Ohio Golf Journal August 2019

Championship in May. Hartig’s Carlton Hospitality and Management company is overseeing the rehab at Williamsburg National. “In Williamsburg there’s been a commitment to golf for a long time,’’ said Hartig. “In the 1990s they started expanding, and that led to an overbuilding situation. Recession hit, and courses started changing hands.’’ Michael Strantz was one of the world’s hottest designers in the mid- 1990s. Not only did Strantz design Royal New Kent, but he also is responsible for Caledonia and True Blue in South Carolina, Tobacco Road in North Carolina, Lake Nona in Florida and Monterey Peninsula’s South course in California. The run of great courses stopped when Strantz, only 50 years old, succumbed to cancer in 2005, but these courses assure his legacy in golf lives on. In Royal New Kent, Strantz imagined an Irish-style links course patterned after Royal County Down and Ballybunion. Over 100 bunkers, several blind shots and elevation changes give the course a distinctive and unique look. At Williamsburg National a greens renovation was needed to get the Jamestown course up and running again. The course was seeded with Champion Bermuda, which ensured top playing conditions. Yorktown was designed by Tom Clark, who doesn’t have the world- wide reputation of Nicklaus but has long been a popular architect in the Mid-Atlantic region. The fairways on Yorktown were over-seeded to offer green fairways in the winter. Williamsburg has survived the lean times and now with new ownerships in place, renovated courses and a welcoming atmosphere for golfers, they are the place to take your golf buddies this year.