Project Notes
Maketewah Country Club was founded in 1910 . Tom Bendelow designed the original course and, in 1919, Donald Ross carried out a redesign that included creating two new holes, the 3rd and 4th, which are still part of the current routing. In 2010, the club hired Brian Silva to create a masterplan that would restore the Ross identity. The $6.5 million project, which was completed in three phases, began in 2012 with work on holes two, four, five and ten, tree removal, and the introduction of a new 2.5-acre short-game area and an indoor practice facility. The second and third phases focused on restoring bunkers and greens, tee work, shifting and expanding fairways, regrassing and eliminating select cart paths.
“This is a layout more like it was in the 1920s and 30s, and it is more fun and aesthetically pleasing,” Silva says. “Maketewah knew there was disguised greatness in the golf course – they knew it could be more interesting.”
The third and final phase began in September 2022 and was completed in May 2023, with the course reopening in June. Work included regrassing tees and fairways with T1/Alpha bentgrass and adding some back tees to increase the course’s back tee distance by 300 yards while shortening the forward tees by 184 yards to make the course more enjoyable for shorter hitters. Bunkers are now reminiscent to those designed by Ross. Twenty-five new fairway bunkers have been built to better frame the holes.
