Results of an initiative to return to tradition and have members suggest names for the holes of its A. W. Tillinghast-designed golf course were recently announced at Rochester (Minn.) Golf & Country Club (RGCC).
“Our members got actively engaged in the project,” Eric Dietz, RGCC’s General Manager, told the Rochester Post-Bulletin. “There was a lot of discussion, a good buzz.”
RGCC’s original nine-hole course, which opened in 1915, included names for each hole, as part of a fairly common practice at the time to connect American golf with the game’s Scottish roots (all Scottish courses have names for each hole).
The names for the RGCC holes were dropped, however, when the private club had Tillinghast remake the layout into an 18-hole course that has long ranked as one of the finest in the Midwest.
When Dietz arrived in July 2007 as the club’s new General Manager (after four years at Ridgemark Golf & Country Club in Hollister, Calif.), “we talked about looking at a club with this historical nature and needing to rekindle that,” he told the Post-Bulletin. Members were invited to suggest their own names for all 18 holes and voting was then conducted, with the results announced at this year’s Board meeting in June.
“This was a good way to get the membership involved,” Dietz said. “It created a sense of ownership.”
The new names for RGCC’s 18 holes are, in order: Plateau, Tranquility, Inspiration, Promontory Point, Tillie’s Table, Panorama, Oak Dell, Hillcrest, Anticipation, Ascension, Deception, Goliath, Willow Bend, Heartbreak Hill, Purgatory, Sunset, Majestic and Guardian.
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