But Strange can t help but rave about the finished product that he, Tom Clark and Kevin Atkinson have carved out. Clark is so proud that he intends to nominate the course for a number of national design awards for best new moderately priced municipal course. The first thing Clark and Strange had done was to timber 8,000 trees from the property. Next, they added six lakes and enlarged the two existing ponds on the property. But the trees overgrew it.
Any course needs a facelift to gain new technology and drainage.
But this course needed drainage more than any other course. Clark, in remembering what the canvas looked like before he painted over it, quipped that it was a great training ground for a future U.S. Open champion like Strange. You had to just to navigate all the trees. But it had become such a dog track that only those with deep-rooted history there wanted to regularly play there. The city of Portsmouth has razed 750 of those units and will plow down the other 750 before year s end.