Rulewich on the Rise,
Charlotte Area Courses Battle Drought

CHARLOTTE, N.C. (August 28, 2002) - If Roger Rulewich doesn't watch it, he's going to blow his cover. The former Robert Trent Jones protégé designed almost the entire RTJ Golf Trail in Alabama while somehow remaining cloaked in anonymity. He crafted a stunning layout at Grande Dunes Country Club in Myrtle Beach, a Golf Magazine Top Ten You Can Play for 2001, designed Golfweek's highest rated public course in Connecticut in Fox Hopyard, and yet most golfers don't know Roger Rulewich from Roger Rabbit.

But a major remodeling project in Hilton Head and a 54-hole expansion of the RTJ Golf Trail should end Rulewich's ability to walk down the street of golf course architecture without being recognized.

The word out of Rulewich's office is that his firm - the Roger Rulewich Group - has been selected to design two new facilities for the Retirement Systems of Alabama: Shannon Valley, near the existing Oxmoor Valley facility, and Hunter Pointe in Muscle Shoals. Shannon Valley has been tagged as a future tournament site, while Hunter Pointe and its proposed East and West course will join the Trail's other multi-course facilities.

"The largest complex of golf is still growing, but not without careful site selection to give us a chance to top what we've already done," says Rulewich.

This time, however, the "we" is Rulewich's firm and not that of his mentor. Despite his tireless design work as Jones' senior associate on the existing 21 courses, Shannon Valley and Hunter Pointe will be Rulewich's first actual design credits on the Trail.

"The people that need to know that I was heavily involved with the Trail know, and that is what is important," Rulewich told TravelGolf.com in an exclusive interview earlier this summer. "Those people are potential clients and my peers."

So far, his peers and the press are well aware of what Rulewich is doing at the RTJ Course at Palmetto Dunes in Hilton Head. A $3 million renovation has the venerable course poised to re-emerge as one of the best on the island. The Greenwood Development Group, Palmetto Dunes' parent company, had what amounted to a "no-brainer" when it came to tap an architect for the redesign of the resort's first course. Rulewich was just a rookie in the field when he joined up with Jones in the late 1960's, but he vividly recalls Jones designing and constructing the Lowcountry layout.

"Although the course routing will not change, we have been able to take those natural elements and amplify their presence, by expanding or adding lakes and lagoons, offering enhanced playability and beauty to the course," Rulewich says. "Two of the most significant transformations are the raising of the green eight feet on the signature, oceanfront par-five 10th hole to allow for a more panoramic view of the beach and ocean and the addition of permanent Junior Tees."

The course is slated to reopen in the next couple weeks, and golfers will find reshaped and restructured tee boxes, greens and bunkers, elevated and reshaped fairways, and improved drainage. Rulewich and his crew also made some significant changes in the contouring of the course and added a series of lagoons to present players with more strategic options. The course has also been lengthened approximately 200 yards.

Charlotte Courses Battle Drought, Prepare for Fall

Ask local golfers to conjure up an image of their favorite Charlotte golf course, and they may describe to you a swath of barren, cracked earth punctuated by a parched, bentgrass green. Okay, it's not that bad at local courses in and around the Queen City this summer, but the ongoing drought has taken its toll on nearly every facility, daily fee and private. Almost every course has its own private water source, but the sheer lack of rainfall is leaving fairways from Monroe to Gastonia browned out and thirsty.

The question staring most courses in the face as fall approaches is whether or not to overseed fairways with winter rye. Older courses with more mature Bermuda grass have typically overseeded in the past, providing players with a green playing surface through the fall and winter months. But the drought's effect on the hardy Bermuda, coupled with high costs for overseeding, has some courses resigned to dormancy.

"We don't overseed out here because the course just isn't mature enough and we don't want to risk it," says Tim Mervosh, director of golf at Stonebridge Golf Club in Mineral Springs.

Mervosh says that Stonebridge will aerify its bentgrass greens in mid-September, and that fairways and tee boxes should go dormant by early to mid October. The exception at the Rich Osborne designed track are the boxes for the championship tees, which are bentgrass.

Sonny Weeks, head professional at the Olde Sycamore Golf Club in Charlotte, reports that his Tom Jackson designed layout will not be overseeded this year, but that the greens have already been aerified and should be in prime condition within the next two weeks.

"The greens should be the best in Charlotte come September," Weeks says. "We've gotten some rain out here and the course is in excellent shape."

• Hilton Head Island Course Guide • Carolina Golf • Myrtle Beach Golf • Brunswick County Golf

The majority of Charlotte's daily fee and private golf clubs use Bermuda grass on fairways and tee boxes and bentgrass on greens. The Bermuda thrives in the hot weather and requires very little rainfall to maintain its bright green hue. The challenge for local superintendents is to maintain the cool weather bentgrass during the hot, humid months of July, August and September.

One course that seems to have defied the elements is the Warrior Golf Club in China Grove. Perched on the banks of Lake Wright, the Warrior is sporting some of the best conditions in the Piedmont. The Stan Gentry designed track is green from tee to green, and director of golf Brian Lee says the course has had one of its best summers to date.

"We just haven't been affected (by the drought) like some of the others," Lee says. "We've gotten a splash of rain here and there and it's been enough to keep the fairways green."