Dalhousie makes list of top new private courses in Golf Digest

Prestwick Plantation set out to build a golf facility with a layout, conditions and aesthetics that would appeal to the senses of golfers in the area.

It accomplished that with the creation of Dalhousie Golf Club in Cape Girardeau.

However, the achievement went a step further. It appealed to a magazine -- Golf Digest, no less.

In its January issue that hits newsstands around the nation on Tuesday, Golf Digest ranks Dalhousie among its top 10 new private courses to open in the United States from May 1, 2002, to April 30, 2003.

Dalhousie, which opened in June of 2002, is ranked eighth by the publication and is the only new private course listed in the entire Midwest. The course was the first designed exclusively by Gary Nicklaus, who had previously designed courses with his father, legendary golfer Jack Nicklaus.

The ranking is just more confirmation for Prestwick partner Cord Dombrowski.

"We kind of knew we were way above the curve when we got into the project, just by comments from the people that helped us accomplish our goals," Dombrowski said. "We felt what we had was very, very good and was a course that could serve this part of Missouri and Southern Illinois. But to receive recognition from Golf Digest is wonderful and just validates all we've been doing."

The "Best New Private Course" list is topped by The Club at Black Rock in scenic Coeur d'Alene, Idaho, already home of one of the premier courses in the country. The remainder of the private clubs listed are from the South, East Coast and Southwest.

Dombrowski said around 750 to 800 new courses have been built in the United States over the past two years. Under 200 courses were nominated by Golf Digest for three categories, which also included "Best New Affordable Public Course" and "Best New Upscale Public Course."

Dalhousie was the only course honored in either of the three categories for a region that included Missouri, Illinois, Kentucky, Tennessee, Arkansas, Kansas and Oklahoma.

"It's quite an honor," said Dalhousie director of golf Jack Connell. "When you're recognizing 10 of all the private golf courses built, and you're rated that way, you definitely know you're doing something right."

The courses were nominated by Golf Digest, which has a panel of 800 low-handicap golfers that play and evaluate new courses. Connell said 10 Golf Digest raters played the course this summer.

"I think that hurt us," Connell said. "That's my opinion. I think had we gotten more raters, I think the word among the raters would have gotten out."

A feature which distinguished Dalhousie among its nine peers on the list was the $7,500 initiation fee, which was the lowest and just half of the next-lowest club -- Squire Creek Country Club in Choudrant, La. Initiation fees of the clubs ranged up to $250,000 of No. 3 Friar's Head Golf Club in Baiting Hollow, New York. Five of the courses had initiation fees of $100,00 and above.

"It just shows you the best doesn't have to necessarily have to be the most expensive," Dombrowski said.

On the list are three courses by noted architect Tom Fazio, and one each by Tom Weiskopf, Rees Jones, Jim Engh, Ben Crenshaw, Bobby Weed and Steve Nicklaus. Golf Digest would not say how many courses were nominated in its private division.

"To end up No. 8 in the U.S. of that field is quite remarkable," Dombrowski said. "Put that in perspective that Cape Girardeau is a very difficult place to get to. The other seven ahead of us are in primary markets. To draw this kind of attention from the golf industry to our little part of the world is quite an accomplishment, and we all ought to be pretty proud of it."