Welcome to the Two Down Press golf newsletter!

10 days ago, the weather forecast for this weekend was almost too good to be true - low of 55, high of 75 every day with 0% chance of rain. My how quickly things changed, as Hurricane Isaias had other plans, but fingers crossed the worst of the weather stays away from Charlotte. We have multiple Club Championships going on this weekend!

Long one today, so we’ll get right to it. Our main feature this week is an interview with architect Kris Spence, one of the most active designers in the Carolinas and a leader in Donald Ross restorations. We also have tournament updates from Old Town Club and the Carolinas Golf Association, plus a few other tidbits as we wrap up the week. Enjoy as always and Happy Friday.

TWO DOWN PRESS Q&A

Kris Spence has spent decades designing, restoring, and reimagining some of the most storied golf courses in the Carolinas. While he has completed work for a wide variety of clients over the years, he is best known for being one of the region’s leading restoration architects for Donald Ross designed courses.

Kris and his team have previously completed work at places like Carolina Golf Club, Roaring Gap Club, Sedgefield Country Club, and Country Club of North Carolina. His list of active work includes wrapping up a project at Pine Valley Country Club (Wilmington), making updates to CCNC’s practice facility, and beginning a renovation of The Crossings, a McConnell Golf property near Richmond. His latest original design project is High Side Golf Club, an innovative project in Kannapolis that is also in its early stages.

We recently caught up with Kris to talk about some of his current work, reflect on some of his most meaningful projects, and discuss what he’s learned from Donald Ross. This conversation has been edited for brevity and readability.

2DP: Let’s start with High Side Golf Club - it sounds like a fun and unique project. What excites you about it?

KS: It’s an exciting concept - really nice practice facilities, an instruction and chipping area, a 9-hole par 3 course, plus a hybrid 9 with 3 par 4s, a par 5, and the rest par 3s. We're in the very early stages of getting that cleared.

It's brand new, straight out of the ground, and those opportunities are few and far between - most new builds happen in South Carolina or at resort destinations and go to a small group of designers. I don't think anybody has done anything quite like High Side. People will compare it to the Cradle, but this is a step up in excitement level.

I describe it as a roller coaster ride in golf - there's a real visual stimulation we're putting in front of the player, balanced with old-school design principles. Hole locations will sit next to steep falloffs. We’ll have some bunkers popping up high and big kicker slopes that will bring the ball across the green, so there's misdirection and a lot of options. We're also going to get creative with the par 3s - a lot of courses have flat, unremarkable par 3s, and we want to bring verticality and interesting shaping to those holes.

2DP: When I think of your work in the Carolinas, I think primarily about Donald Ross restorations. How did you become one of the foremost Ross experts in our region?

KS: I always stop short of calling myself an expert, because Ross was so creative - every course he built was adapted to that specific piece of topography, and he was doing it with horses and mules, not the kind of equipment we have today.

I came to the Carolinas in 1985 and didn't know much about Ross. I heard about this guy Ross and went to play Pinehurst No. 2 - back when it still had crude Bermuda greens and cost $25 to play. I hit balls into the middle of the green and watched them roll off the back, over and over, and thought, who is this guy? That's what got me hooked.

I started traveling and studying his work. I went from Forest Oaks to the Governors Club, then spent 9 years working at Greensboro Country Club, which had a Ross course that had been redesigned by George Cobb. There was no Ross left. We were fortunate to find the original drawings in the Tufts Archives, along with George Cobb's plans and a survey of the original golf course, so we had complete elevation data and bunker depths. We were able to convince the club to go forward with a restoration instead of another redesign.

That project led to a few others, including the Grove Park Inn. The restoration at the Grove Park got the attention of the Donald Ross Society and Golf Week, who gave it a Best in Restoration award - and that opened the floodgates.

From there it was Mimosa Hills, Carolina, Myers Park, Cape Fear, Camden - a lot of the better-known Ross courses in the state. I'm up to about 25 now, plus a few outside the Carolinas - Sara Bay, Memphis Country Club, Holston Hills, and I'm working with a club in Erie, Pennsylvania now too.

2DP: I have to ask you about Carolina Golf Club - the before-and-after photos from that restoration are pretty dramatic. How does that stack up against some of your most transformative restoration projects?

KS: It's one of the more significant transformations I've done. My first engagement was actually just holes 16 and 18, which had been fully modernized - 16 played over a pond to a green so severely crowned that you either rolled back into the pond or went over and had to chip back. 18 had a 3-tiered fairway that looked very artificial. Our goal was to take those holes back and reinstate some Ross.

That project got the ball rolling. We ended up reworking a number of holes. The old first and second were short, back-and-forth holes near where the practice facility now sits, which seemed like a little bit of an afterthought. 11 had a lot of symmetrical, sculpted mounds and the green was sitting right down on the creek. 13 used to be a short, straightaway hole with a mundane green - we moved it and turned the hole left. I think is one of the best holes on the course now.

A lot of the holes are completely original, holes like 8, 7, and the other holes across the brow of the ridge. 3 used to be completely encircled by pine trees, so you couldn't see 16 or 4 from the green. People thought I'd lost my mind wanting to clear it out and create this massive panoramic view. You’ve got a fairly large green up there but looks like a little thimble in the distance. If there is a better par 3 anywhere, I don’t know where it is.

2DP: What is it about Ross's design philosophy that keeps drawing you back?

KS: I think he viewed what he did for a living as educating America on the game of golf. He was almost like a professor. He wasn't a big proponent of putting eye-candy everywhere the way golf architecture has trended since - his bunkers were very practical. He was thinking about the game itself - requiring a player to think their way around the course and to consider every type of shot. He started primarily in the hickory-shaft era and transitioned into steel shafts later in his career, but that ground-game thinking carried through.

Whether we like it or not, we're all going back to that style of golf as we age - lower flight, less spin, less distance, needing the ball to run out on the ground. That's why his work is so timeless.

2DP: How do you think differently about new design projects compared to renovation or restoration work?

KS: People are usually surprised to hear this, but renovating or restoring a course is much harder than building something original. You're working within set boundaries, and you're dealing with years of membership history, personalities, and preferences you have to negotiate.

Quixote Club in Sumter, South Carolina was closer to a blank slate - the back 9 is completely rerouted, and even though the front follows the old routing, we made significant changes to green locations. That freedom is refreshing. The Crossings is similar - John McConnell trusts me to do it right, so there's nobody looking over our shoulder about digging up someone's grandfather's favorite hole.

I really do appreciate restoration too. There's something satisfying about bringing a course back out of the ground to match old photographs and running into an older member who remembers exactly what a hole used to look like when they were a kid.

2DP: You've had long relationships with a lot of these clubs - 25 years at Carolina, almost 20 at Memphis Country Club. Why does that continuity matter to you?

KS: People at a club change over the years - different wants, different needs - but I really appreciate clients who stay with me. Sometimes management changes or they meet another architect they like, and I respect that, but I'm not going to interview for a job I already have.

Even with long-term clients, you have to pay attention to multi-year playability. Ross did that - he'd come back, listen to players, and adjust. We do the same. The game has changed so much - players used to land the ball at 245-250 yards and it wouldn't run much further, but now guys bomb it 315. You can't defend a golf course against that with just a few bunkers, and you have to be honest with a club about what changes will actually make the course better versus just harder.

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TOURNAMENTS

Former Major League Baseball player Whit Merrifield and former PGA TOUR/Korn Ferry Tour player Kyle Reifers won the annual team competition at Old Town Club this past weekend. After shooting 3 rounds under par, the only team in the field to do so, Merrifield and Reifers found themselves in a playoff with Stuart Fuller and former OTC Pro Tommy Gibson, who closed with a best-ball 64 during Saturday’s final round. The playoff ended quickly, as Reifers promptly chipped in from just short of the 1st green for birdie. Fuller had a putt to match, but his 20-footer slid by the hole.

In the Senior Division, otherwise known as the Jim Holt Award, Chip Hunter and Braxton McLennan cruised to a 3-shot victory over Phil Waugh and Eagle Point Director of Golf Billy Anderson. Hunter and McLennan should be well known to 2DP readers as the organizers of the Charlotte City Am - congrats to these friends of the program on a massive W!

The Purvis Ferree Cup is played each October and features 2 rounds of four-ball and 1 round of alternate shot. In both the aforementioned flights, the team shooting the best second round (alt. shot) score ended up winning the event, which is common give the tricky nature of that format. See full scoring below.

STORIES TO TRACK

CGA Legend Paul Simson Wins Carolinas Senior: Our GOAT secured his 52nd (!) CGA title on Thursday in a playoff over Huntersville’s Joe Jaspers, who came from way behind with a final round 64 (-7). Simson rolled in a 6-foot eagle putt on the 18th hole at Waynesville Inn & Golf Club to secure the title. View full scoring.

Sam Jackson Wins SCGA Mid-Am: A final round 65 (-6) lifted the 4-time SCGA Player of the Year to another victory at Spring Valley Country Club in Columbia. He finished 2-shots clear of Charleston’s Josh Fickes. View full scoring.

Charlotte Country Club Renovation Video Drops: CCC and media partner Oak Stump Strategies shared a short film last week documenting the Ross Restoration journey. The club’s Vimeo account also has some great flyover videos (narrated by Andrew Green) highlighting holes 14-18, the stretch of the course most changed during the recent project.

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