"IF YOU LIKE GOLF"
bi-weekly online golf column
by
Chris Dortch

October 25, 2005

As workers scrambled with last-minute preparations, golf course architect Bill Bergin showed a visitor around the newly refurbished Chattanooga Golf and Country Club earlier this week. The look on his face told all—this is a job well done, and Bergin knows it.

“It actually turned out better than we’d hoped,” Bergin said.

That’s a popular sentiment around the historic course these days.

“What Bill has done here is just phenomenal,” said head professional Bruce Etter. “This is better than we even envisioned.”

“Outstanding,” said greens superintendent Jeff Hollister.

You would expect the architect, head pro and greens superintendent to be effusive in their praise of the restoration job that has restored a bit of Donald Ross magic to the country club. But the sentiments of Bergin, Etter and Hollister are supported in the form of some irrefutable numbers.

Bergin’s design philosophy is to build courses that are challenging to the better player and playable for the handicap player. When Chattanooga’s course rating came back from the Tennessee Golf Association, they clearly showed Bergin had accomplished his goal yet again.

The par 71 course has a rating of 73.6 from the back tees and a slope rating of 133.

“For a 73.6 course rating, that’s a fairly modest slope,” Bergin said. “Our course ratings, which are based on the scratch player, are generally fairly high. However, our slope ratings are much more modest in relation to the course ratings, and slope is based on the average player. That lets you know for the average player our golf courses are pretty user friendly, yet for the better players they’re challenging. That’s exactly my goal on every piece of property that I work on.”

“What Bill has done,” Etter said, “is make the golf course harder for the back tee players and easier for the front tee players.”

Bergin did that by giving players options. In some cases, he had to work to find those options, given the small piece of property upon which the golf course sits. Members are going to love the new No. 11 hole. Formerly a par-3, Bergin pushed the tees back to 300 yards and came up with a classic risk-reward short par 4. The elevated back tees offers fantastic views of the property, plus mountains, the river and downtown Chattanooga, that were previously unseen.

How do you play the hole? Handicap players can take the safe route, hit an iron off the tee and a wedge into the green that is guarded on the left side by a pond and on the right by a huge tree. Better players and big hitters can take a chance of driving the green.

The same is true of No. 17, a 325-yard par 4 that probably won’t be driveable by most players, but that won’t prevent them from trying. The more prudent play is an iron off the tee, because there are perils aplenty. The lake on the right side of the tee has been widened and lengthened. The green is elevated, and shots that miss right are in trouble. A deep pit in front of the green that was used in the old days to move logs to the river has been restored and is in play. Trees that formerly lined the right side of the fairway have been removed. Long-time members will hardly recognize the hole.

All along the course, greens that were formerly too severe to accept the shot that was required of them have been flattened out a bit, but are no less challenging. Good examples of that are at No. 2, No. 15 and No. 18, the par-3 finishing hole.

“I prefer greens with gradual movement, sometimes in several different directions,” Bergin said. “I call it equal opportunity golf—subtle contouring requires a greater understanding of the nuances of an individual putting surface.

“Today you see too many large multi-tiered greens, which favor the better player who is more apt to control his approach shot and is capable of hitting to the proper level, leaving a flatter putt. Tiered greens present a situation where the average player is punished unduly, resulting in long awkward putting or chipping over ridge lines. Ours is a simple philosophy—hard par, easy bogey.”

Work began on the country club last January, and the course will reopen Nov. 3-5, with a President’s Cup tournament scheduled for Nov. 4. There is still a grow-in period that will allow fescue framing areas to reach about knee high and the Bermuda fairways to fill in and flourish, but the course is generally going to be ready to offer its new and unique challenges right away.

“This one’s got the look we wanted ahead of when we wanted it,” Bergin said. “But I can’t wait to see it two years from now, when all the grasses have grown in. It’s beautiful now. It’ll be even more so then.”

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