The 2024 golf season promises a banner summer of grand openings and unveilings of exciting projects in Michigan, Illinois and New Jersey completed by Raymond Hearn, ASGCA.
Hearn is the president and founder of Raymond Hearn Golf Course Designs, Inc., based in Holland, Mich., an award-winning company that is celebrating 28 years of golf course architecture, master planning, restoration and renovation artistry.
This year the company will also celebrate grand openings and unveilings with a bevy of outstanding clients. At each Club, Hearn worked with many outstanding Team members. These projects include:
- At the prestigious Saint John’s Resort in Plymouth, Mich., great anticipation has been building for the spring grand opening of the new 18-hole championship Cardinal Golf Course. The opening also includes the unveiling of the Little Cardinal, a unique 7-hole par 3 course, as well as a two-acre Cardinal Putting Course. It’s the first new golf course development in Southeast Michigan in the last 20 years. Early reviews indicate elevated expectations are warranted for the new golf addition to the highly respected AAA 4 Diamond luxury resort located just minutes from Detroit’s Metropolitan Airport.
- At The Highlands Resort located in Harbor Springs, Mich., Hearn’s restoration of an array of Ross classics on the Donald Ross Memorial Golf Course will be a spring highlight for the Boyne Adidas State Pro Am tournament at the popular Northern Michigan resort. Also, later in the season the highly anticipated Doon Brae Par-3 course will open when the final grow-in conditions meet Boyne’s high agronomic standards. The par 3 gem will feature unique green complexes inspired by great green complexes around the world that Ray Hearn and the Boyne team have experienced.
- In Whitehall, Mich., on the west side of the state, the historic 1916 White Lake Golf Club will unveil Hearn’s dramatic transformation of hole’s 3 and 4. Already regarded as one of the most significant transformations in the state, the new holes feature a Golden Age look and feel surrounded by massive and stunning new natural sand waste areas.
- In Jackson, N.J., four years of restoration and renovation work at the highly regarded Metedeconk National Golf Club, a Robert Trent Jones Sr. masterpiece, has been completed. Significant improvements to the course’s bunkers, fairway grass lines and the tee complexes on all 27 holes were made on the classic course, which will host the Korn Ferry Tour’s Magnit Championship this summer for the second time. Hearn and the club membership feel strategy and shot value on each hole were significantly enhanced.
- The Lincolnshire Fields Country Club in Champaign, Ill. is a Larry Packard classic design, and Hearn’s firm assisted the club with a dramatic bunker remodeling project that increased shot value and strategy while adding increased aesthetics. Hearn reports it was achieved with a bunker surface area reduction of 30 percent, which he said was a challenging task that his company successfully achieved.
- “I wake up as excited every morning as I did when I started the company in 1996,” Hearn said. “That has not changed, but this year will be especially exciting. It’s the kind of year you hope to have every year with great course grand openings and unveilings.”
- Hearn feels his company has developed a national reputation for their new design, restoration and renovation work and a well-earned trust factor over the years, which allows summers like 2024 to unfold. “It equates to projects that progress quickly because of the trust and that bears fruit for each club and my company,” he said. “It’s a great honor and privilege to be in this profession. My job is also my passion and grand opening days showcase that and so much more. It is so rewarding to see clients pleased with the outcomes we work to achieve. We take immense pride in meeting and exceeding the expectations of our clients.”
- Raymond Hearn Golf Course Design’s ongoing projects this year will yield more exciting debuts. More project updates can be found on the company’s website, www.rhgd.com,