Dalhousie climbs to state's top spot

In this photo from the spring of 2005, golfers played the 14th hole at the Dalhousie Golf Course in southwest Cape Girardeau. Golf Digest's ranking of golf courses, released on Friday, had Dalhousie positioned as the No. 1 golf course in Missouri. (Diane WIlson) [Click to enlarge]

Dalhousie Golf Club members wouldn't trade their golf course for any other in Missouri.

To them, Dalhousie rates as the best course in the state.

"We'd like to think so, but we're biased," said managing member Cord Dombrowski.

An objective panel concurs. Dalhousie ranks No. 1 in the Golf Digest biennial poll of the best golf courses in Missouri, according to the results released Friday on the magazine's Web site.

"It's nice to have someone validate that what we have down here in Cape Girardeau is the best in the state," Dombrowski said.

Golf Digest's last set of rankings, published in the May 2005 edition of the magazine, listed Dalhousie at No. 2 behind the Tavern Creek course at the Country Club of St. Albans, just west of St. Louis County.

St. Albans' course fell to third in the rankings, with Bellerive Country Club, located in the St. Louis County suburb of Creve Coeur, moving into the No. 2 spot.

The course rankings are determined by a panel of Golf Digest raters who judge the courses in seven areas. The raters -- a group of more than 800 low-handicap golfers -- play the courses and make their judgments independent of each other. The ratings are sent to Golf Digest, which produces a national top-100 list -- no Missouri course made that list for the second straight time -- and state-by-state top 10s.

The ratings are based on shot values, resistance to scoring, design variety, memorability, aesthetics, conditioning and ambience.

"A lot of times, we don't even know when the raters are there," said Jack Connell, Dalhousie's director of golf. "That way, if the course is great when they come unannounced, they know it's great all the time."

The course had received exposure last year by hosting a Missouri Golf Association championship, an NAIA regional championship, and it was selected for Gateway Section PGA and American Junior Golf Association events.

"The key is people are becoming more aware of Dalhousie," Dalhousie general manager Andy Deiro said.

Dombrowski agreed golfers have been more willing to step outside of the state's metro areas in St. Louis and Kansas City to look at courses in Branson, Lake Ozark and Cape Girardeau.

Dalhousie, which opened in 2001, first gained national prominence by landing at No. 8 on Golf Digest's list of new private courses in 2003.

That same year, Bellerive was among the nation's top 100 courses. But it fell in the 2005 rankings and closed for most of 2006 as part of a remodeling project aimed at getting the course ready for the Western Open rotation and possibly a U.S. Open bid. The course hosted the U.S. Open in 1965 and the U.S. Senior Open in 2004.

Dalhousie is in the process of tinkering some of the back tees to make the course play longer, Connell said, and Dalhousie's clubhouse is expected to open this spring. But the course, designed by Gary Nicklaus, has not undergone any major renovations since the last rankings.

"I think the golf course just speaks for itself," Deiro said.

"We thought we certainly would be worthy," Dombrowski said. "We knew it was a matter of how we would stack up with Bellerive and St. Albans. Bellerive had just had some major reconstruction, and I thought they may be worthy considering the national championships they have had there.

"We're just absolutely thrilled. It's nice for the membership to be part of something that's the best. It's a neat deal. It can happen here in a small town."

Dombrowski said the ranking was an honor in which many people took part, including the members who take pride in the course by keeping it clean and the management staff that provides the funding and resources for maintenance.

"The real crux of the effort is from the greens superintendent and the maintenance crew," Dombrowski said. "Todd Ellis is doing a great job."

Ellis -- who has been on Dalhousie's staff "almost since the beginning," Dombrowski said -- was promoted to course superintendent last year when Rusty Fuller departed for another facility. "We're in the process of working on a long-term contract" with Ellis, Dombrowski said.

Connell said Ellis probably was working under some pressure in the last year.

"When you're No. 2, there's not a lot of room to move up but you sure can move down," he said.

Connell had received a message of congratulations from someone on the St. Albans staff earlier in the week but didn't know the rankings until Friday.

"When you hear a rumor and it's about you, you just kind of hope that it's true," Connell said. "It'll be hard to get my head on my cap."

While Dalhousie will be glad to mention "No. 1" to potential members and anyone else who has interest in the course, the ranking is merely a result of the means, Dombrowski said.

"The pure object is to provide the best facility we can for our members," he said. "We've got the right staff in place. We'll just stick to our plan and try not to get distracted by the peaks and valleys.

"If we can stay No. 1, wonderful. If we can jump into the national rankings, it's nice to be recognized but that's not the reason to do it. We do it because it's the right thing."