Paul Bunyan

Today the forestry official was out to mark trees for cutting. Poland’s Paul Bunyan will be here next Thursday to begin falling trees.

Tomek and Martin were out staking centerlines and cutting brush outside the fairway on the second hole (not in straight lines), so the wild ones will be able to find their ball and slash it forward through the trees with ease.

The fairways at Sand Valley will be wide, you could say like Augusta National once was, and so many of the great courses once were. With width about a dozen bunkers will be strategically placed centrally in the fairway. This will make the golfers think a bit before hitting, and create multiple ways to attack the hole.

The only bone of contention is the bunker style. Some want clean, grass faced pits among our rugged naturalness (the remainder of the bunkers and wastes constructed are raw and natural in style.) I prefer the idea of continuing the raw natural bunker theme throughout the course; creating these central bunkers to look totally individual, a variety of shapes, sizes, and forms, with bursts of long grass here and there. They would fit into the folds and rolls of the land more seamlessly, though the grass faced pits would be much easier on Yours Truly, taking a fraction of the time to design and build.