The American golf Munaissance roars ahead with its biggest-ever project

WEST PHILADELPHIA, Pa. - Stubborn and steadfast. Complex and chaotic. Historic and overlooked. These terms characterize practically every significant project in American golf's more than quarter-century municipal golf renaissance - its Munaissance.

Over the nearly three decades the movement has been fully underway, nowhere have those paired adjectives loomed larger than at Cobbs Creek Golf Course, the site of a massive, $180-million project that transcends the relatively simple task of golf course renovation. It's about archaeology. It's about environmental stewardship. It's about cultivating community. It's about giving that community's children a shot at a better life. And, yes, it's about the revival of a nationally significant golf course that is positioned to finally be worthy of its proud history.

It's also about people, from well-heeled private individual donors and civic-minded corporations to everyday heroes executing an epic vision to the amateur golf historians whose naive idea and months of library time got this whole complicated, frustrating and exciting thing started.

GolfPass has been honored to help tell the story of Cobbs Creek's revitalization in a new multi-year documentary film series called Cobbs Creek Rising: Headwaters to Horizons. The first of a planned three parts is now streaming on GolfPass.com.

The first part of Cobbs Creek Rising tracks the history of the course, where in 1916 a group including visionary city planners and world-class golf course architects banded together to build a public golf course for all people, regardless of age, gender or race. This inclusiveness attracted significant competitive events and also opened doors for Charlie Sifford, golf's Jackie Robinson.

Like many classic public courses, Cobbs Creek suffered from decades of mediocre management and benign neglect, exacerbated by challenges posed by the body of water for which it is named and which caught the course in a vicious cycle of floods, deterioration and underinvestment. In the mid-2000s, two avid area golfers stumbled on evidence of the course's long-overlooked pedigree, setting in motion a groundswell of support that led to the creation of the Cobbs Creek Foundation, which is working to restore their home turf to a level alongside names like Bethpage Black, Torrey Pines and Harding Park atop America's list of first-rate municipal golf courses.

What sets Cobbs Creek apart, though, is the way it fully involves civic improvement alongside golf in its mission. The newest TGR Learning Lab, supported by Tiger Woods' foundation, will open in September at the center of the campus. A short course and massive practice facility are nearly ready, too. And Gil Hanse and Jim Wagner, two of golf's most in-demand architects, are waiting to begin to restore and reinvigorate a golf course that holds deep personal meaning for both of them.

Part 1 of Cobbs Creek Rising, called "Headwaters," shows how a cast of characters and circumstances have come together to meet seemingly insurmountable challenges surrounding the establishment of an institution that is bigger than golf. With more than $110 million raised against an anticipated price tag of $180 million, it is as grand a vision as the Munaissance has seen to date.

Augusta National Golf Club continues to influence the golf scene beyond its borders as it helps shepherd the long-neglected Augusta Municipal Golf Course into a new life as a vertically-integrated municipal golf haven, complete with a redesigned 18-hole course by Tom Fazio and Beau Welling and a short course by Tiger Woods' TGR Design. When it reopens in 2026, The Patch figures to become America's next great super-muni.

The parallel movements of municipal golf renovations and Donald Ross golf course restorations have intersected for decades, and this course north of Tampa is the latest example. Architect Kris Spence, whose knowledge of Ross' work is unsurpassed, peeled back layers of built-up sand to discover Ross' original green complexes and meticulously restore them to their expansive, undulating excellence on a lovely, walkable routing surrounded by a community that includes the Toronto Blue Jays' spring training complex. Reopened just before the calendar turned to 2025, Dunedin is now one of Florida's best publicly accessible golf courses. It was recently named "Renovation of the Year" by industry magazine Golf Inc.

Ambitious, long-simmering plans to remake three National Parks Service facilities within reach of D.C. continue to proceed at a modest clip. At Rock Creek Park, the National Links Trust has been diligently peeling back invasive vegetation that has compromised the golf course's turf conditions for decades. After monitoring the health of the turf this summer, more work is planned for the fall. Other first-phase plans include a new driving range with Toptracer technology, a Himalayas-inspired putting course and a new maintenance facility. Longer-range plans include work by Gil Hanse and Jim Wagner to rethink Rock Creek's current golf complement into a 9-hole regulation course and a 9-hole par-3 loop.

Mike Young, whose southwest Georgia course The Fields has become a cult favorite among intrepid traveling golfers, is putting the finishing touches on this city-owned course on the other side of the Peach State, which will be administrated by the charmingly-named Sweet Onion Golf Authority.

Photos of the work happening at this small-but-mighty golf place just a few blocks east of SoFi Stadium show great care and detail, courtesy of Gil Hanse and Jim Wagner as well as golf historian and shaper extraordinaire Tommy Naccarato.

Architect Trey Kemp has spent 20-plus years building a strong portfolio of new courses and renovation projects, mostly across his home state of Texas. This 9-holer, a complete overhaul of a rudimentary original loop, serves a town of 780.

Architect Nathan Crace, who revitalized Old Fort Golf Course for the city of Murfreesboro, Tenn., in 2024, is overseeing a renovation of this 1939 John Bredemus design in a bend of the Guadalupe River 45 minutes northeast of San Antonio. On this project, he'll be collaborating with architects Brian Ross and Todd Quitno. The course is expected to reopen in October 2025.

This suburban Cowtown muni is set to reopen this fall after a renovation project by John Colligan and Trey Kemp.

The first golf course many visitors see in Myrtle Beach is the city muni, Whispering Pines, whose par-3 17th hole looks straight at the airport terminal. Renovations by architect Baxter Spann in the late 1980s gave the course some character, and a project taking place throughout the summer of 2025 will bring fresh turf across the course, including a popular new strain of fairway called Bimini Bermuda.

This upscale city-owned facility's Players Course is undergoing renovations that include the redesign of multiple holes, with architect John Fought overseeing the project. The popular Coachella Valley layout is expected to reopen ahead of the main fall/winter/spring golf season.