'Completed' At Last, Lookout Mountain Club Golf Course Reopens To Dramatic Changes

Almost a century after plans for a golf course on Lookout Mountain were first drawn, the vision conceived in 1925 will finally arrive at its glorious completion this week.

The Lookout Mountain Club has carved a unique niche in golf over its rich history, a mountain-top layout that was known as much for its illustrious membership as it was for its challenging layout and mystifying greens.

But thanks to a fortuitous discovery that connected the golf course to its historic origins coupled with visionary leadership among the members, Lookout Mountain Club is poised to make an even greater impact for years to come.

With the much-anticipated unveiling of the course being staged on Saturday, the course hearkens back to the grandeur renowned golf course architect Seth Raynor had in mind when he completed his original plans.

Behind the creative artistry of architects Tyler Rae and Kyle Franz, the Lookout Mountain Club has been transformed into a stunning layout that retains the original routing but is a breath-taking restoration that will surely bring national acclaim to the storied club.

“I think if it garners the attention and recognition it deserves, it could be transformational for the club for the next 100 years and the same for my career for the foreseeable future,” Rae said. “Personally, it’s been a blessing and a curse to have the project in my portfolio. It will be likely one of the most rewarding in my career but quite possibly the hardest and most mentally taxing project one could imagine. There were too many evenings where I had the bulldozer lights on trying to finish a green, bunker or tiny detail before complete darkness took over.”

The course restoration has already gained national recognition without a single round being played, according to Lookout Mountain Club president Barton Mathews.

“The golf course we’re about to open has moved up to No. 6 in GOLF.com’s rankings for the state of Georgia without a ball being hit,” Mathews said. “When you walk onto the golf course for the first time, it will stop you in your tracks.”

Raynor was working as a surveyor when he was tasked with overseeing the construction of National Golf Links in Southampton, New York in 1911 by Charles Blair Macdonald. Macdonald is considered father of American golf course design with many of his works tracing their roots back to historical holes he researched in Scotland and the British Isles. He created a repertoire of his favorite 22 template holes that were patterned after classic designs he discovered during his time in the United Kingdom.

Raynor took over Macdonald’s practice in 1914, designing more than 85 courses over 13 years including six creations ranked among the Top 100 U.S. Courses according to GOLF.com. Raynor had the unique ability to fit each course into the natural landscape, incorporating vast amounts of earth-moving while creating strategic bunkering and green complexes that required thoughtful navigation by the golfer.

But his project on Lookout Mountain would be his last. Raynor died of pneumonia in 1926 at the age of 51, only ten weeks after drafting his final plans for a course then known as Fairyland Golf Club. His death served as the first setback in a series of challenges that delayed Raynor’s original dream from becoming a reality.

The golf course was intended to be the focal point of a mountain top resort headed by Garnet Carter featuring a luxury hotel. But the development never gained traction for multiple reasons – the unforeseen challenges of building a golf course on top of solid rock, torrential rains during construction as the course was being seeded, the onset of the Great Depression, and the hotel plans being tabled when a hurricane leveled the Miami-based developer’s flagship location.

Construction was completed by Raynor’s partner, Charles Banks, but it never achieved the desired acclaim without Raynor’s oversight and expertise. It is believed that the project was the second most expensive golf course built during that time, and Banks did the best he could to finish the project despite the setbacks.

The course struggled during the early years, kept afloat by the financial generosity of several families who remain members today. Gas rationing during World War II limited mowing to only small circular greens that paled in comparison to Raynor’s expansive design, becoming dome-shaped over the years due to annual top-dressing with sand. But the course managed to survive and membership grew as the community flourished following the war.

A critical piece of history was discovered in the 1950s when a framed copy of Raynor’s original plan was discovered in a storage room of one of the members. It was donated to the club in 1990 which sparked a movement to connect the golf course to its historical past. Doug Stein and the late King Oehmig spearheaded a handful of loyalists who visited other classic Raynor designs during an era where restoration of historical golf courses began gaining traction.

Inspired to bring Raynor’s original plans to life, the club commissioned architect Brian Silva to oversee the addition of 70 fairway bunkers and renovation of two greens in 1998. Several years later, a master plan was developed by another rising star in golf course design, Gil Hanse, and incorporated into the club’s by-laws in 2009. But completing the restoration was tabled as the nation was navigating through an economic meltdown.

The tireless initiative of Stein and Oehmig had led the transformation of the golf course into something akin to Raynor’s intentions, but the full restoration remained unfinished. When Oehmig died unexpectedly in 2015, it appeared the pair’s two-decade pursuit had fallen short of their dreams.

But the decision in 2017 to unify the Lookout Mountain Golf Club and the neighboring social, swimming and tennis counterpart, the Fairyland Club, created a breakthrough. The entities had long operated independently of each other, but the streamlined operations created an opportunity for leadership to cast a vision for the future of both institutions.

“The merger between the two clubs was the shift that changed how the club operated,” Mathews said. “Caroline Williams did an amazing job as club president, and she and others came up with this master plan to renovate the golf course and the Fairyland Club and were able to get the capital campaign approved. They deserve all the credit.”

At the same time, the Covid pandemic created a renewed interest in golf and a number of young families were moving from large cities and relocating to Lookout Mountain to improve their quality of life.

“It couldn’t happen at a better time as we began to invest in our country club. Timing was the best thing we had going for us,” Mathews said.

Hanse had become a big name in course design circles by this time, having completed the 2016 Olympic course in Brazil, overseeing the recent revisions done at The Honors Course and is credited with work done at Los Angeles Country Club in preparation for the recent U.S. Open. With his schedule booked for years, Hanse recommended Rae and Franz as future stars in the realm of course restorations.

“There were many compelling factors why we took this job, but the big coincidence goes back nearly twenty years,” Rae said. “I first heard of the Lookout Mountain back in 2006 when the club was ironically searching at that time for an architect to sort of lead them in a restorative direction. Doug Stein called golf architect Keith Foster’s office and I picked up the phone. I was a design assistant for Keith for three years in the early 2000’s and I remember looking into the course and its historical background.

“The phone call with Doug was very interesting and really opened my eyes up to Seth Raynor and his designs. I soon began to seek out every Raynor I could from 2006 onward. Fast forward to 2021 when Lookout Mountain called my design office while in search of a new firm to lead them into the future. I knew everything about the club and felt it was serendipitous - like I had already received this call in another lifetime of sorts. The best part of all was that on the other end of phone it was the same guy from 2006, Doug Stein.”

Rae had visited nearly all of the approximate 50 Raynor courses still in existence, and he knew the significance of the template holes such as “Eden”, “Short”, “Biarritz”, “Alps”, “Redan” and “Road Hole” that had been part of the original plans. That knowledge has been infused into the final product at Lookout Mountain, connecting the course to historical Scottish roots.

The small, circular greens have been converted into a portfolio of swaying contours that have been expanded by 50-percent on average from their predecessors.

“The greens and putting surfaces will be shocking at first to the membership and players,” Rae said. “But once they acclimate to them, I think they’ll be very proud of them and view them as one of the grandest sets ever sculpted in America.”

The removal of most of the trees that had grown over the decades once again gives the course a true links course feeling that Raynor desired, opening up panoramic vistas not enjoyed by the membership in years. Much attention was also given to the bunkers, increasing the size by more than 50,000 square feet while incorporating geometric shapes with squared edges that Rae believes embraces the spirit of Raynor’s early intentions.

“We were fortunate to have an even rarer gift, and that was having an actual Raynor master plan for the golf course dated circa 1925,” Rae said. “This provided the road map for the “completion” as we call it. It’s even more grand than a restoration, it’s a completion. Thus, with that said, it will be 99-percent or so faithful to the Raynor design from 1925.”

Rae and Franz were met with many unforeseen obstacles since construction began last summer. Unlike Banks during the original construction nearly a century ago, they were able to navigate past the potential setbacks.

“We had numerous challenges such as material deliveries and trucking up an 1,800-foot mountain, fuel and material pricing fluctuations, tree work and felling a vast amount of timber, a very cold winter snap during the holidays and New Year that nearly killed all the newly laid and seeded turfgrass. This was simply an arduous mountain site that was unrelenting,” Rae said.

The completion will bring full circle the original vision of Raynor. It will also create a sense of pride and validation to a membership that has long been associated with golfing excellence.

“When you look at the history of the course, you realize there were some members who were core and had the heart and the love to support it through some difficult times,” Mathews said. “Lookout is different from a historic and cultural side than any other club. Just look at Doug and King’s story and their unrelenting commitment. Think of the legendary golfers who have come through here who were always proud to claim Lookout as their home course. This place is so unique, and now we’re poised to embark on a fabulous next chapter in the club’s history.”

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Paul Payne can be emailed at paulpayne6249@gmail.com