Welcome Renewal

This article, first published in Global Golf Post in 2011, has been updated.

It is hard to imagine Seminole was anything other than what it is today, which is one of the most revered clubs in golf. But go back a few decades, and you’ll find a place that had somewhat lost its way. The fabulous Donald Ross course was overgrown and overwatered and not playing anything like the windswept, links-style layout it was supposed to be. The membership was aging and needed replenishing. And people in the greater game of golf were no longer talking about Seminole the way they did, say, in the 1960s, when Ben Hogan famously practiced there in the weeks leading up to the Masters.

Former club president and elite amateur golfer Barry van Gerbig remembers those points being driven home when he played in Pine Valley’s illustrious Crump Cup in 1988. “I remember listening to people like Vinny Giles, Jim Holtgrieve and Downing Gray ask questions about Seminole and what it was really like,” he says. “I was shocked they didn’t know, and it made me rea...