Michigan Golf Journal October 2020

29 October 2020 www.michigangolfjournal.com tripling the size of the putting green (that’s already fully grown in) just steps outside the clubhouse door. Just as Oakland Hills says they are not renovating the South Course for touring pros, but for the members, Blythefield head superintendent Collin Romanick echoed a similar sentiment. “It’s easy to assume since we host a professional tournament that that dictates a lot of stuff that we are doing here, and it really dictates very little,” he said during a tour of the course in mid-September. “When we created this master plan it was for the members.” Romanick added the plan was shared with the LPGA Tour to see if they had comments and all they asked for was a specific yardage on one hole. Canceling the LPGA event due to Covid-19 helped. The June pro tournament was first postponed to October before officially succumbing in 2020; if held as planned it would have pushed this project back at least one year. Ke y features of the renovation include: • Many green surfaces are being restored and expanded to the larger sizes and contours the course had when first opened in 1928. • Greenside bunkers are not all being returned to the exact original locations but will be fitting for that era. Bunkers will be filled with crushed quartz. • Occasional new bunkers along fairways are at members’ lengths off the tees, not the pros. • Removing 350 trees. • Adding some forward tees and expanding fairways. • Using new and repurposed sod in many cases instead of seeding • New irrigation around greens ($600,000). MGJ