Courses: Nick Von Hofen, Ritz-Carlton Members Club

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By Steve Pike via TheSandTrap.com

Nick Von Hofen comes from a golf-crazed family. It only makes sense that he would end up at one of southwestern Florida's swankiest new resort courses.

Nicholas Von Hofen stood on the 12th tee of the new Ritz-Carlton Members Club - elevation 65 feet above sea level - and smiled.



"You wouldn't think you're in Florida," Von Hofen said as he surveyed the immaculately landscaped Tom Fazio-designed golf course.



Indeed. With its pastoral setting and rolling terrain, the Ritz-Carlton Members Club looks like it could have been lifted in from Von Hofen's native Ohio. But this is southwest Florida, where golf courses are often shaped and molded out of a tough land. Fazio molded this 7,033-yard, par 72 masterpiece from pasture land that was once used to grow fruits and vegetables.

The Ritz-Carlton Members Club opened to members and guests of the Ritz-Carlton, Sarasota in January 2006.



Armed with the largest landscape budget he's ever worked with in Florida, Fazio moved approximately 1.9 million cubic yards of earth to create the Ritz-Carlton Members Club, a facility that acts not only as a world-class private golf course, but also is an arboretum and nature preserve. The 16 man-made lakes on the 320-acre property, for example, have attracted various species of water fowl and wildlife previously unknown to the area; the landscaping around the golf course and entire property is a cornucopia of tree and plant life whose color combinations have never been seen before on a Florida golf course.



Von Hofen, the Club's 27-year-old Director of Golf Grounds, has been supervising the entire landscaping since its inception in January 2005. The middle of three brothers working as course superintendents (older brother Eric is Director of Grounds at the Doral Golf Resort & Spa in Miami and younger brother Kurt is an assistant superintendent at the Bear's Club in Jupiter, Fla.), Nicholas Von Hofen cut his teeth as head superintendent at PGA West in La Quinta, Calif., and as assistant at Old Marsh Golf Club in Palm Beach Gardens, Fla.



Von Hofen, a 1999 graduate of Ohio State's turf management school, also worked with the legendary Jack Nicklaus during the renovation of Lost Tree Village, the Golden Bear's home course in North Palm Beach, Fla.



"One of the things that turned me on to this project was that experience," Von Hofen said.



The experience these days for Von Hofen and for Club members is Fazio's explosions of color into what was once brown, barren tundra. Purple/pink Bougainvilleas from Brazil, red 'Calypso' Oleanders from Eurasia, Blue Plumbago from South Africa, and Confederate Jasmine from India are just a few of the plants and shrubs that mix with native trees such as Live Oaks, Laurel Oaks, Cabbage Palms, and Magnolia.



Several of the Oak trees on the course were removed from the property during construction, taken to a nursery and then re-planted when the elevation changes (as high as 70 feet above sea level on the first green) were complete.



Fazio worked with noted landscape designer Bruce Hammond of Miami and landscape installer Art O'Donnell from Naples to devise a plant list for the Ritz-Carlton Members Club. Fazio's vision was to frame each hole with plants, trees and shrubbery, but have no two holes look alike.







"Mr. Fazio wanted color all the time," Von Hofen said. "Whether it's in the grasses, in the leaves of the palm trees or the roses, he wanted something blooming at all times out here. It's a wall fall of color. Something is always going to be happening."



Keeping Fazio's vision alive, of course, is Von Hofen's greatest challenge, particularly because much of the soil on the golf course came from the 30- 40-feet beneath the surface when the lakes were dug. That soil basically had no nutrients, so Von Hofen and his crew painstakingly prepared the soil to grow the TifSport grass on the Ritz-Carlton Members Club's tee boxes, fairways and rough and TifEagle on its greens.



There are four wetlands preserves on the property - just off the second, seventh, 15th and 16th holes - and each of the preserves and lakes are buffered to prevent run-off from getting into them.



"We slope everything and buffer it back to the course," Von Hofen said. "I take care of 150 acres of turf. In Florida, that's a lot. The challenge is to keep it all fertilized and healthy so it all blooms at the right time. Mother Nature will bring is more challenges - too much rain, not enough rain, another hurricane."



Those are challenges Von Hofen is eminently qualified to tackle.

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