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Principles of Golf Architecture
By Richard Mandell
 

RMGA was recently honored with its first project in the Badger State.  Oconomowoc Golf Club in Waukesha County, Wisconsin will be Richard Mandell’s eleventh Donald Ross project.  Originally founded in 1915 as the Grand View Company, land was purchased for the creation of a new golf course.  In November of that year, the Grand View Company commissioned Donald Ross as the course architect.  Ross personally selected the land and laid out the course.  Nine holes were completed for play the following year and an additional second nine, halted because of WWI, completed in 1924.

 

Armed with a 1937 aerial photograph and Ross’ original routing (dated 1915), Richard will lead the club of 175 golfing members through his Renovation Business Plan process. He is glad to report the Ross routing is still intact and just a few greens are not original.  Those share a flatter and broader profile typical of a later era in golf course architecture than those eras that encompassed Ross’s career.

 

“The topography of Oconomowoc is what really stands out to me and the subsequent Ross routing” remarked Richard, “I’m most excited to create a better connection between the ground forms and the fairway lines.”  Over the years as at many courses, the fairway lines became straighter and narrower, not entirely reflective of the topography.  Initial plans call for the RBP process to be completed by fall of 2020.  Where things go from there are all dependent upon Richard’s findings and the Club’s needs.  Richard’s relationship with the OCC membership brings the number of states he has worked in over his career to fourteen.