Located between Minneapolis and St. Paul, Minn., the 18-hole championship golf course will open to members and their guests on May 1. An official unveiling event will be held on June 14.
With a combination of traditional course architecture and varied fairway lengths, the updated course includes new bunker strategies for nearly every hole, updated fairway lines, enlarged greens so angles to the holes are more scaleable and a short course set of tees.
For the renovation, North Oaks Golf Club contracted Lehman Design Group and lead architect Tom Lehman for the course design, and Duininck Bros Inc. Golf for construction.
“After more than three years of planning, designing and construction, we are thrilled to re-open the North Oaks golf course,” said Jack MacKenzie, North Oaks Golf Club course superintendent. “Lehman Design Group’s attention for detail combined with Duininck Bros.’ precision construction techniques have taken Stanley Thompson’s vision for the North Oaks Golf Club course to a dramatic new level.”
Understanding the history and original Stanley Thompson architectural theory, Lehman Design Group carefully planned fairways and bunkers around the existing mature trees and landscaping to maintain and enhance the original vision for the course.
“We spent a lot of time looking at the aerial of the original golf course to understand the strategy Stanley Thompson had devised,” said Tom Lehman, lead architect at Lehman Design Group. “With that insight, we incorporated our hazards and placed them in ways to accommodate today’s technology and at the same time bring back the original strategy.”
Recognizing the impact construction can have on play, the renovation process was designed to minimize disruption to members with the majority of the construction completed in September and October 2007.
“Working on the North Oaks renovation with Lehman Design Group and Tom Lehman was an outstanding experience for our employees and our company,” said Judd Duininck of Duininck Bros Inc. Golf. “The design and execution of the renovation were nearly seamless and we are proud to promote North Oaks as a project we had the opportunity to work on.”
