Davis Love III (left) has helped redesign several col-
lege courses, including ones at Florida, Georgia and
Furman. He hopes to bring Birdwood to the level of
top college courses across the nation.
Rotella and Love have been close friends
for decades—so close that Love insisted on
Rotella becoming an assistant captain on
the Ryder Cup team last fall—and described
the good doctor’s presence as invaluable.
“Bob really worked hard behind the
scenes,” Goodwin said. “It’s not by accident
that Davis is sitting here. Bob had a lot to
do with it.”
Goodwin had been highly impressed with
the work of the Love Design team (Love III,
brother Mark, and Scott Sherman) in the
redesign of Goodwin’s Hilton Head course
at Sea Pines. Atlantic Dunes is a brand new
course built on top of the original Ocean
Course, and opened to rave reviews.
Love’s team also built a popular course
in Cabo San Lucas, a course at Barefoot in
Myrtle Beach, and renovated the University
of Georgia course, considered among the
top 10 collegiate courses in the country.
Sherman worked on the University of Flor-
ida course redesign and the Furman course,
where he lives in Greenville, S.C.
“We believe Birdwood will be the finest
team golf facility in the country for collegiate
golf,” said Pat Hogan, executive vice presi-
dent and COO at the University of Virginia.
Love said he is eager to take on that
challenge.
“It’s exciting to take a great golf course
and make it better,” Love said. “I’m a for-
mer college player, and having watched the
college process that last five years with my
28
son, Dru, having played at Alabama, I know
what Virginia needs to get the best high
school recruits to come to Charlottesville.”
Love has always been influenced by the
traditional golf designers. His father, a high-
ly-respected teaching pro and golf coach at
the University of North Carolina, “was as
old school as it g ets,” Love III said.
“In my mind’s eye, Birdwood suits for an
old style golf course,” Love III said. “We
want it to look like it has been here for a
hundred years.”
Love’s design team wants to bring out the
history of the Birdwood landscape, which
was part of a 1739 “upland wilderness” land
patent, one of the earliest in the Virginia col-
ony. Part of the redesign will include holes
near the historic grounds of the Birdwood
mansion, a two-story brick plantation house
built between 1819 and 1830, featuring a dis-
tinctive lighthouse-shaped water tower, and
traces of the late 19th century ornamental
gardens, that includes elaborate sculptures.
Love and his cohorts fell in love with the
idea of playing back toward the north por-
tion of the land in order to get a touch of the
mansion and the history.
“Davis said if you can get to the point
where you can touch that, you can feel
that while you’re playing, you can feel the
historic context of the site,” said Chris
Schooley, senior real estate project manager
for the Virginia Foundation. “Davis believes
that’s the character of the property, that’s
what you’re going to leave with. He really
liked that context at the end of the round
because that’s the image you’re going to
take with you.”
Current holes No. 1, 2, 14, and 18 will
remain, but will be modified to play more
fairly and in some cases lengthened to
accommodate modern technology. Six new
holes on the “back 80” unused portion of
V I R G I N I A G O L F E R | S E P T E M B E R / O C T O B E R 2 0 17
the property will be created. Those will be
the new No. 3, 4, 6, 7, 8, and 12 holes. The
other eight holes will be reworked in a fairly
significant way.
The current par-3 14th hole, known as the
island green, will be eliminated because Love
has a disdain for island greens unless they
are natural. He believes golf holes should
always offer the player an escape option.
Love’s team is excited about the proposed
new four finishing holes, which will be
different in character and play toward the
mansion. The par-5 15th will play backward
down the current No. 7 corridor. No. 16 will
play across the current No. 6 pond, some-
thing Love himself really pushed for.
No. 17 will be a picturesque par-3, playing
down toward the same pond, while the new
18 will be the old No. 9, just much longer, as
in a 500-yard par 4.
Martin Winters, Birdwood’s director of
golf, who has worked there since 1993, said
the project is something he’s dreamed of
for years.
“We have a lot of infrastructure issues
because we’re a 32-year-old course,
and I think this redesign will give us a
course that not only University of Virgin-
ia students, staff, and the entire univer-
sity community can enjoy, but also the
Charlottesville community, the First Tee
organization, our local tournaments such
as the Jefferson Cup, and the university
men’s and women’s golf teams.”
Bowen Sargent, the longtime coach of
the University of Virginia’s men’s program,
also speaking for Kim Lewellen’s women’s
program, said they are both excited about
the future. Not only will the course be rede-
signed, but the plan is to build a state-of-
the-art teaching and practice facility for the
men’s and women’s teams.
“Having a world-class golf course, which I
know Davis Love III will construct, will assist
our recruiting and player development,” Sar-
gent said. “More importantly, the new Bird-
wood will give Kim and I the ability to host a
local tournament and NCAA tournaments.”
Love will also design a quality and func-
tional short-game area adjacent to the new
home for the golf teams, which will also
assist in recruiting and development.
Goodwin’s big dreams will carry a big
price tag, yet to be determined.
“Doing it right is going to cost 15 or 20 per-
cent more than someone else who isn’t doing
it right,” Goodwin explained to boosters.
That’s the cost of dreaming big, something
Goodwin believes is worth the expense.
vsga.org
Dreaming Big