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It’s more likely that a golf course has closed than a new one has opened around the United States in the past couple of years, and that’s not a reflection of the economic downturn that began in the fall of 2008.

Golf’s building boom began slowing significantly by the middle of this past decade. In Arkansas, after the 1990s and a “build-it-and-they-will-come” stance throughout the state for daily-fee courses, the growth of public access courses hit a wall in the 2000s.

Arkansas also reflects the rest of the country in that the most notable openings in recent years were private investments in exclusive golf retreats: Warren Stephens’ Alotian Club in west Pulaski County and John Tyson’s Blessings Golf Club between Fayetteville and Springdale. Chenal Country Club, owned by Deltic Timber Co., added a second 18 to its existing 18-hole course as well.

The public was served by the opening in 2009 of Village Creek State Park, the first state-owned course to open in decades. The course, on Crowley’s Ridge between Wynne, Forrest City and Parkin, was designed by Andy Dye, nephew of the renowned architect Pete Dye, and is managed by an out-of-state firm that has aimed to draw the tourist crowd driving Interstate 40 between Little Rock and Memphis.

Meanwhile, in the past two years some one-time treasured gems in Arkansas were turned back over to nature, including Pine Bluff’s Rosswood Country Club (where Arnold Palmer played an exhibition in 1964 and John Daly won the state match play championship in 1987).

Sherwood’s private North Hills Country Club, reworked by the iconic golf architect Robert Trent Jones in the late 1970s, was headed for the backhoe-and-motor-patrol treatment, too. After changing hands several times, the property was destined to become an upscale housing development without a course.

However, the city of Sherwood stepped up in 2009 to buy the property from the developers with the plan of bringing public golf to its residents by later this spring.

Meanwhile, in place of the 1990s model of newer and longer courses and more housing developments springing up, the existing courses — the private ones with the money — are either revamping their layouts or finding new strains of grass for their greens to withstand the hot Arkansas summers.

Apparently, the cost for doing a serious reworking of a championship, country club course runs $6 million these days. That’s what Pinnacle Country Club in Rogers spent during 2008-09 to update its facility, which opened in 1990 to great fanfare with Greg Norman playing host to a televised exhibition with athletes Wayne Gretzky, Larry Bird and Ivan Lendl. It’s the monetary figure also put on a redo and reshaping of the Country Club of Little Rock’s classic, 106-year-old course — a job scheduled to start in June, sending CCLR golfers to the area’s other courses.

Digging Out the Hills

Before spending the past 14 years in the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex, Mandel Brockington was the superintendent at Hot Springs Village’s swanky, private 18 holes, Diamante. He was responsible from day one for getting the course up and running.

He’s been toiling since last June at North Hills to get it playable for an April opening. Much of the work includes re-grassing the greens and filling in some of the bunkering to leave grass bunkers, making it more playable for the general public. North Hills sat idle for two years while its future was in limbo.

“The first thing we did was replant the greens with Champion [Bermudagrass],” Brockington said of the formerly bentgrass surfaces. “We’ve also been removing a few trees to provide a little more sunlight for some of the turf areas. We’ve also had to get a 32-year-old irrigation system up and running again. We had a few leaks in the system, and we’ve had to go through the wiring to get the sprinkler heads working.”

North Hills will retain the Trent Jones layout. “We didn’t change any of the green complexes,” Brockington said. “We created some chip shots with the grass bunkers instead of golfers having to hit out of sand bunkers, to make it easier.”

Brockington is quite familiar with North Hills, having worked there from 1983 to 1990, learning from then-superintendent Jim Harris (no relation to this writer).

“I really like going into new projects, like Diamante, or going into something with problems that needed some help,” Brockington said. “I always think I’m going to stay at one place, but every time I get through, after four years or so, another opportunity comes up.”

Turning to Champion

Almost everywhere one looks these days in central Arkansas, courses are giving up on their bentgrass greens and turning to Champion Bermudagrass. Maumelle Country Club, Pleasant Valley Country Club and, most recently, the public Rebsamen Park Golf Course — which was rebuilt earlier this decade by designer Tom Clark but could not keep its bentgrass playing in mid-summer — have gone to the newest Bermuda that provides a smooth and fast putting surface similar to the small-blade bentgrass.

“It came down pretty simply to us, to provide the best possible playing conditions for when we have the most play, and that’s May through August,” Pleasant Valley pro Chris Mayes said.

After a busy early summer, Pleasant Valley shut down 18 of its 27 holes last July and took the bold step of introducing Champion Bermuda in early October.

“Given everything we were up against and what Mother Nature had to throw at us, it couldn’t have gone better,” Mayes said. “It wasn’t just the wettest year but also maybe worst [fall season] since I’ve been here. And a 20-year cold spell, too. But, to our knowledge, they have flourished.”

With Champion, courses can maintain fast greens in times of intense heat and with the most play. But, the superintendents and pros all say, the new Bermuda strains require more maintenance than the common Bermuda of yesteryear.

“I haven’t seen a grass that offers the same putting quality everybody is looking for that doesn’t require a lot of maintenance,” Mays said. “I would say, with Champion, we have to verticut them a lot more than we did, and we have to do continual top-dressing. Where in the summer we would pull the water or not water [the bentgrass greens] as much because you didn’t want to saturate, this Bermuda in a thriving environment of the summer is going to want water. It’s still going to have to be mowed, and the mowing heights will have to be the same.

“We can cut this Bermuda a little lower, but fast is fast, it doesn’t matter what grass is on the greens.”

Brockington, singing the praises of Champion Bermuda for North Hills and other area courses, said, “It’s not as much a failure in the bent grasses, but rather the new developments and better strains of Bermuda. It will never be the same as bentgrass, but it’s real close in playability and puttability. It peaks in the summer when you want your play. Bent peaks in the spring and the early fall.”

Country Club Renovations

CCLR has brought in Keith Foster of Paris, Ky., to make the changes on its severely undulating course. Some of the fixes will include lengthening of some holes, but golfers will also note improved lies on such holes as the severe-sloping No. 3 when CCLR reopens for play next year. Some changes will be made to three holes that were constructed for the course earlier in the decade and replaced three from the original layout. CCLR will stay with bentgrass greens, installing one of the better new strains available, SR-10.

Pinnacle’s owners for the past 10 years, the Hudson Family, ponied up the $6 million for the course changes in Rogers. The course was shut down in August 2008 and reopened in June last year. When the LPGA returned for the Northwest Arkansas Classic in September 2009, the changes were embraced by the pros.

Randy Heckenkemper of Tulsa was charged with the redo. Heckenkemper designed Fayetteville’s Stonebridge Meadows, ranked as one of the top daily fee courses in the state, along with the TPC Scottsdale Champions Course in Arizona.

“We did it all for our members,” Pinnacle golf pro Paul Eiserman said. “We listened to all the wants and needs and desires of the membership to come up with a gem.”

The original layout, conceived by Don Sechrest with the help of PGA pro Bruce Lietzke when Pinnacle was opened as Champions Golf Club (Jackie Burke’s Houston course by the same name forced the Rogers club to change its name not long after opening), was not changed. But some greens and tees were shifted as much as 20 yards, and greens were rebuilt. About 400 loblolly pines were planted, while several existing trees were removed. Some bunkers were eliminated, others added. A new pump house helped improve irrigation.

“So, in essence, it was redesigned, but we did not change the flow of the layout,” said Eiserman, who has been the club’s pro for seven years. The fairways were replaced with Zorro zoysia, a thinner-blade zoysia from what was available in 1990. The new rough is a fescue blend with Kentucky “midnight blue.”

The changes added 255 yards to Pinnacle’s length from its back tees, taking it to 7,001 yards. “We were a short golf course even back then [when it opened], as a development,” Eiserman said. “We were known for our rough and our fast, undulating greens. We kind of kept the same integrity. We wanted our greens to be challenging and our fairways to be impeccable. We think it’s a great experience, from the LPGA Tour player to the best playing member to the not-so-best playing member.”

The LPGA returns for the fourth time to Rogers, and the third time the event has been held in September. The first two tournaments, one in September and the other in July, were plagued by rain. “It’s a great time to have an event, around the Labor Day weekend and the kids are just getting back to school,” Eiserman said. “We should have perfect weather. Other than rain — we don’t want rain. We’re going to knock on wood.”