its sister layout, The Pointe, are two of the fine golf offerings along North Carolina's storied Outer Banks
OUTER BANKS, NORTH CAROLINA — It comes as no
great surprise that The Carolina Club and The Pointe Golf Club are
two of the most immaculately manicured and impeccably conditioned
golf courses you will find on the East Coast. After all, the sister
layouts on the Currituck mainland of North Carolina’s fabled
Outer Banks are owned and operated by a former scratch golfer who
also runs one of the region’s major turf grass companies, and
both courses were built on what had previously been fertile farm
land. But the Other Banks have always been best known for its
relaxingly wide and sandy beaches, mild year-round temperatures and
numerous historic...
Full Story

The history of Hershey, PA included a time when golf legends Ben Hogan and Henry Picard served as head professionals.
HERSHEY, PENNSYLVANIA — While Hershey, Pa., is
known worldwide for its iconic chocolate bar, Milton S. Hershey’s
model town has attracted attention for many other reasons and at
one point served as a symbolic and metaphoric center of the golf
universe. Hershey Country Club was established in 1930 and quickly
garnered national recognition for its choice of golf professionals.
Shortly after the club opened, Henry Picard, one of the game’s
best players at that time, was hired as golf professional.
Nicknamed the "Hershey Hurricane" and “Chocolate Soldier,”
Picard possessed enviable on-course skills that led to 26 wins on
the PGA Tour, including the 1936-1937...
Full Story

Former U.S. Open champion Lucas Glover
Few things in this generation’s history compare with the
significance of September 11, 2001. “We lost my brother John
Patrick Salamone who was working on the 104th floor of the North
WTC tower on 9/11” says Mike Salamone of Charlotte, North
Carolina. “Since then, my fear has been that the American people
would, over time, forget the enormity of this tragedy.” Most of
us can describe exactly where we were, what we were doing, and how
we felt when we were confronted with the unfolding tragedy.
Strangers helped strangers. Flags were raised and candles were lit
with a spontaneous spirit of unity as one by one, Americans linked
arms. September 12, 2001 was truly a day when we...
Full Story

Despite historically difficult times in his field, North Carolina-based golf course architect Rick Robbins has remained busy both at home and around the globe.
The restaurant’s background music hums so gently in the distance
its melody is hardly perceptible as Rick Robbins eyes a
cheeseburger that’s been placed in front of him, shifts his lithe
frame to find comfort in a hard, straight-backed chair and begins
metaphorically whistling a familiar yet barely recognizable tune of
his own. Two decades after the Cary-based golf course architect and
native of the Tar Heel mountains departed the comforts of the Jack
Nicklaus design umbrella and set out on his own, Robbins now finds
himself a 60-year-old, first-time grandfather designing golf
courses during a period of time when the economic downturn and its
trickle-down effect on golf and the a...
Full Story
GREENSBORO, N.C. — One of the bigger buzzes around Sedgefield
Country Club during the first few days of PGA TOUR’s Wyndham
Championship this week has been the inaugural issue of a bimonthly,
Greensboro-based magazine called, “O.Henry," which includes a
lengthy story about the club and the tournament titled, "Birthplace
of Champions: How the Wyndham Championship came to symbolize the
revival of a region." A major factor behind all the magazine launch
excitement is that "O.Henry" is being edited by New York Times
bestselling author James S. "Jim" Dodson, widely considered one of
the great literary figures alive today and a man who throughout the
years has spent more than his fair sh...
Full Story

Harrison Minchew with his golf course design mentor Arnold Palmer.
DAVIE, FLORIDA (November 2011) — Out of
commission since December 2008 as part of an Interstate 595
expansion, the former Arrowhead Golf and Country Club near Ft.
Lauderdale has reopened following a complete redesign by golf
course architect Harrison Minchew. The course’s new owner, The
Town of Davie, announced the course will now be called Davie Golf
and Country Club. The 10.5-mile, I-595 corridor in the highly
urbanized and congested Broward County is being reconstructed as
part of one of the state's first ever public-private partnerships,
with three tolled reversible express lanes in the median and
additional auxiliary lanes. To minimi...
Full Story

Despite historic wildfires in nearby Bastrop, TX, Austin's Wolfdancer Golf Club has thrived.
AUSTIN, TEXAS — Despite the record-breaking
heat, historic drought and wildfires that severely impacted
Bastrop, Texas a dozen miles to the east, the Wolfdancer Golf Club
at the Hyatt Regency Lost Pines Resort and Spa proudly sports its
best-ever playing conditions since it first emerged onto the Austin
golf scene five years ago. In fact, the resort’s picturesque
setting played a major role in not only allowing the golf course to
survive the summer elements, but thrive. Situated along the banks
of the Lower Colorado River immediately adjacent to an 1,100-acre
nature preserve caled McKinney Roughs Nature Park, Wolfdancer
recently received the...
Full Story