Pace of Play
in a Place of Decay
Tunica National Golf and Tennis
Tunica, Miss.
Date: Feb. 28, 2019
Greens fee: $41
Tunica National has been on my radar for a long time — mostly on the strength of its name. Understand: even by Mississippi’s standards, Tunica is in the middle of nowhere. If a golf course in Tunica can merit “national” status, then there’s no reason the R&A shouldn’t relocate to Brookhaven.
The golf course, like most everything else in Tunica, is connected to one of the casinos, which have been a part of life in this corner of the state since the early 1990s. Lawmakers legalized gambling on the promise of new revenue in a state where economic growth has never really boomed (not in the past 150 years, anyway). Gambling boomed here for a time, but it has been in decline now for several years. Today, Tunica County’s poverty rate is 27 percent, more than twice the national average. But gambling brought a number of infrastructure improvements, at least. And the golf course.
There is an eerie feeling to this place. My visit is on a cold, grey day at the end of February. The course, like the clubhouse and roads, is nearly empty. It’s a polished, manicured ghost town. I feel like I’m trespassing.
. . .
There is something about cold-weather golf that stirs my soul. Pushing through blasts of winter air, protected by nothing but your windproof vest and a pom pom-topped wool cap (socially acceptable in few situations, but this is one of them) — this is as elemental as golf gets.
On cold days like this, my go-to golf pants are a pair of faded, army green corduroys that I bought on sale at the Gap. At the time, their singular purpose was to keep me alive in late December at Lambeau Field. Having fulfilled that goal, they have been called into faithful service for years. Time has worn through the fabric in one spot near the crotch, but I’m playing alone today, so no one will care.
Winter has been unusually rainy, even by Mississippi’s standards. But rainy or not, Tunica National’s chief obstacles are its water hazards.
Maybe I should have packed my waders too, because there is a lot of water on this golf course. Like, an obscene amount. By my count, no less than 12 holes bring water into play. But staying dry is no guarantee of success, either: the course is heavily bunkered, and the traps are much bigger than we’re accustomed to in Mississippi (imagine Tom Fazio in a bad mood).
For all of that, we have Mark McCumber to thank. In addition to designing Tunica National, golf historians will remember McCumber for a rules dispute in 1995 in which Greg Norman accused him of cheating. As far as Tunica National goes, I can’t point to a specific rule in the rulebook, but I question whether all this water violates the spirit of the game.
. . .
Tunica National’s fifth hole, as seen from the left side looking toward the green.
After four relatively routine holes (save the aforementioned water and sand), No. 5 is the best hole on the course. It’s a fairly short dogleg-left par 4 (326 yards from the blue tees), with water running all the way up the inside of the dogleg on the left side of the fairway. The safer shot off the tee is toward the right side of the fairway, but a lineup of bunkers prevents the player from bailing out too far toward safety. And even if you avoid the sand off the tee, by erring rightward you’ve brought into play a greenside bunker on the front-right of the green. On the other hand, if you can flirt with the water off the tee and stay dry, you’ve got a relatively danger-free short iron into the green. It’s a clever hole that lets players decide on the tee box how much danger they want to invite, and how much trouble they want to put off until the second shot.
The trouble awaiting cautious tee shots at Tunica National’s No. 5 green.
The sixth is a long but innocuous par 4, but it has the distinction of running alongside Old Highway 61, of blues immortality. I wondered if this is the only golf course that fronts Highway 61 (it’s not; a string of courses near Minneapolis runs alongside Highway 61 — including, appropriately, a 36-hole facility called Mississippi National).
No. 9 is essentially No. 5’s mirror image, albeit with more length (375 from the blue tees). The water runs away and right of the fairway; the more water you’re willing to face with your tee shot, the shorter your approach. Either way, the water isn’t a factor on the second shot.
. . .
On the 10th hole, I tore the crotch out of my corduroys.
My climb out of the fairway bunker on the right side was more than the old girl could take. A tiny, innocent-looking hole ripped open like a mouth gaping to scream — only instead of a scream, the mouth had purple boxer shorts inside. Suddenly the lack of company felt less depressing.
There was no time to fret over indecent exposure, though, because I was playing better. After a slow start, my swing had come together around the fifth hole. On No. 11, a short par 3, I under-accounted for the wind and missed the green, but putted on and got up and down. No. 13 is another par 3 that revisits Highway 61 before steering back toward the clubhouse. Fault McCumber for all the water if you want, but there’s a lot of short grass out here. The run-ups to the greens are all mowed short, so putting from the fairway is a viable option.
This collection of holes through the middle of the round — the fifth through the 13th — is the most enjoyable nine-hole stretch on the course. The last few are more work than play, especially the 17th and 18th: both long par 4s with lots of water to avoid, particularly No. 18, which demands a long, difficult approach over a creek. On a windy day, it’s effectively unreachable (believe me).
. . .
The view back toward the course from the 18th green at Tunica National.
The clubhouse has a restaurant, but I didn’t bother. Three hours of interstate lay between me and home, so I walked straight from the 18th green to my car. This is a good golf course — not a place I’d want to play every day, and certainly not a course to which I’d drive three hours again. There’s a little too much sand, and there’s way too much water. But the land has some good movement to it, and several holes are cleverly designed. It’s not a walk in the park, but McCumber probably would tell you that it wasn’t supposed to be. It’s also not unfair; the hazards, though plentiful, are not hidden.
As I steer my car back toward Highway 61, I wonder how this region will look a generation from now. A quarter-century ago, the gambling boom had people calling Tunica “the little Las Vegas.” Now, its short-lived star seems to be fading again. What will happen if gaming leaves altogether? What will this golf course look like? What will the roads and bridges look like? What will happen to the people whose livelihoods depend on the casinos and everything that comes with them? And do the people who patronize the Mississippi Delta’s casinos support this historically destitute community, or merely prop up an industry that survives through exploitation?
Golf is an escape. I enjoy that quality of the game. But there are days when it feels less like an escaping and more like sticking your head in the sand. This is one of those days.