MyTurn
by JIM DUCIBELLA
New life for a Strantz gem
A rejuvenated Royal New Kent is expected to reopen in 2019
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tor at RNK in the days of the Crown Royal
Open, Sullivan has vast previous experience
in management.
“I’ve been at some nice courses, but this
is the best golf course, the best designed
course, I’ve ever been at,” he said. “The
good news is that at a time when so many
courses are closing, we’re bringing Royal
New Kent back.”
In December, Sullivan estimated that 20
or more workers were tending to the course
daily. Wingfield has brought in around 2,000
tons of pure white sand and used it to fill the
bunkers to the top of the lips—but not before
engaging in a somewhat unique subterra-
nean restoration.
Crews laid down porous cement under
the bunkers, topped with five inches of sand.
When it rains the water will seep through
the sand and the cement with no washout.
That should alleviate past rain-related bun-
ker maintenance issues.
Old drainage pipes were pulled out
and replaced, the irrigation system has
a new pump station and all 120 inlets
were rebuilt for better overall drain-
age. The overgrown native areas were
mowed down, allowing fescue to pop up
and Strantz’s native-area ridges and rock
walls to reawaken.
Finally, the greens were changed from
Bent to champion Bermuda grass, the better
to withstand the summer blister. That was
done early in the process, and the greens
spent the winter covered with tarps.
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After years of disrepair and neglect, Royal New Kent
is getting a shot at becoming a destination course.
Sullivan isn’t expecting Royal New Kent
to be home to 300 local members. Rather,
he said, he envisions it to be a destination
course, a bucket-list item for players perhaps
on a junket to the Pinehursts of the world.
Last April, the Pamunkey Indian Tribe
secured 600 acres of land in the county,
about 30 minutes east of Richmond. That
same month, Chicago-based Revolutionary
Racing paid more than $20 million to pur-
chase the shuttered Colonial Downs race
track, buoyed by the General Assembly’s
decision to allow new, slots-like betting
terminals that could possibly generate sub-
stantial enough revenue to help support
the track.
Wingfield also owns or operates the
neighboring Golf Club at Brickshire, a Curtis
Strange-Tom Clark collaboration, and Rees
Jones-designed The Club at Viniterra.
Wingfield will be able to offer golfers
three excellent, diverse challenges a short
distance apart. Put it all together and res-
urrecting Royal New Kent seems like less
of a gamble and more of an opportunity to
reprise the excitement that accompanied
the course two decades ago.
vsga.org
I
t’s about time there was a refresh-
ing, uplifting chapter in the Mike
Strantz story.
If you’re not familiar with Strantz,
in 2002, he was named one of the top
10 greatest golf course architects of all time
by GolfWeek magazine. His resume consist-
ed of all of eight original designs, including
Virginia’s Stonehouse and Royal New Kent.
Both were named “best new upscale public
course” by Golf Digest upon their arrival in
1996 and 1997, respectively.
However, in 2005, at age 50, Strantz died
of cancer.
Fast-forward a dozen years. By the end of
2017, Stonehouse and Royal New Kent were
considered lost causes. Royal New Kent,
Strantz’s homage to Irish seaside links Royal
County Down and Ballybunion, had a drain-
age system that didn’t drain, native areas
that were overrun by prickly bushes and wild
weeds and cavernous bunkers whose lips
were grassed in and defined bald.
But then the unimaginable happened.
Wingfield Golf Management Services pur-
chased Royal New Kent and set about restor-
ing it the way Strantz intended.
That meant hiring two of Strantz’s orig-
inal shapers to reprise their work, and con-
sulting with Strantz’s widow, Heidi, who pro-
vided Wingfield with many of her husband’s
original drawings.
And in November, that meant hiring Chip
Sullivan to be the club’s general manager
and director of golf. A frequent competi-