With a lovely, forested site (though not one necessarily great for golf), recurring views of Lake Oconee and the surrounding development’s once deep pockets, you’d think The National’s 27 holes would comprise some of the most spectacular destination golf in the Southeast. In actuality, the National bats in the middle of Reynolds Lake Oconee’s (formerly Reynolds Plantation) lineup. That’s…
The short review of The King & Prince Golf Course (formerly known as The Hampton Club), out at the north tip of St. Simons Island and owned by The King & Prince Beach Resort, is 14 exercises in rather ordinary Lowcountry-style golf interrupted by an out-of-the-ordinary four-hole foray through a large Intracoastal marsh. The longer version is that…
In this episode, architect Bill Bergin and Derek Duncan catch up and discuss a wide array of subjects including Bill’s recent and upcoming re-workings of several historic clubs, WWSRD (what would Seth Raynor do?), keeping pace with Bob Tway and the northwest Atlanta high school golf scene, going low at St. Andrews, Bill’s top 3 Atlanta…
Atlanta’s East Lake Golf Club, the “permanent” site of the TOUR Championship, is not unlike a Marvel Comics superhero. Its been cast into a role it had no intention of playing, resurrected from a lonely downward fate by powerful outside forces, refurbished to be put to use for the greater “good” fighting encroaching evils and blights. This hero has…
I confess I’m not always able to wrap my head around Bob Cupp’s courses. The architectural features often feel out of sync — or out of proportion — with the properties and with each other. For example: Big holes with wide fairways leading to small greens; slender fairways on properties with lots of room; small bunkers where…
The Landing (née Port Armor, née Reynolds Landing), was the first course built on Lake Oconee in Central Georgia in the mid-1980’s, and for a while Bob Cupp had the only two courses on the lake when he followed this design a few years later with The Preserve (née The Plantation course) at Reynolds Lake Oconee (née Reynolds Plantation). Got that? Cupp once told me a…
You can’t teach an old dog new tricks, but apparently you can teach an old dog old tricks. I’m not saying Denis Griffiths is old, but at Old Union in north Georgia’s Appalachian foothills near Blairsville the architect created a look that might have come straight out of the early 20th century. Or before. Old Union is brightened with…
“A good idea is a good idea, forever.”–David Brent The above quote, proclaimed by Ricky Gervais’s character in the original British series The Office, is clearly false. Especially in real estate, where timing is as important as location. For the developers of Echelon, a would-be prestige-level golf community north of Atlanta, what seemed like a good idea in the early-2000’s…
If I had just one round to play and it had to be in the greater Atlanta area, with no access to private clubs, I’d probably take it at Cobblestone. The land is a paradox — it’s scenic with a lot of shoreline along Lake Acworth, but everywhere away from the water is steep, wooded…
Osprey Cove is like the age-old love story. You’ve heard the one — boy gets hot girl, boy loses hot girl, boy saunters quietly off into middle age. As it applies to golf courses, it’s a tale we heard over and over again in the 1990’s and early 2000’s. Recap: hot new golf destination/club receives waves…