Some of Raymond Hearn’s latest work has been recognized in the January 2023 edition of Golf Digest magazine. The article cited his improvements at Midlothian Country Club in Midlothian, Ill., and Metedeconk National Golf Club in Jackson, NJ.
“It was a tremendous honor to work with two outstanding clubs,” Hearn said. “The leadership and membership at both clubs is remarkable and for what we did to be received so well at both clubs is a great honor in itself. Both historic golf courses are very unique.”
Hearn’s firm, based in Holland, Mich., has built a national reputation over the last two decades for existing course restoration, renovation, and remodeling while receiving significant recognition for his craft.
“In Michigan and throughout the USA, we have some very special projects to unveil in 2023 so stay tuned,” Hearn said. “We have been fortunate to work with outstanding superintendents, golf professionals and general managers on many of these projects. In golf course architecture, the design has to be appealing, increase strategy, shot value, playability and aesthetics commonly known as the Big Four. We work hard to achieve these goals in all our designs.”
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Included below are the excerpts from the January 2023 edition of Golf Digest regarding Midlothian CC and Metedeconk National GC:
PETER SCHULZ
Midlothian Country Club, Midlothian, Ill. — Midlothian, in southwest Chicago, was founded in 1898 and is where Walter Hagen won the 1914 U.S. Open. During his recent renovation, architect Ray Hearn recreated shapes and bunker geometries that are more in line with what original architect Herbert Tweedie had—or would have—built, imbuing the course with a turn-of-the 20th century vibe. In rebuilding over 80 bunkers, he turned soft lines hard, extended greens and pushed fairway lines out closer to original dimensions.
EVAN SCHILLER
Metedeconk National Golf Club—1st/3rd Nines, Jackson, N.J. — The work of Alister MacKenzie, Donald Ross, Perry Maxwell and their kin—even Devereux Emmet and Willie Park, Jr.—has been painstakingly recreated at clubs nationwide for over 20 years. The work of Robert Trent Jones, who worked from the 1930s into the 1990s, is only beginning to get the same treatment. Here at the isolated, spacious Metedeconk National, a late 1980s (and late career) design, Ray Hearn has brought back RTJ’s scratchy, jigsaw bunker lines, expanded the fairways to enhance risk-reward angles and recaptured shrunken greenspace.