New owners revamp Freeport golf course
Gary Nese came up with the name, The Phoenix at Buffalo Valley, to signify his new golf course "rising from the ashes" of what was once Buffalo Valley Country Club.
Nese believes that, with the significant changes made to the Freeport course, golfers won't be rising from the forest and sand as much.
An old-school, once-suffocating layout has been loosened, widened and freed to breathe. The rekindled, daily-fee course will re-open to the public July 29.
"Good shots need to be rewarded and bad shots shouldn't be overly punished," said Nese, co-owner of Trilogy Golf Development, the group that bought Buffalo Valley from the Laube family.
Nese's other business partners are his brothers, Vince and James, and his father, along with Dave Dargenzio.
Fairness was the force behind Trilogy's new vision of a course that has gone mostly unchanged since it opened in the late 1970s.
Buffalo Valley closed in 2007.
More than 300 trees have been removed, and nearly half of the sand traps will be grown over. There won't be a single fairway bunker, and fewer greenside traps.
"You had a lot of spots that just didn't make sense," Nese said. "We want the average golfer to be able to enjoy playing this course, but it will still be a beast from our blue tees."
Although impressed by the solid construction of the original layout and clubhouse, Nese enjoyed the challenge of restructuring a Parkland-style course — a drastic difference from his linksy Glengarry course in Latrobe.
Greens at Nos. 4, 10 and 14 will be expanded.
The Phoenix will have four sets of tees and will play 6,792 yards from the tips to 5,116 from the ladies' tees.
The course still is growing in spots, and the greens are returning to form.
"The average (new) course takes five years to mature," Nese said. "Who knows, we may take a lot less than that."
Nese said many of the bunkers were taken out simply because they weren't visible off the tee or on some approaches.
The most sweeping and talked-about modifications were made to holes 1 and 10.
No. 1 used to involve a blind tee shot — not ideal for the first swing of the round — and groups ahead rang an "all-clear" bell to allow the next group to hit.
The hole remains a par-5 from the regular tees, but is now a par-4 from the tips, or "Phoenix" tees.
"They finally took out some trees there, too," Pellegrino said. "You had guys taking all day to play that hole."
No. 10 has been shortened and changed from a par-5 to a 458-yard par-4.
Trees and brush are gone from both sides, primarily down the right that will allow for less-penal misses to that side. The lump in the middle of the 14th green has been slightly reduced.
"Thank God," Pellegrino said. "It looked like someone buried a Volkswagen there."
At 640 yards from the tips, the 14th remains one of the longest public par 5s in the state.
In addition, the giant bunker in front of the 18th green — known to former members as "The Grand Canyon" or the "Big Mouth" — has been shortened.
The Phoenix will begin taking tee times Monday. Greens fees range from $39 on weekdays to $49 on weekends.
The Pub at The Phoenix, the clubhouse restaurant, re-opened Friday.
