After nearly 20 years, the management and membership of Awbrey Glen Golf Club think a face-lift might be in order.

The northwest Bend facility, a member-owned private golf club that opened in 1993, did not have to look far to find a world-class golf architect willing to help.

Awbrey Glen has hired David McLay Kidd’s Bend-based design firm, DMK Golf Design, to create a long-term master plan aimed at making incremental improvements to the golf facility that could take perhaps as long as 20 years to complete.

Awbrey Glen will not be turned into a links course on par with Kidd’s most famous creation: the original course at Bandon Dunes Golf Resort on the southern Oregon Coast.

Rather, the idea is to make the parkland-style course more playable using the path that Gene “Bunny” Mason, the longtime Central Oregon golf pro who designed Awbrey Glen, mapped out nearly two decades ago.

“We’re not going to start over,” says Mark Amberson, Awbrey Glen’s general manager, who has been with the club since its inception. “We are going to make some tweaks.”

In addition to Bandon Dunes, Kidd’s acclaimed portfolio includes Bend’s Tetherow Golf Club and The Castle Course, which in 2008 was the first public championship course to open at venerable St. Andrews in Scotland in nearly 100 years.

But Kidd will be charged with something different at Awbrey Glen, where his job is to design a master plan, not a golf course.

“I don’t want to stamp my design signature on Awbrey Glen,” says Kidd, who speaks with a strong accent from his native Scotland. “Bunny Mason did a good job and the members love it, otherwise they wouldn’t be members here.

“What we’re doing is giving a 20-year face-lift, and we’re respecting what is already here. We’re not trying to build Tetherow’s evil cousin.”

In other words, don’t expect Kidd to carpet Awbrey Glen in fescue or turn its greens diabolical with mounds that look like waves of turf.

Instead, Kidd’s task will be to “set the goal posts” for future improvements, Amberson says. The goals are to improve playability, increase strategy for better golfers, identify technical issues on the course, improve environmental standards and reduce maintenance costs, Amberson says.

Once the blueprint is in place, DMK and Awbrey Glen will then slowly implement the master plan, which Kidd estimates will be ready for members to review in late May.

The changes should start subtly and at a relatively small cost, Kidd says.

First on the list: removal of some of the ponderosa pines and juniper trees that have become overgrown. Those trees have caused some playability and shaping issues on the course, Amberson and Kidd agree.

And although taking out trees is sure to upset environmentalists, Kidd says the removal is necessary.

“The real key point is the trees,” Kidd says. “For us as golf course designers who are not members of the club, it seem fairly obvious. They (the trees) were half this size years ago when Bunny Mason laid the course out and it was built. Those trees are tightly packed and very tall.

“This is a golf course, not an arboretum.”

In the short term, DMK will devise a plan that should make the course more challenging for low handicappers and more playable for lesser players. That plan is also expected to make the golf course less expensive to maintain by removing out-of-play turf and replacing it with native high desert landscaping, says Nick Schaan, a senior associate architect with DMK.

“There are a lot of places out there where they are growing, irrigating and mowing turf that hasn’t seen a golf ball in 20 years,” says Schaan.

Once the minor changes have been made, more significant changes should follow, Kidd says.

The key will be to implement the changes in a way that makes sense, he adds.

“For instance, if you are going to upgrade the irrigation system, you maybe don’t do a bunch of other things first that then ruin that change,” Kidd says. “It’s making sure that all of these changes are sequential and all make sense, all aiming toward an endgame that is out there.”

For the golf club, the master plan represents an investment that, while still undetermined, will no doubt be significant. For instance, according to Amberson, installing a new bunker costs about $5,000; rebuilding a putting green costs about $50,000.

But until the master plan is completed and a strategy to complete the work is put forth, Amberson notes that just how much the face-lift will cost is impossible to determine.

In the end, the investment should be worth the cost, says Larry Hinkle, Awbrey Glen’s club president.

A new road map should help the golf course stay on one path, and continuity is not always easy to find at a member-owned club, Hinkle says.

“I’d change this hole, another member would change that hole,” Hinkle says of the club’s future without a master plan. “We would end up with a messed-up golf course. We want to make sure that when we make changes, we make them for a reason that gets us the biggest bang for our buck.”

Kidd and Awbrey Glen have already developed a good rapport.

Last week, Kidd was presented an honorary membership to Awbrey Glen by the course’s membership.

“A real honor,” Kidd says.

And not a bad way to start a working relationship.

Plus, Kidd thinks the master plan will be exactly what Awbrey Glen needs to strengthen itself in the future.

“I see it as an incredibly positive step that many clubs don’t take,” says Kidd, adding that a golf course typically becomes outdated in about 20 years. “They just sit there and each incoming (membership) president plants a new tree, and takes out a bunker he didn’t like, and adds a bunker he does like.

“And then the next guy … he adds his own, and before you know it another dozen years have passed and nothing changed. In fact, the bits that should’ve been addressed weren’t, and the bits that didn’t need fixing were changed.”