Fore Golfers Network Episode 152: Golf Course Design Insights with Dana Fry & Jason Straka
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Fore Golfers Network Episode 152: Golf Course Design Insights with Dana Fry & Jason Straka

Welcome to the FORE GOLFERS NETWORK Podcast, Episode 152 - dedicated to a discussion of golf course design. Our special guests are the popular design duo of Dana Fry and Jason Straka. Their work is on display around the country and around the globe, and their passion for the game comes blasting through in this wide ranging conversation.

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Climbing the Hill: Calusa Pines
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Climbing the Hill: Calusa Pines

We hear stories of people in all walks of life who chase their dreams, overcome adversity and achieve moments of triumph. These stories provide us with inspiration to tackle our own challenges. To go one large step further, what about a person who stares death in the face while simultaneously working to build something great enough to outlive them? That is the kind of example that stops us in our tracks as if to ask, “What is your excuse for not living your best life today?” Just such a story unfolded outside of Naples, FL, at Calusa Pines Golf Club, and continues today with a vibrant membership, a beautiful golf course, and a surprisingly tall hill.

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Matt Ginella and Jason Straka talk golf course architecture

Matt Ginella and Jason Straka talk golf course architecture

New golf course construction has slowed way down in the last decade or so. Brand new courses are still coming online, though, and one of the most acclaimed openings from 2018 was the South Course at Arcadia Bluffs in Michigan. Matt Ginella recently spoke with golf course architect Jason Straka of Fry/Straka Global Golf Course Design, the firm responsible for the South Course. The architects drew inspiration from one of the world’s greatest courses, but this project was not without risk.

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Arcadia Bluffs South Course – A True Modern Classic

Arcadia Bluffs South Course – A True Modern Classic

Thankfully, public golfers now have another opportunity to play the sort of course Macdonald and Raynor would have designed, the South Course at Arcadia Bluffs, at the resort of the same name in northern Michigan. When pictures of the new layout—a mile inland from the resort’s tremendously popular first course, which fronts Lake Michigan and was designed nearly 20 years ago by Warren Henderson and Rick Smith—began appearing last year, the reaction was almost universal shock and astonishment at the rectangular bunkers cut into wide, straight-edge fairways or bordering huge, square greens, geometric features common to Macdonald/Raynor courses.

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