Phil,
Thanks. I'm glad he's leaning toward fescue. The main point of differentiation IMO is that there's a dearth of sand based F&F golf with cool season grasses in the midwest, and the country for that matter. There's no reason that far north not to do it, except of course for carts.
Jud:
I greeted this with mixed emotions:
-- Glad, as you are too, that Keiser is leaning toward fescue, something rarely found in the Midwest. The land up there in Sand Valley would seem to be ideally suited for a fescue-based F&F golfing experience.
-- On the other hand, I do wonder if going to fescue -- and thus presumably a strict ban on carts -- may cut into what is already a truncated golf season for Keiser's venture, esp. relative to his two other well-known projects (Bandon and Cabot). This summer in Wisconsin has been as near-ideal as I can remember for golfng; we just had our first 90+ temps earlier this week, and now it's settled back into this summer's routine of mid-70s/low-80s and low humidity. But it's a small sample size!
It's unusual in these parts not to have a decent stretch of ugly high temps with high humidity. Granted, Sand Valley in July isn't Streamsong, but in a region where the normal golf season is typically late-April to early-October, you're looking at 20-25 weeks of dependable golf weather maximum. Can Keiser afford to cut out a week or two of that if his fescue course doesn't allow for the use of carts when the temps get scorching and folks don't want to haul their bags up and down those hills? Maybe he can...