Asuper-ambitious and passionate owner (with the means to deliver) and a vastly experienced and imaginative architect (inspired by the opportunity presented). It sounds like a heady mix and one that could make for a wonderfully exciting golf cocktail.
Such was the potential when owner Albert Huddlestone and architect Steve Smyers agreed to collaborate and redesign the Honors Club at Carrollton near Dallas. The now-named Maridoe Golf Club opens this summer, and our protagonists are confident their creation will not only be well received but set a few pulses racing.
An early glimpse reveals an extraordinary layout, at once thought-provoking, challenging, original, and visually sensational. Huddleston and Smyers strived to develop a course that will encourage—and occasionally require—golfers to execute shots they won’t confront anywhere else, and they appear to have achieved just this.
Smyers says Maridoe “lays down the gauntlet as early as the 2nd,” a dramatic downhill par three played to a fiercely defended green nestled into a hillside. The bunkerless 10th with its “valley of death” and the Cape Hole 13th—“which commands the player to perform the most difficult discipline in the game, to play away from the target”—are among other favorites, but you get the impression that the overall look and feel is what excites Smyers more than anything.
“I fell in love with the property the moment I saw it,” he enthuses. “Gently rolling and tree-studded throughout, the site is dominated by a beautiful 28-acre lake, and I believe our design is in harmony with and accentuates a marvelous setting.”
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