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 1929
revisited: Mimosa Hills restoration unearths true Ross work
By SCOTT MARTIN
Two years ago, when the
membership of Mimosa Hills Country Club in Morganton was considering the
renovation of its well-respected Donald Ross course in time for the club’s 75th
anniversary, Greensboro-based architect Kris Spence was presenting plans to the
members. As can often be the case at a Donald Ross course, the question of
whether Ross actually visited the club came up. Spence, who has studied and
worked on several Ross courses, explained that every club thinks that Ross
worked on their course but that Ross may have only spent extended periods at
less than a third of the courses in his portfolio.
“A gentleman in his 80s
got up in the back of the room and said that he had seen Ross on the site
several times and that Ross had rented mules from his father,” said Spence.
“That was proof enough for me.”
When Spence started to
work on the restoration of Mimosa Hills, he unearthed plenty of other evidence
that Ross had visited Morganton. Buried under seven decades of top dressing,
Spence found original Ross greens and much of the bunkering. Subsequently, he
found a set of original plans, complete with Ross notes in red pencil.
Mimosa Hills members asked
Spence to complete a total restoration of the course, taking it back as closely
as possible to the original course that Donald Ross handed the members in 1929.
“No other architect had
worked on the course to the best of my knowledge,” said Spence. “And so it was
particularly exciting and a bit daunting to take such a fantastic course and
restore it.”
In taking it back to its
original form, Spence’s primary goal has been to bring back the course’s
strategic integrity, giving members as many options as possible. Another goal is
to use modern agronomy to keep the course fast and firm, much like it would have
been before golf became over-watered. Spence also added between 200 and 300
yards of length, but the extra length on the hilly course means that course can
play longer than the card.
Mimosa re-opened in early
July, a remarkable feat given the appalling winter and wet summer. The course
needs a season of growing in to reach its peak, but it’s already clear that
Mimosa Hills is even better.
“The members are still
getting used to it,” said head professional Dan Dobson. “The better players here
already really like it because the strategy is back and it really tests their
ability to hit shots.”
Perhaps the most famous
better player at Mimosa Hills is Billy Joe Patton, who almost won The Masters in
1954 and may be North Carolina’s most famous and accomplished amateur. Patton
was not known as the most accurate player from tee to green but he had a razor
sharp short game that could get him up and down from the worst lies in the worst
places.
Patton no longer plays due
to back surgery, but he can be found holding court in the shade of the snack hut
between the ninth green and 10th tee. He’s not afraid to provide occasional
commentary.
“You hit a good chip but I
didn’t think much of the putt,” he says to one golfer. Patton was simply having
a polite and gracious go with the needle, as he has for as long as anyone at
Mimosa can remember.
Even a player with a Billy
Joe-like short game will be tested at Mimosa, especially once the green speeds
reach warp nine. The greens are mostly on the small side at Mimosa and are more
sloped than lumpy. Being on the correct side of the hole with approach shots
will be crucial to scoring well.
The green complexes have a
look and feel that’s true to the original Ross plans. Many sit on small plateaus
while others are open in front and will accept run-up shots. Almost all have
bunkers that are four to five feet deep and most are intricately fringed and
somewhat narrow.
“Donald Ross wanted
golfers to take his bunkers seriously and anyone who wants to argue with that
should visit Mimosa,” says Spence. In fact, any golfer who thinks they play on a
Donald Ross course might want to visit Mimosa to see the real (or at the least
the lovingly-restored) McCoy.
In addition to the greens
complexes, Mimosa bears all the hallmarks of a Ross course: an excellent routing
that makes the best possible use of the land; strong and varied par-4s; a set of
superb par-3s, and modest par-5s that present opportunities to score. The
latter, however, might not be true on the 477-yard 12th, perhaps the one hole
that should mute critics who argue that Ross never designed a useful par-5. The
hole plays sharply downhill through a tight chute of hardwoods. The reward for a
good drive is the chance to reach the green in two; but the shot must clear a
valley and run onto a small green fronted by a bunker.
The best short hole on the course
might be the 176-yard sixth, downhill to a small green with bunkers right, front
and left. Other may argue that the 13th, a large and muscular 215 from the tips
is the best par-3. The 17th is shorter but no less demanding. A golfer who
shoots par on the par-3s at Mimosa is an excellent player. Picking the best
par-4 is a tough job at Mimosa. Top candidates would have to be the 16th,15th,
and eighth.
Whatever their choice for the best
par-4, Mimosa members are among the most fortunate in North Carolina golf.
Before the restoration, the course was generally well-regarded but when the
grow-in is complete by mid-2004 Mimosa will be something extremely special.
“Mimosa gave more to me than I
gave to it,” said Spence. “I learned so much about Ross and how he wanted
golfers to have options and to have fun playing the game. Mimosa is a great
example of that.”
The member whose father leased
Ross the mules to create the original Mimosa would surely have to agree.
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