Stowe Country Club Breaks Ground on Multi-Year Golf Course Renovation Project By Brian Weis

Stowe Country Club Breaks Ground on Multi-Year Golf Course Renovation Project

Beau Welling Design leads wide-ranging golf and campus improvements.

By Brian Weis

Stowe Country Club (SCC), the scenic golf course in the heart of Stowe, broke ground on an extensive renovation project on May 2, 2024.
Directed by Beau Welling Design (BWD), the project will feature noteworthy renovations to both the 18-hole course as well as other amenities which will result in an elevated playing experience for the club's membership.

"As a design team, we are collaborators at heart, and we are excited to be working alongside Stowe Country Club to breathe new life into one of the best golf courses in the region," says Beau Welling, Founder and CEO of Beau Welling Design. "This project will make the golf course more approachable for the average player while retaining the precise challenge that members and guests have enjoyed for over 70 years. We're honored to play a role in refreshing this historic club to be enjoyed by the current membership and generations to come."

While the footprint of the golf course will largely remain the same, the improvements will elevate all facets of the course-from new and improved tees to new and differently shaped green complexes. The goal of the redesign is to create a more consistent and playable course while offering more challenges for advanced players. Led by Welling and BWD Senior Design Associate Chase Webb, the renovation will improve the playability of the course for the less experienced player while focusing on strategy and challenging the lower handicap golfer. Additional structural changes will also improve the environmental sustainability of the golf course to protect the future of the renowned club.

Some additional major improvements and updates to the course include:
* Renovation of all greens that will also enhance approaches and surrounds to promote creativity and fun.
* Shape and re-grade select fairways to enhance playability and reward quality shots.
* Thoughtfully replace and modernize all fairway and greenside bunkers.
* Enhance turf quality from tee to green with a complete re-grassing of all fairways utilizing bentgrass for greens, tees, and fairways as well as integrating a Kentucky bluegrass and fescue blend for rough areas.
* Add length where possible, emphasizing approach angles to challenge experienced golfers while ensuring playability for all skill levels.
* Complete a long-term tree plan to ensure consistent turf conditions throughout the property and further highlight the beautiful long-range vistas and movement of the golf terrain in every direction.
* Dramatically expand the beautiful fescue stands throughout the property.
* Improve drainage on every hole, focusing on known problem areas.
* Secure the water future and sustainability of the golf course through a new irrigation system, pump station, and the addition of a supplemental river pump.
* To ensure that golf play and practice is always available to the membership and the Stowe community, the renovation project will take place in two parts with construction on the front nine holes in 2024 and the back nine targeted for renovation in 2025.

Beyond the golf course renovation, Beau Welling Design assisted the club with campus planning that includes an entirely new golf facilities area, practice area, expanded amenities and a future residential community. "We are thrilled to partner with Beau and his team to create one of the best private clubs in northern New England, right here in Stowe," remarks Sam Gaines, President and CEO of Mt. Mansfield Company, the developer of Stowe Country Club. "These dramatic golf course improvements to Stowe Country Club, when combined with our spectacular Mountain Course at Spruce Peak, will create one of the most unique and diverse 36-hole experiences for members and guests."

The renovation also kicks off a unique new membership program in Stowe. SCC intends to create a four-season community-oriented club centered around golf, racquet sports, fitness/pool, and dining.
While there are exciting amenities planned on-site that Stowe Country Club members will enjoy in the future, members have been provided interim benefits at The Club at Spruce Peak, including the 18-hole Bob Cupp-designed Mountain Course and its facilities. Members of The Club at Spruce Peak will continue to receive full access to Stowe Country Club.
"It's an exciting time for our Membership," says Michael Harger, General Manager of Stowe Country Club and The Club at Spruce Peak. "So many of us have a vested interest in this historic course, and it's been a thrilling process to lay the groundwork for the next generation of golf enthusiasts in the Stowe community."

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Revised: 05/13/2024 - Article Viewed 1,662 Times - View Course Profile

About: Brian Weis

Brian Weis is the mastermind behind GolfTrips.com, a vast network of golf travel and directory sites covering everything from the rolling fairways of Wisconsin to the sunbaked desert layouts of Arizona. If there’s a golf destination worth visiting, chances are, Brian has written about it, played it, or at the very least, found a way to justify a "business trip" there.

As a card-carrying member of the Golf Writers Association of America (GWAA), International Network of Golf (ING), Golf Travel Writers of America (GTWA), International Golf Travel Writers Association (IGTWA), and The Society of Hickory Golfers (SoHG), Brian has the credentials to prove that talking about golf is his full-time job. In 2016, his peers even handed him The Shaheen Cup, a prestigious award in golf travel writing—essentially the Masters green jacket for guys who don’t hit the range but still know where the best 19th holes are.

Brian’s love for golf goes way back. As a kid, he competed in junior and high school golf, only to realize that his dreams of a college golf scholarship had about the same odds as a 30-handicap making a hole-in-one. Instead, he took the more practical route—working on the West Bend Country Club grounds crew to fund his University of Wisconsin education. Little did he know that mowing greens and fixing divots would one day lead to a career writing about the best courses on the planet.

In 2004, Brian turned his golf passion into a business, launching GolfWisconsin.com. Three years later, he expanded his vision, and GolfTrips.com was born—a one-stop shop for golf travel junkies looking for their next tee time. Today, his empire spans all 50 states, and 20+ international destinations.

On the course, Brian is a weekend warrior who oscillates between a 5 and 9 handicap, depending on how much he's been traveling (or how generous he’s feeling with his scorecard). His signature move" A high, soft fade that his playing partners affectionately (or not-so-affectionately) call "The Weis Slice." But when he catches one clean, his 300+ yard drives remind everyone that while he may write about golf for a living, he can still send a ball into the next zip code with the best of them.

Whether he’s hunting down the best public courses, digging up hidden gems, or simply outdriving his buddies, Brian Weis is living proof that golf is more than a game—it’s a way of life.