Ninety years after it opened, Stillwater Country Club, Stillwater, Minn., has been taken back to a look that is reminiscent of the way it appeared when it opened in 1925.
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According to golf course architect Kevin Norby, the course, like most of those built in the golden age of architecture at the beginning of the 20th century, had lost a significant amount of its classic character and charm.
The club was established in 1924 with a nine-hole course laid out by Tom Vardon, who was the brother of Harry Vardon and golf pro at the famous White Bear Yacht Club. The course was built with the assistance of many of its new members and was opened with temporary greens in April of 1925.
Like many clubs, Stillwater Country Club suffered hard times during the 1930s and 40s, but by 1947 it was operating in the black and in 1957 it contract with Paul Coates to design another nine holes on land it had purchased a few years earlier.
As the course matured, the club started gaining recognition throughout the state as a quality venue. In 1976, the Minnesota Golf Association held the Minnesota State Golf Championship at the Stillwater Country Club and since that time many of the MGA annual events have taken place at the club. However, in more recent years, little money had been directed toward updates and capital improvements.
In 2014, Norby was retained to create a renovation plan geared primarily toward reducing maintenance and the reconstruction of the bunkers. Working closely with Tom West of Hartman Golf, a certified member of the Golf Course Builder’s Association of America, Norby redesigned the bunkers including the removal of some existing bunkers and the addition of some new bunkers. According to Norby, “the goal was to reduce maintenance while enhancing the course’s unique classic character”.
One of the more significant improvements occurred on the par three 13th hole which was resigned to play as a Redan. “The slope of the green set up perfectly for a traditional right to left Redan but the bunkering was all wrong and none of the historic photographs indicated that the hole ever played as a Redan,” Norby said.
Other changes included the repositioning of a centering bunker on the par 3 seventh and the addition of new fairway bunkering on the fourth, fifth and twelfth holes. “Overall, we reduced the amount of sand, we improved drainage and we created something that will differentiate Stillwater Country Club from other private clubs in the area,” Norby said.
Norby is the owner and senior architect of Herfort Norby Golf Course Architects and also recently completed renovations at Minnesota Valley Country Club (a 1924 Seth Raynor design) and Coal Creek Golf Course in Colorado.