Sweetgrass Symphony

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HARRIS - Building a golf course is not just about connecting dots on the land.

You don't put a green out in a field, connect it with the fairway and tee box and dress it up with a bunker or three. There is a design, a plan, to make it all fit in sequence and provide a nice, even flow for all 18 holes.

Paul Albanese performs his role as though he is a musical composer, a links version of Johann Sebastian Bach. Albanese designed Sweetgrass Golf Club, which debuts Wednesday.

"When you are routing a golf course, you try to create in the same way a composer creates a piece of music," Albanese said from his office at Albanese and Lutzke in Clawson.

"It is not all high notes," he said, noting a golf course should not have 18 standout holes that take the breath away. He said there has to be a "rhythm and balance. You start out with a nice introduction to golf," he said, noting the course has ups and downs and draws a player to No. 18, the end of the song.

"We've done that (at Sweetgrass). It starts out very gently, then it gets more challenging," Albanese said, noting No. 9 brings a "big crescendo" to that part of the round (song).

He said holes 12-13 "are pretty dramatic," then the No. 15 island green "is a beautiful hole. No. 16-17 the woods add another flavor, and No. 18 is probably the denouement, the most dramatic hole on the course."

A pair of eight-foot high waterfalls send 5,000 gallons of water per minute over three 200-foot long ponds that front the conjoined greens at nos. 9-18.