News & Notes from the USA #2

. . . Is Billy Casper Golf embarrassed to admit that it manages municipal courses? Last week the company inked a contract to take over three golf properties owned by Prince William County, Virginia. An account of the transaction noted that Casper now has more than 125 courses in its portfolio, 70 of them municipal tracks. Among the latter are golf properties owned by the Chicago Park District, the Cook County (Illinois) Forest Preserve District, and the cities of Philadelphia, Cincinnati, Knoxville, and Tulsa. But Casper doesn't call them “municipal” courses. In fact, I can't find even a single use of the word municipal on the company's website. Instead, Casper lumps its municipal holdings into a group named “multi-course golf portfolios” and indirectly refers to them as “affordable, daily-fee courses.” What gives? In recent years, no golf course operator has been more adept at winning municipal contracts. Why isn't Casper proud to say so?

. . . Los Angeles County is the latest U.S. municipality to raise its golf fees. Since the beginning of the year, dozens of towns and cities from coast to coast have added a dollar or two to their greens fees -- a clear indication that the price of a round of golf has bottomed out and the era of cut-rate pricing is about to end. In L. A. County, the new rates take effect this month.

. . . Sometimes it seems that the only golf courses being built in America today are so-called minimalist courses. The next one set to make an appearance, probably on Memorial Day, is Awarii Dunes, a Jim Engh-desigened track in Kearney, Nebraska. A local newspaper has described it as “Engh’s vision of Irish golf.” The course's owner, Kent Freudenberg, whispered sweet nothings into a reporter's ear -- he said that Engh “found a golf course instead of building it” -- but he correctly noted that “a lot of people are excited about this style of golf.” As for Engh, well, the opening of Awarii Dunes officially closes the book on his current slate of U.S. commissions. He's said to have other courses in the works in China, Mexico, and the Canary Islands.

. . . Speaking of minimalist golf, Jim Urbina -- fresh off his contributions to Bandon Dunes' acclaimed Old Macdonald course -- has hung out his own shingle in suburban Denver, Colorado. His first solo commission: he's overseeing a restoration of the A. W. Tillinghast-designed golf course at the former Dellwood Country Club in New City, New York. Urbina, part of the new breed of architects who hand-crafts his work -- he apprenticed with Pete Dye and was graduated by the University of Tom Doak -- says that he intends to “bring back the expanse, the broad views, and beauty” of Tillinghast's course. “When it's done,” he said in a press release, it's “going to open people's eyes.” Dellwood was sold in 2009 and is now called Paramount Country Club, mostly because it was originally built by movie mogul Adolph Zukor, the founder of -- you guessed it -- Paramount Pictures. The makeover begins as soon as weather will allow.

. . . Entertainment Weekly recently asked actor Michael Weatherly what he likes to carry in his back pocket. “A knife wrapped in a comic book,” came the reply. A symbol of our times, or a sign of a pending apocalypse?