The ongoing U.S. Open at Erin Hills, Wisconsin, has introduced two names to the golf world: Dana Fry and Shane Bacon.
Fry, who has become a prominent golf architect and is one of three men to design Erin Hills, was part of Arizona coach Rick LaRose’s 1980-83 golf teams. Fry was a walk-on from Kansas City, Missouri, who made the Wildcat squad by shooting a 64 in a one-day, all-comers tryout at Randolph North in 1980.
Upon leaving the UA, Fry got his foot in the golf-design business by helping to shape the bunkers at the Ventana Canyon Golf Course for the esteemed Tom Fazio in 1984.
Fry remains in contact with LaRose – they spent time together at the annual PGA Show in Orlando, Florida, in January – and he invited Crooked Tree Golf Course pro Rich Mueller to Erin Hills early last week.
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Bacon is a UA grad and former Arizona Daily Wildcat reporter who is part of Fox Sports’ new broadcast team at the U.S. Open. Among other things, he conducts post-round interviews, at which he is very good. Bacon used to be the caddie for the late Erica Blasberg, a 2003 and 2004 Arizona All-American.
Fry is not the first UA golfer to design a U.S. Open course. The first was Bruce Charlton, Class of ’81.
Charlton was the lead designer at Chambers Bay in Tacoma, Washington, site of the 2015 U.S. Open. He graduated with honors from the landscape architecture program at Arizona and was hired by the great Robert Trent Jones Jr. and has been working with Jones for 36 years.
Charlton, the president and chief design officer for Robert Trent Jones, was part of the design team at Arizona National Golf Course near Mount Lemmon Highway. He told me he will not only be at the U.S. Open this weekend to spend time with his old Wildcat colleague, but will “sport some Wildcat gear.”
