TURFGRASS 22 There is a delicate balance to renovating a classic golf course. Heritage and playability must be preserved while implementing modern innovations in technology such as improved turfgrasses for greater sustainability. This was the case at Columbia Country Club in Chevy Chase, Maryland. Columbia is a century-old landmark Walter J. Travis design steeped in tradition. It is the site of the 1921 U.S. Open where then-President Warren G. Harding presented the winning medal to Jim Barnes, and a 19-year-old Bobby Jones was edged out by one stroke as low amateur by 1916’s Open winner Chick Evans. While Columbia may have been one of the first in the nation to install an irrigation system, very little has changed at the club short of some minor adjustments to hazards and the addition of a driving range. Still, Travis’s layout has never been altered. Safeguarded by a passionate membership of low handicappers (two of whom competed for the green jacket at the Masters), the course is considered hallowed ground. It was with the utmost respect and collaboration with an informed and vigilant renovation committee, working alongside a dedicated golf course superintendent, that Joel Weiman, ASGCA, senior designer with McDonald Design Group, based in Maryland, began a renovation master plan in 2017. Several factors contributed to the decision to renovate the 18-hole course. A long-dormant easement that once allowed for freight train traffic through the club’s property (it was turned into a walking path many years ago) was tapped back into service. The easement is now being converted into a light rail passenger line to serve commuter traffic for the suburbs of Washington, D.C. This required a slight reconfiguration of the club’s second hole and a move and replication of the fourteenth green. “We surveyed the putting surface, shifted its location, and replicated it to within a half-centimeter tolerance,” says Weiman. “It's Columbia Country Club in Maryland converts from cool-season to warm-season grass and is immediately recognizing the benefits. Renovating a classic Stacie Zinn Roberts Stacie Zinn Roberts is an award-winning writer and marketing expert specializing in the golf and turfgrass industries.
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