With July’s official opening of its North Course, Windsong Farm becomes the first private club in Minnesota to offer two outstanding and distinctly different 18-hole golf experiences.
Along with the existing South Course, members of the Maple Plain club now enjoy a remarkable variety of golf architecture experiences, a mix of old and new design concepts that build on the game’s traditions of strategic design while providing enjoyment to golfers of all skill levels.
Windsong Farm, North Course, Maple Plain, Minnesota.
(Photo: Winding Farm Golf Club)
Both courses were designed by two-time PGA Tour winner and former U.S. Amateur champion John Fought, whose other design work includes the Championship Course at Sand Hollow Resort — cited by Golf Digest as the best course in Utah — and both courses at The Gallery in Arizona, former venue for the PGA Tour’s Tucson Open. Fought has also done significant renovation work at courses around the country. Fought co-designed Windsong Farm’s South Course in 2002 with Minnesota native and British Open champion Tom Lehman.
Windsong Farm owner David Meyer asked Fought to make the North Course good and fun, but different from the South Course, which extends to more than 7,500 yards and features large greens with subtle undulations and collection areas inspired by the work of Donald Ross.
The new North Course occupies a smaller plot — about 125 acres vs. 220 for the South — and pays homage to several different Golden Age architects, notably Seth Raynor. It’s a par 70 that can be stretched to not quite 6,500 yards, but offers constant strategic challenge along with Fought’s take on several classic template hole designs, including an Eden green at the second hole, a Biarritz green at the fourth hole, a Dell hole at the eighth, a Redan green at the 17th and a Cape at the 18th. Holes 13 and 16 share a boomerang-shaped double green, most of the bunkers are rectangular with grass faces, and the fairways are broad and open with a strip of maintained rough that leads into thin and wispy fescue.
“You wouldn’t know the same person designed both of these courses,” Fought says. “The North looks like a golf course that came from the early 1900s. It’s on a very small piece of land and I wanted to prove that length isn’t the only way to add drama to a golf course.”
With spectacular views of Fox Lake and surrounding horse pastures, the North Course includes six par-3 and four par-5 holes. There is no repetition of holes by par until number 14, which is the first of three consecutive par-4s. It is, says Fought, the most diverse course he’s ever built. And in another nod to courses from golf’s illustrious past, Fought’s North Course allows golfers to step off the green and onto the next tee, eliminating long walks between holes.
“This course is going to force you to think,” Fought says. “You can’t just get up and hammer it. You’ll have to think, ‘Do I want to hit driver here?’ Some of the greens are tiny, and others are huge. The Biarritz green at number 4 is 17,000 square feet, where a normal green is 6,000. And I think golfers will use every club on the par-3s. We configured it to create the most diversity you can get on a golf course.”
In addition to a major bunker renovation and course improvement project in 2015, Fought recently updated the club’s practice area, which features East and West teeing decks, synthetic teeing areas, a teaching building, five practice putting greens, and a short game area built to the same USGA specifications as the golf courses.
THE SOCIAL ASPECT
Grass continues to grow-in at an exceptional rate at Hollywood Beach Golf Club. Putting surfaces have all been finalized and await sprigging and all the bunkers have been finished as well as @QGSDevelopment wraps up the work and McCumber Golf continues the grow-in process. pic.twitter.com/wTF1cArfcH
— Richard Mandell Golf Architecture (@RichardMandell) August 6, 2025
FORREST RICHARDSON EYES ARROYO SECO RENOVATION
Forrest Richardson has produced a masterplan for the city of South Pasadena, California, with an eye toward renovating the 18-hole Arroyo Seco par-3 course, along with the facility’s practice range and mini golf course. Richardson, a past president of the American Society of Golf Course Architects (ASGCA) in 2020-’21, first began work on the project in 2023, developing ideas for this 70-year-old neighborhood favorite that sits in the tree-shaded arroyo below the 110 Freeway. In the past two years, Richardson assembled a team of experts in turfgrass, irrigation, civil engineering and clubhouse design, together with incorporating public input with the goal of moving ahead.
“Public projects require us to listen to multiple voices across multiple groups,” Richardson told GolfCourseArchitecture.net. “It’s different than working for an owner, a resort developer or even a private club where team members may have different thoughts, but it’s far easier to reach a common denominator. When it comes to a municipal facility, especially one that’s been around 70 years, the constituents often see things with completely different perspectives.”
Following feedback from the public and from the project’s consultants, Richardson has formalized his masterplan to reinvigorate the golf course, mini golf and practice facilities.
“Our work has focused on preserving the good, while redesigning the components that have simply outlived their life cycle,” said Richardson. “We listened intently to the players to understand the type of golf that makes them smile, and we also spent time with residents who long—once again—be able to drop in to grab a coffee or sandwich along the Arroyo Seco Trail.”
Central to Richardson’s reimagination of Arroyo Seco’s golf facilities is a renovation and rerouting of the layout, with holes expected to range in length from 75 to 170 yards. Rectangular tees will be turfed in artificial grass, green surfaces will be enlarged and 12 acres of turf will be eliminated. Overall, the expected water savings will be more than 40 percent.
Long one of the most innovative architects when it comes to out-of-the-box thinking, Richardson, listened to the community when it came time to retaining the fundamentals of the nine-hole mini golf course—complete with windmill and gingerbread house—but proposed a novel solution that embraces a fresh start. He will restore the existing nine and add nine more holes, each with the imprimatur of local artists.
“The Public Art Commissioners loved the idea,” said Richardson. “We plan to bring in nine artists, each given the latitude to create something cool for a particular hole, and to help bring their idea to reality with a team of craftsmen to build out the designs.”
Also in the offing are a new clubhouse and community meeting center, tracking and night targets at the range and a new wetland habitat to boost the water quality. Once financing is secured, the project will move forward.
135-YEAR-OLD BERKAMSTED GETS CDP CONSULT
England’s Berkhamsted Golf Club has selected Clayton, DeVries and Pont (CDP) to consult on a course renovation. Located in Hertfordshire, U.K., 35 miles northwest of London, Berkhamsted dates to 1890 and sits 600 feet up in the Chilterns. The course is draped atop estate land in Berkhamsted Common replete with heather, gorse, bracken and forest.
Today’s layout boasts an outstanding architectural lineage, with the original nine holes the work of Willie Park Jr., the next nine by H.S. Colt in 1909 and revisions from James Braid in 1926 that included new grass bunkers and fairways undulations. Unusual, though not unique, Berkhamsted has no sand bunkers or man-made hazards, though Grim’s Dyke, a Bronze Age earthwork twists through several holes, at times measuring six- to eight-feet high.
CDP aims to restore as much Colt architecture to the layout as possible. The firm will also pair with Berkhamsted’s greenkeeping crew to help reestablish a substantial heather presence to a level not seen since prior to World War II.
“CDP is world-renowned for its work at some of golf’s most venerated old masters, and we are thrilled that we will now be able to draw upon their expertise as we make our plans to safeguard this much-loved golf course for the decades ahead, with our stewardship of the beautiful ecology up here on Berkhamsted Common uppermost in our minds,” Berkhamsted general manager Dan Blesovsky told GolfCourseArchitecture.net. “Working with CDP, we feel that a well-managed Berkhamsted Golf Club will be able to maintain the highest level of competitive challenge for the decades ahead of us through a program of restorative change, rather than merely resorting to lengthening the golf course significantly, which we don’t feel will be needed.”
CDP’s Frank Pont, acknowledged as one of the world’s foremost Colt restorers, will direct the Berkhamsted renovation project.
“We will start by authoring a course plan, which will investigate the course’s key facets, as well as its heritage,” said Pont. “It will lay the foundation for future renovations. We will draw upon our proven experience of improving classic heathland courses in the UK and Continental Europe with the intention of delivering the best, most natural version of Berkhamsted’s course possible.”
