By Paul Giordano
Courier-Post Staff

Rembrandt did it with a brush. So did Michelangelo, with an added touch of hammer, chisel and marble.

Shakespeare and Hemingway did it with words. So did Byron, Keats and Shelley. Mozart and Beethoven did it with music.

Sinatra did it with words and music. So did Fitzgerald, Presley, Berry, the Beatles and Springsteen.

All artists, all creators, all innovators for the masses.

Casey Fraser paints, sculpts and creates with another set of tools. He does it with a bulldozer, grader and backhoe loader. Casey Fraser is a shaper. He molds a golf course architect's dreams and plans into a reality.

He did it for golf course architects Steven Kay, Steve Smyers, Jerry Matthews, Arnold Palmer and Gary Player.

He did it at Blue Heron Pines, Harbor Pines, Running Deer, Scotland Run, four courses in New York, two in Michigan and one in North Dakota. He currently is doing it at Blue Heron Pines East.

Golf and golf courses are in Casey Fraser's blood, in his genes. Goes back to his fabled grandfather, Leo, who bought and brought the Atlantic City Country Club into the golden age of seashore golf, creating one of the country's legendary country clubs.

It's at the Atlantic City Country Club where the term ``birdie'' was coined, where Nancy Lopez, as an 18-year-old amateur, finished in a tie for second place during the 1975 U.S. Women's Open. It's where the first men's Senior tournament was played. Where Ben Hogan played.

It's where Casey Fraser literally grew up and gained his golf course education. An education unlike the administrative cut from grandfather, father and uncle. An education forged from sweat, dust and the turning of soil.

``I grew up on a golf course and was working on a golf course all the time,'' the 30-year-old Fraser said. ``I got out of high school and didn't want to go to college. I was never big on school.

``There was a contractor doing some renovation on the Atlantic City Country Club and I started doing some work with him. Then I did some work at Seaview and started to really enjoy the construction end of it.''

Two years ago, after crafting his trade at Blue Heron Pines, Harbor Pines, the four courses in New York, two in Michigan, and one in North Dakota, Fraser started his own business, Fraser Golf Associates. He's keeping quite busy, too. His art form goes like this:

``We usually do a new course (Blue Heron Pines East) starting in January and finish up in September,'' Fraser said. ``From start to finish it takes eight-to-nine nine months for construction. Before play, there should be two growing seasons … a spring and a fall, or a fall and a spring.

``We do renovation work in September and October when play starts to die down at the golf courses. We rebuild traps, etc.''

But that's another story.

Fraser's forte is taking a golf architect's plans and .‚.‚.

``Basically it's all the rough grading and shaping,'' Fraser said. ``But no matter what kind of plans you have, the plan is really just a guideline. It's not like when you're putting up a building and you have set elevations and dimensions and it has to be exactly that.

``We get out here in the field and we might go according to the plan and then we'll look at it and start working off that and maybe a change here and there will make it look better, play better. We'll do whatever we can do to make it easier for everyone.''

A change in plans, though, can fuel argumentation.

``Oh, yeah,'' Fraser said. ``But that's all part of it. You never get it on paper exactly how you see it in the ground. There's a lot of changes. We hardly ever do anything just once, very rarely.

``A lot has to do with working with the architect from before. We make changes on our own just from the experience of working with him and knowing what he likes to see. Sometimes things just don't work for whatever reasons … like poor drainage, poor soil or trees are in the way and you have to save the trees. Sometimes the hole may look too artificial.''

Whatever, Fraser gets the job done.

``But not without good people to work with,'' Fraser added quickly. ``And that's the most difficult part. You have to find people, people willing to travel and people who can make decisions while they are on the machine of what they need to do .‚.‚. to be able to read the architect and get an idea what he's really thinking in his head, what he's looking for and doing it.

``And a lot of what we do is learning by doing. Just do it and do it, do it, do it and do it. It's difficult to learn because it takes time. It really comes down to 60 percent operating the machine and the other 40 percent having the vision of going after something and achieving it with the equipment you have.'' Something like creating on canvas, chiseling in marble, putting it down on paper, putting words and music together.

Something like an art form.

Absolutely.