Testimonial letter from Hank H. Evers, President & CEO of Chateau Elan Hotels &
Resorts:
13 November 2001
Mr. Bruce W. Devlin
11732 East Sand Hills Road
Scottsdale, Arizona 85255-5652
Dear Bruce,
I just returned from Scotland and the course
looks magnificent. The views, and the attention to detail are stunning. I love the way you
incorporated the natural environment into the course. Overall it is stunning, and we have
received nothing but great comments. I am positive that "Devlin Course" is going
to be an integral part of our success at St. Andrews Bay Resort & Spa.
Bruce, I also want to thank you for your
flexibility during the development process, it was extremely helpful. Working with you and
your team was truly a pleasure.
Sincerely,
Hank H. Evers
President & CEO
Chateau Elan Hotels & Resorts
Testimonial letter from Donald E. Panoz, Founder of Chateau Elan Hotels
& Resorts:
December 26, 2001
To Whom It May Concern,
Bruce Devlin has been retained by us to design
and consult in the constructions on the Sarazen Devlin Course at St. Andrews Bay,
Scotland.
Although the Course will not open until the
Spring of 2002, it already has been recognized by Golf Officials as one of the World's
great courses. His utilization of the land and it's setting on the cliffs of St. Andrews
Bay is outstanding.
Working with Bruce has indeed been a pleasure
and his performance in accordance with our agreements has been beyond reproach. In any
future resort with golf amenities, Bruce would be our first choice as a course designer.
Sincerely yours,
Donald Panoz
Founder
Chateau Elan & St. Andrews Bay Resorts
Testimonial letter from Steven Pressfield:
August 21, 1998
Mr. Bruce Devlin
21875 N. Dobson Road
Scottsdale, AZ 85255-4404
Dear Bruce,
There's a standard I apply to all
supposedly great events or experiences. I ask myself, Does it live up to its
advertisements? Few things do. Among golf courses, only three in my experience: Royal
Dornoch, Augusta National and Secession .
We knew we were playing the Bagger Vance
Invitational there this year and those of us who had heard about it but never seen it were
frothing at the mouth to get there. But exalted as expectations were, the experience
exceeded them. The word "magical" gets overworked, I know, but in the case of
Secession it truly applies. As I said on the phone, it's one thing to conjure a golf
course in the pages of fiction, and another entirely to bring it to life in turf and sand
and sky, and at the level of excellence that Secession aspires to and achieves.
You've built a magnificent golf course in a
spectacular setting, Bruce, but there are lots of magnificent golf courses in spectacular
settings. Secession is more, though this may be coming from my own, possibly darker,
quarter. It's the kind of place, I feel, that a man can come to, worn down by worldly
travails, and feel his spirit lifted the second he turns off the Causeway and sees the
clubhouse rising before him at the end of the drive.
I've played a number of other Low Country
courses, sitings in other words that provide the architect with the same palette you
worked with, and none in my opinion, even the celebrated ones, comes close to Secession.
The highest praise an artist can get, whether he's an actor or writer or architect, is
that he makes his work look easy. Like there was nothing to it. That's how Secession feels
to me. It's not just the course, it's the aesthetic unity of the place that you feel, you
experience, you don't just see. The elements are of a piece--land, sky and water--as if
the place had designed itself and you just let it reveal its nature.
I love the simplicity, which isn't plain but timeless and classic, and the unembarrassed
old-fashionedness. It's the sky, too, the way the holes are laid out beneath it so the
grassland expanses aren't just sitting there but draw the eye out and away, dramatically
and theatrically, to distant inlets and coves and quirks of savanna that radiate, I'm not
sure what, romance maybe.
Secession is magnificently Southern. You
feel the history, the terrible along with the grand and glorious. And the name! No club
will ever top it. It's the best named, and most aptly, in the country.
Sometimes it's the intangibles that elevate
an outstanding course to a great one; things that you think no designer can draught into a
blueprint, like the air and the sky, but thinking about it, I'm not so sure. You did
design them in. You have set Secession down on that property as if it had been there
forever. I love the scale of the holes. They're grand. It's a place the spirit can spread
out in, great just to walk, you don't even need to play, which is another infallible test
in my opinion of a golf course's greatness.
I congratulate you and commend you, Bruce.
You've sculpted a masterpiece. Secession is the kind or place you can bury your bones in
and say, This is the place I'll be glad to stay.
So thanks, Bruce. Thanks for giving us this
work of art that we can walk around in, and beat each other's brains out on, and just sit
back on the porch at the end of the day and stare out at and admire. Give us more!
Steven Pressfield
Malibu, CA 90265
