The project for the course that opened in 1929 and sees between 50,000 and 60,000 annual rounds will begin in January, with a projected completion by October 2020. Efforts will be made to keep the front nine open for play as long as possible while the work is completed. The project will expand some greens by as much as 100 percent, regrass the entire course and adjust drainage and flooding issues.
A year from now, golfers are going to find themselves playing a much different Charleston (S.C.) Municipal Golf Course, The Post and Courier of Charleston reported.
Greens and tee boxes will be enlarged on the course, which opened in 1929, The Post and Courier reported. Golfers will be playing on grasses capable of handling the traffic on the area’s busiest golf course, where between 50,000 and 60,000 rounds are played each year. And flooding after torrential rains or extremely high tides won’t be a major problem.
The $3 million renovation and restoration project to the course, which C+RB first reported on in October 2018 (https://clubandresortbusiness.com/charleston-s-c-municipal-course-to-get-3m-makeover/) is on target to start in January 2019, The Post and Courier reported. The City of Charleston has committed $1.5 million to the project and the efforts of a local organization, Friends of the Muni, to raise matching funds is also going well, with donations, pledges and city contributions now up to a total of $2.4 million.
A benefit golf tournament is scheduled for November 18 at Kiawah Island Club’s Cassique course, at a cost of $1,000 per player or $4,000 per foursome, and a Rodney Scott Barbecue Bonanza dinner and auction is set for November 17 at the Kiawah Sandcastle, The Post and Courier reported.
“Any time you do something construction-wise, it’s an inconvenience. But it’s what is on the other end of it that we all look forward to. I think we’re doing it the right way,” Charleston Municipal’s General Manager, Marshall Ormand, told The Post and Courier.
The timeline for the project calls for a January 1 start date, with the last sprigs of grass being planted on August 15 and the entire course reopened by October 2020, according to local resident and golf course architect Troy Miller, who did the design work pro bono, The Post and Courier reported.
The first portion of the project will include the back nine, along with work related to the driving range and short-game areas, The Post and Courier reported. Target greens will be added to the driving range, which will help to improve drainage and could also be utilized for short-game practice and for teaching programs such as U.S. Kids Golf and the First Tee. A three-hole short-game area will be built between the eighth tee and ninth fairway.
A pond alongside the 12th hole will be enlarged and the material will be used to help raise and contour the fairway as much as four feet on the adjacent, flood-prone 13th hole, The Post and Courier reported. Similar work will take place across Maybank Highway alongside the 15th hole, with additional fairway work on the 16th hole.
“The back nine is where the vast majority of the work is,” Miller said. “That work will begin in January, along with some of the work related to the driving range and short-game areas. We anticipate getting those components ready for grass as early as possible and, hopefully, to reopen the driving range at an even earlier date than the back nine. The front nine will remain open for play as long as we can keep it going.”
As the program progresses, Miller added, there probably will be a short period when the use of temporary greens on the front nine will be required.
“The layout will remain the same as far as center points of the greens go,”he said. “The two greens where you’ll notice the biggest change will be the 10th green, which will shift further away from Maybank Highway, and the 13th green, which will shift closer to the Stono River.
“The rest of the greens will pretty much stay in their current location,” Miller said. “But they all will get expanded, some as much as 100 percent. And they all will be reshaped and rebuilt to U.S. Golf Association specifications.”
By starting in January, Miller noted, putting grass down can start by the end of April, giving the course a 90-day grow-in and making it possible to reopen the back nine toward the end of July. The front nine would have a similar timeline of construction, from April through July, using the last two weeks of July and first two weeks of August to do the grassing and having the grow-in period through October, The Post and Courier reported.
The project will also seek to add some historical elements from the courses at the Country Club of Charleston and the Yeamans Hall Club in nearby Hanahan, S.C., which were built at about the same time in the 1920s by Seth Raynor, Miller said.
While Raynor did not design the Charleston Municipal course, there is no doubt that its layout was influenced by his nearby work, Miller noted.
“I volunteered to do this because [the course] means a lot to me and I care about the city,” Miller added. When he was a kid, he told The Post and Courier, his mother would drop him off at Charleston Municipal with $5 and he would stay there all day. It’s a course where his father, Ronnie, got his first job in the golf profession, so he’s had a special affection for Muni and often thought of changes and improvements that could be done. It’s an exciting time now that the project is about to begin, he said.
“I’m just a conduit for a lot of people who really, really care about this place,” Miller said. “I have some history here, with my dad working here over 50 years ago, his first job in golf. I live [in the area] and have kids who live in the neighborhood [of the municipal course]. It’s a special place to a lot of people, and I’m very, very excited.”
Ormond, who has been at Charleston Municipal for 10 years, told The Post and Courier that the renovation was on the radar long before he came to the property.
“The biggest advocate when I came here was Dr. Morey Lipton, who was chairman of the [city’s] golf commission [and passed away in 2014],” Ormand said. “We spent a lot of time and had a lot of conversations in the mayor’s office. We came close several times. Seeing this come to fruition now is special.”
Course Superintendent Shawn Gouge told The Post and Courier that he was advocating for a renovation even before coming to Charleston Municipal.
“I’ve been a major proponent of restoring this golf course for 25 years, since I was working at the Country Club of Charleston,” Gouge said. “I was a proponent of the course being rebuilt and taking it to another level, to modern-day standards. My crew and I are ecstatic. It means the world to me and my crew, to all the staff here at the Muni, and to all the local golfers.”
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