Doral, Enhansed?

The loyal reader will immediately note that this is not posted under my continuing Great Places in Golf series, as southern Florida golf, even without the involvement of the Donald, is rarely great.  There's an obvious limit to what one can do with the terrain in southern Florida, and The Blue Monster has always been the personification of those limits.... it's difficult but not interesting.  An endless sequence of sand, water and wind...rinse and repeat.  And the hostile climate requires heat resistant grasses,thus the ubiquitous, dreaded Bermuda.

But I have great respect for the work of Gil Hanse, and I am interested to see what he can make of such a landscape, just as I'd love to play Seminole to see what Donald Ross could do with the terrain (though I'm told by my buddy Mark that the property at Seminole at least affords some elevation changes).

In any event, a gentleman named Mark Saltzman has posted a series of photos on a Golf Club Atlas forum page of the recently re-opened Blue Monster Trump National Doral Blue Monster, our first look at Hanse's redesign of the Dick Wilson "classic."  Alas, he leads with this photo:

Has the Summer Palace reported a missing fountain?

I've never had any inclination to visit Doral, so I don't know the course well enough to react to the changes.  And as insufferable as I've always found Trump, at least someone is building and renovating golf course these days.   He's hired some good architects and built some good tracks, one just wishes he could be kept away from open microphones.  

Since I don't know the course, I'll leave you with Shackelford's upbeat take:

"Other than a garrish fountain that appears to have been imported from one of Napoleon's palaces and the single file row of palms along what I believe is the range, I detect lots of short grass around greens, more elegant and irregular bunker lines, and best of all, what appears to be a pretty exciting drivable green at the 16th."

I went for the Tsarist reference, in homage to my Russian Literature degree (see Dad, I did get value from that Tufts tuition), whereas Shack went the Versailles route.  But short grass around the greens (Bermuda rough should be on somebody's list of banned substances) and a drivable Par 4 late in the routing all sound like improvements.  We'll all know better in early March, when the WGC Cadillac circus comes to town.