Fry/Straka going big at Union League National

Below are excerpts from an article that originally appeared in Golf Course Industry.

With 23 holes down and four to go, the new incarnation of Union League National Golf Club, designed by Fry/Straka Global Golf Course Design, would normally be looking at a grand reopening sometime in late 2022. But the golf course never fully closed, and architects Dana Fry and Jason Straka don’t anticipate their ambitious re-vegetation effort to conclude until 2024.

“Nothing about Union League National is normal,” Fry said. “Traditionally, a project that takes that long — we broke ground in 2018 — drives a membership crazy. But we phased our work approximately nine holes at a time, so 18 of the 27 holes have always been open for play. Psychologically, that approach was more clever than we knew: Because the membership here watched The Big Fill slowly emerge, then completely transform their golf course property.”

Any discussion of Union League National begins with The Big Fill, a large-scale earthmoving effort — more than 1.6 million cubic yards in scope — that Fry/Straka created at the center of the 268-acre parcel. It rises to 78 feet above sea level, 56 feet above the original grade. However, its tendrils spread out hundreds of yards in half a dozen directions. The man-made ridgelines slowly but elegantly taper down, only to rise again and form new, smaller plateaus, from which other distinct ridge networks splinter off into the landscape.

“All these ridges are like the arteries a human body,” Fry said. “By the time we finished with the major earthwork, the largest section of The Big Fill accommodated eight tee complexes, nine green complexes and parts of seven fairways. It’s that massive: 78 feet high in places. It covers 45 acres! In the same way an architect blends surrounding contours into a single green complex, we are blending an entire routing into the contours we created via The Big Fill.

“Why do we carry those ridgelines out so far? Because that’s part of what makes man-made earth shaping look natural. The other part relies on vegetation. The aesthetic and environmental vision for this property would never be fulfilled without Jason’s understanding of the agronomics, the plantings, the aquatic plants, the soil biology.”

According to Straka, the sitting president of the American Society of Golf Course Architects, “From the forward tees to the greens, most of the fairways at Union League are at — or three to five feet below — natural grade, with a native-rough edge. We specified 13 different species of native grasses, ground covers and shrubs, plus dozens of wetland plant varieties, to create a rugged Pine Valley look, and to control erosion. Additionally, thousands of oak, cedar and pine trees were planted or relocated to connect the existing tree lines and those native edges to The Big Fill itself. We worked very hard and conducted all sorts of site walks with ecologists, across southern New Jersey, to get these plantings just right. We even took the construction team to Pine Valley to ensure we got the look and plant management ethos just right.”

Click here to read the full article on golfcourseindustry.com.