Design Notebook: Thoughts on Gil Hanse’s Colonial Renovation

Welcome back to Design Notebook, where we’re too classy to talk about how right we were about Valhalla in the run-up to last week’s PGA Championship. Most people would brag about having such foresight, but we won’t. We’re not like that.

So let’s get straight into this edition of DN, in which Andy Johnson and Cameron Hurdus give their thoughts on Gil Hanse’s recent work at Colonial Country Club. Also, in our “Chocolate Drops” section, Garrett Morrison discusses a potential renovation of an A.W. Tillinghast-designed municipal course and a new project in Portugal led by a certain Fireball.

Colonial Country Club, Old and New

By Garrett Morrison

As our YouTube video from earlier this week documented, Colonial Country Club in Fort Worth, Texas, host of this week’s Charles Schwab Challenge on the PGA Tour, has undergone a full renovation by Hanse Golf Course Design. Inspired by (but not bound to) vintage photographs of the Perry Maxwell-John Bredemus design, Gil Hanse and his design partner Jim Wagner improved Colonial’s drainage system, naturalized the course’s built features and off-corridor areas, and restored the original profile and character of the greens.

My Fried Egg Golf teammates Andy and Cameron visited Colonial a few weeks ago, so I sent them some questions to get their impressions of the course and Hanse’s work.

Gil Hanse's renovation plan for Colonial Country Club

What do you think was the most distinctive aspect of Colonial’s original design?

Andy Johnson: I appreciate the routing and the variety of ways that the original course used the relatively limited natural features at its disposal. The barrancas and creeks move through the holes in nicely varied ways, and the old Trinity River was epic before it was realigned and straightened for the sake of flood control. Finally, the walk is quite pleasant, with greens and tees close together. It’s the rare tour course where you could play regularly in under four hours.

Cameron Hurdus: The most interesting thing to me about the original course was how it used the frontage of the original river. The eighth in particular looks like it was a pretty wonderful par 3, so it’s cool that Hanse was able to restore a mirror image of it.

Ben Hogan on the old eighth hole, set on the old Trinity River, at Colonial

The current "mirror image" eighth hole

Where would you place the course in Perry Maxwell’s body of work?

Andy: The lack of any real topographical interest holds Colonial back from being at the level of Maxwell’s work at Old Town Club, Southern Hills, or Prairie Dunes. However, it is a very solid golf course. I’d put it in the same tier as Dornick Hills in Ardmore, Oklahoma. It has less going on topographically but it’s a little stronger on and around the greens.

Cameron: I haven’t seen enough of Maxwell’s work to say, but I probably wouldn’t put it all that high! The history of who actually built Colonial is fairly muddy. Maxwell and Texas-based architect John Bredemus both created plans for the course, and Bredemus ended up being asked to implement Maxwell’s plan. But it’s possible that Bredemus’s foreman was the most instrumental figure in the construction process. Then there’s the weird story that Marvin Leonard, the founder of the club, led the project, using bits from both Maxwell’s and Bredemus’s plans, but I think that’s been debunked. We do know that Maxwell came in prior to the 1941 U.S. Open to lengthen and re-bunker the course as well as rebuild greens. In any case, the current greens seem tame compared to the Maxwell greens I’ve seen elsewhere.

What do you see as the biggest general improvement that Gil Hanse and his team made to the course?

Cameron: Just the naturalization of the features. The club had really leaned into brick and stone over the years—though a lot of that was probably done to guarantee that certain areas wouldn’t erode. In any case, by turning those channels back into rugged waterways (which were also deepened to help with heavy water events) and creating sandy ditches containing a mix of native grasses, Hanse has really helped to restore Colonial’s sense of place.

Andy: Outside of reintroducing the stellar natural aesthetic from the early days of Colonial, I think restoring the original intention and style for greens was a massive improvement. During Keith Foster’s work in the aughts, a lot of the greens were pushed up into the air in an attempt to make the course more challenging for tour pros. The problem was, this also made the course far more difficult for members who play the course the other 51 weeks of the year. Bringing the greens back down to the ground level promotes far more shot options for members and guests, but I think it will have minimal impact on the challenge for professional golfers.

There are also some really neat restored greens. My personal favorite is the fifth, which sits beautifully at grade and has amazing contouring.

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Which hole are you most excited to watch the pros play?

Andy: The aforementioned fifth will be a delight to watch. It’s a long par 4 with an epic green and a newly established “Texas wash.” What I like about Hanse’s work here is it opens up what used to be a hazard covered in thick rough. Now, instead of facing an auto chip-out, players have a chance at a heroic recovery, and if they go for it, they could either do something special or compound their initial mistake.You know, just like last week at Valhal—oh, never mind.

Cameron: I think Colonial’s entire set of par 3s is excellent. We’ll have to see how they play this week, but it might be one of the most interesting collections on the PGA Tour right now. All four of the greens are really compelling, especially the one on the ~250-yard fourth hole, which features vaguely Maiden-esque contouring: a subtle channel down the center along with higher left and right platforms. Also, given that players will be hitting long irons or hybrids in, the new contouring in the approach should make for some fun bounces.

The renovated fourth green (note that it's hard to see subtle contouring in a photo)

Usually in historical renovations of tour venues, historically minded architects like Hanse have to make compromises in order to accommodate the realities of the modern professional game. Do you perceive any such compromises at Colonial?

Cameron: Trees are a big part of Colonial’s culture and, in the members’ minds, an important way for the course to continue challenging the pros. Dan Jenkins has a famous quote about Colonial being a “dark golf course.” I think the club has really embraced that idea. Rich McIntosh, the director of agronomy, told me he thinks they took down about 40-50 full-size trees, but most of those spots were replanted. Trees still play a huge role in the strategy of the course, often overhanging fairways or protecting corners of doglegs. In fact, during the fireside chat we did with Hanse at the club, he said this may have been the first project where “we planted more trees than we cut down.” Exaggeration or not, it makes the point.

Andy: Colonial wanted to retain its identity as a tough test, so I think the fairways are narrower and the trees more plentiful than they would have been if the club weren’t a tour stop. Also, the PGA Tour tends to be adamant about greens not having too much slope, especially in pinnable sections. While Colonial’s renovated greens have a great deal of character, I do wonder if they would have had more if the Tour hadn’t been involved. All in all, though, Hanse and Wagner did a good job walking the tightrope of creating a member course and maintaining the longest active tour stop.

Chocolate Drops

By Garrett Morrison

Hope for Swope? Swope Memorial Golf Course, a grand old Kansas City muni designed by A.W. Tillinghast (and discussed by me and Andy Johnson in this 2021 episode of the Fried Egg pod), may soon receive some much-needed TLC. According to the Kansas City Star, the city’s parks department “will soon take a proposal to the city council seeking to fund a major overhaul of Swope Memorial, likely to the tune of around $7 million.” The city has already hired Todd Clark, an ASGCA architect who focuses on the KC area, to lead the project. Also involved is former Golf Digest architecture editor Ron Whitten, who will serve as historical consultant. Whitten told the Kansas City Star that the goal of the project will be to “adapt the course to the modern game while preserving the essence of a Tillinghast course.” Hey, I’ve heard that line before!

In any case, I’m glad that the KC parks department is taking a big swing. I just hope that the intention to recapture Tillinghast’s design remains the primary one, and that Clark’s firm proves capable of executing historically authentic work.

My Fried Egg Golf colleague Meg Adkins, who lives in the area, is cautiously optimistic: “After talking with a few friends and fellow golfers here in KC, I gathered that the overwhelming reaction to the Swope news is excitement. Excitement that finally the city is investing in its one and only gem of a golf course. Half measures over the years and rumors that haven’t come to fruition have been frustrating for residents in an area that’s rather uninspiring when it comes to its public golf options. Am I hesitant about hiring a local firm without experience in Golden Age restorations? Sure I am. But this news is major progress after years and years of kicking the can down the road.”

El Niño becomes El Arquitecto. Spanish golf legend and Fireballs GC captain Sergio García will design the second golf course at Terras da Comporta, a resort outside of Lisbon, Portugal. Terras da Comporta unveiled its Dunas course, designed by David McLay Kidd, last year, and García’s design, the Torre course, is expected to open in June 2025. Work is already underway, with José María Olazábal’s design company and lead shaper Conor Walsh doing the heavy lifting on site. “Players will find large, sandy waste bunkers along the not-too-overly-wide fairways,” García said, according to Golf Course Architecture. “The Torre course, in general, will favor precision and shotmaking over length and power.”

García is just getting started as an architect. The European Ryder Cup hero announced in 2021 that he would design a new golf course at Mayakoba Country Club in Mexico, but that project appears to be in limbo. So the Terras da Comporta gig is a big get for García and could kickstart a lucrative sideline for him. While not particularly beloved in the U.S., El Niño enjoys a high profile in Europe, and I could see him carving out a niche similar to Nick Faldo’s or Greg Norman’s: lots of jobs in continental Europe, Asia, and Latin America, along with the occasional commission in the U.S.

The new Pines. Coore & Crenshaw’s redesign of the Pines course at The International in Bolton, Massachusetts, is almost finished and will open for preview this fall. A press release from the club touts the reimagined layout as “the first new 18-hole course to open in more than a decade.” I reported on this project when it was first announced in 2021.

A peek at Tepetonka. OCM Golf shared a few photos of initial construction at Tepetonka, a new private course on fine-looking land two hours outside of Minneapolis, Minnesota. A project to keep an eye on.

A Course We Photographed Recently

Colonial Country Club (Fort Worth, TX)—designed by Perry Maxwell and John Bredemus in 1936, renovated by Maxwell for the 1941 U.S. Open, historically renovated by Hanse Golf Course Design in 2024

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Quotable

“It is my theory that nature must precede the architect, in the laying out of links. It is futile to attempt the transformation of wholly inadequate acres into an adequate course. Invariably the result is the inauguration of an earthquake. The site of a golf course should be there, not brought there. A featureless site cannot possibly be economically redeemed. Many an acre of magnificent land has been utterly destroyed by the steam shovel, throwing up its billows on earth, biting out traps and bunkers, transposing landmarks that are contemporaries of Genesis….

“Don’t blame all of this on the architects; the guilt lies primarily with the influential misguided club members who take sadistic joy in torturing the good earth. As a result the majority of American golf clubs are in the red, gore of the steam shovel, blood drawn by mound-builders. We have learned nothing from Scotland or England where the ancient and honorable game can be enjoyed on marvelous links at one tenth the admission fees, dues, green fee, etc., that prevail in the land of the free.” -Perry Maxwell in 1935