Brookside Reopens to Rave Reviews

With 18 of the country's best-preserved, Donald Ross-designed greens, Brookside Country Club in Canton, Ohio, might have seemed an unlikely candidate for restoration. But thanks to the restraint and interpretive skills of architect Brian Silva, Brookside is now one of America's best-restored Ross layouts from tee to green.

Closed down in the fall of 2003, Brookside reopened for member play this June, minus 600 trees and boasting the vintage, perpendicular fairway bunkering Ross originally designed – much of which had been abandoned since the course opened in 1920. The club held a rededication ceremony for its venerable golf course on August 13.

"The steps taken to upgrade a particular course depend utterly on the quality of the original," says Silva, a partner with Uxbridge, Mass.-based Cornish, Silva & Mungeam, Inc. "At Brookside, the course was 8 on a scale of 10 before we broke ground – Ross at his very best. Accordingly, we carefully 'restored' those elements that had been diminished."

Working with MacCurrach Golf Construction of Jacksonville, Fla., Silva also rebuilt all 18 tee complexes at Brookside and installed a state-of-the-art irrigation system. Yet the bulk of Silva's work in Canton amounted to "restorative re-expansion" – of fairways narrowed by excessive tree-planting programs; of fairway bunkering filled in over time. Silva even restored Brookside's trademark greens to their original parameters, recapturing portions of certain putting surfaces that had disappeared following decades of careless mowing practices.

"Brookside was subject to all the unfortunate evolutionary changes we typically see at clubs of this vintage. It's an old story," says Silva, who has conducted celebrated Ross restorations at classics like Augusta (Ga.) Country Club, Biltmore Forest CC in Asheville, N.C., and Gulfstream GC in Delray Beach, Fla., among others.

"Our work here was a good example of how greens restoration and tree trimming work together. Because they've got such distinct, individualized pin placements, the greens at Brookside were designed to be approached from one side of the fairway or another. But you couldn't do that anymore because many of those fairway areas were located under a tree! The trees at Brookside had encroached so much, many of these choices had been lost. So we restored them, and added nine new acres of fairway in the process."

Brookside superintendent Bob Figurella – a 35-year employee of the club – was initially overawed by the project's scope. "I guess I had no idea how much the golf course would change. Not in my wildest dreams," he recalls. "I was emotionally invested, and it all happened so fast. Hole after hole, area after area. The happiest day of my life was when the sod went back around the bunkers and I could see the finished product coming together. For about six weeks it was all going one way; I'm just not used to being in the dirt business.

"It took me a while to 'get it', but I did. And now that it's done, everybody loves it. I think it's just gorgeous to look at. Brian took away all the trees from behind the greens and the vistas he's created are worth it alone."

More practically, Figurella appreciates the agronomic benefits. "The bunkers are easier to maintain. We don't save time because we do it all by hand, but they look and drain much better. It takes a bit longer to mow the banks, but the look of these bunkers outweighs any inconvenience. Real classy."

Silva's work recapturing lost portions of putting surface also made an impression on Brookside's long-time superintendent. "I like having all the greens with sun on them, I can tell you that. They dry out evenly now. Brian also really opened up the fronts of these greens, which were pinched in by mowing patterns over the years. He made them appear larger. They ARE larger. He recaptured the greens, not just the size but the character.

"Brian's got a real feel for what he's doing," Figurella continued. "It's a tough job: Coming in to an established golf course that most people think is pretty darned good, then tearing it up and doing his thing. Wow! It took me a while to get it. I've been here 34 years and planted a lot of those trees. It took me a while, but finally I got it. And with all these perpendicular bunkers and the way these greens are opened up in front, it's gorgeous. We're getting rave reviews."

Silva has gained a national reputation for infusing his original course designs – Red Tail GC in Devens, Mass.; Black Creek Club in Chattanooga, Tenn. – with the visual and strategic trappings of classic design. He was named GolfWorld magazine's Architect of the Year in 1999 for his work at two Massachusetts originals, Waverly Oaks and Cape Cod National, both of which display a vintage sensibility. derived, in part, from the long list of classic designs Silva has renovated or restored. These include Seminole GC in North Palm Beach, Fla. (Ross); Fox Chapel GC in Pittsburgh and Mountain Lake Club in Lake Wales, Fla. (Seth Raynor); the East Course at Baltimore Country Club (A.W. Tillinghast).

The Long Range Planning Committee at Brookside took all this into account when it choose Silva from a pool of 18 golf course architects.

"Brian has something like 15 Donald Ross renovations under his belt; his references came out extremely well for him," explains Steve Cress, a Brookside member involved in restoration planning from the beginning. "But he was also very direct and honest with the membership, which is a good thing. He told the members, 'This is how it's got to be,' and they understood because we knew he had the experience."

Brookside's rigorous selection procedure was matched by an internal education process waged by the committee in advance of the decision to renovate. "This project is the result of what I like to call 'over-disclosure'," Cress continued. "For two years prior to selecting an architect, we worked with the membership to explain why this work had to be done. We learned from talking to other clubs that one or two members can unduly influence an entire membership, so we broke up the membership into 10 groups of 40 and explained the reasons for restoring the course to each one. This also created an extraordinary level of interest in the project; we had a Donald Ross Day two summers ago and 250 people showed up! When we voted in December of 2002, the measure passed by 100 votes.

"The combination of our education efforts and Brian's candor made it all work. We had done our due diligence. We even took our board members down to Augusta Country Club, which had done the same sort of project we were planning. We played the golf course, sat in the grille room and talked to their members. We learned a lot – like how they wished they had replaced the irrigation system during their renovation. That helped us decide our 27-year-old irrigation system should be replaced in the context of Brian's restoration, which is what Brian had recommended all along."

With original designs and course restorations underway from San Antonio to Boston, Chicago to Palm Beach, Cornish, Silva and Mungeam, Inc. is one of the nation's busiest course architecture firms. The year 2004 will see the re-opening of two more Silva redesigns: Deerwood Country Club in Jacksonville, Fla., and the Ross-designed Mountain Brook Club in Birmingham, Ala. He recently finished a restoration of Seth Raynor's Everglades Club in Palm Beach and will embark on a remake of San Antonio Country Club in 2005.

CSM's attention has also swung to Chicago where Silva's partner, Mark Mungeam, oversaw the renovation/preparation of the North Course at Olympia Fields Country Club for the 20003 U.S. Open; Mungeam's work continues there, on Olympia Field's South Course. On Chicago's North Side, Silva will break ground this year on a new upscale daily-fee in the suburb of Forest Preserve, on the bluffs above Lake Michigan.