Architect Brian Ross has been in the golf business long enough to have worked on many courses with many talented designers. Yet when he and his partner, Jeffrey Stein, were offered the chance to revive a long-forgotten Walter Travis layout on the dunes of coastal Georgia, he didn’t hesitate.
“That was one of the main motivations for taking this position,” Ross said at the recent grand reopening of the Great Dunes Golf Club, which bears the same name as when it began in 1928; the design was Travis’s last, three times American amateurs champion, completed just after his death.
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“Travis hasn’t taken a lot of classes, and he certainly hasn’t done a lot of classes for the public,” Ross said. “He mainly worked for rich private clubs – Garden City Golf Club being the most famous – so bringing back one of his rare public creations was both an honor and a heavy responsibility. We think we made him proud.”
The original Great Dunes spanned rugged seaside terrain, offering stunning views of the Atlantic. But like many courses of its era, it did not last. The storms of 1942 and 1954, combined with constant beach erosion, reduced it to nine holes. After decades of further wear and tear, even this remnant was eventually incorporated into another local arrangement and then acquired by the State of Georgia.
The restoration – a more than six million dollar job that began in 2024 – relied heavily on archival photographs to recapture Travis’ original look: the bold dunes and scruffy sandscapes, the rolling contours and ocean views. The team also resurfaced the course in paspalum grass from tee to green, a choice well suited to the island’s climate.
With the help of archival photographs… courtesy of the great dunes
…Great Dunes has returned to its roots. Austin Kaseman
“At ground level today, the terrain may appear flatter than it was,” Stein said. “But old photographs, taken from dunes and bridges, revealed the undulations and green shapes originally drawn by Travis.”
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The result is not Pool-a recreation of the 1928 design, reproduced to within fractions of an inch. But Ross and Stein say it unmistakably bears Travis’ imprint, on a scale most public golfers have never experienced.
“It was a big challenge and a big responsibility,” Ross said. “It was also a lot of fun.”
To guide the work, the duo consulted with the Walter Travis Society as well as local historians on Jekyll Island, which is owned by the state of Georgia. In their research, Ross discovered that Travis – an Australian who also won the British Amateur – had designed only three public courses: Great Dunes, Potomac Park East in Washington, DC and a layout in Buffalo, NY.
The island’s historic hotel, with its iconic rounded turrets, opened in the early 1900s and once hosted some of the country’s wealthiest travelers. The Travis course followed soon after, featuring features such as towering dunes, sandy blowouts and long ocean looks.
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The new Great Dunes preserves the period spirit of the route, with modern improvements. For example, it is the first course in Georgia to irrigate with a brackish water system designed to reduce fresh water use, limit chemicals and minimize environmental impact. A new wildlife corridor, built along a former railway line near the route, has also brought new species to the property.
Now open to the public, the layout plays 7,014 yards from the back tees and 4,818 yards from the front markers, a par-72 that roughly reflects what Travis envisioned for the oceanfront playing field a century ago.
“We want to have college tournaments, community events, public plays and local island memberships,” said Mark Williams, executive director of the Jekyll Island Authority. “We have the impression of having gone back to the future with this arrangement.”
The position How this long-forgotten classic from the Golden Age is reborn in Georgia appeared first on Golf.
