If It’s Fun,
Nothing Else Matters
Grand Bear Golf Club
Saucier, Miss.
Rate: $49 (winter)
Date: January 9, 2020
I hate to read things that I wrote years ago. Briefs, blog posts, e-mails, it doesn’t matter — it always seems to reads so childish, even to the point of naiveté. You wrote that?, I ask myself incredulously. You thought that was good?
I first played Grand Bear Golf Club in 2011, but not since 2015. At some point in that window, I remember believing — and writing, somewhere — that it might be the best golf course in Mississippi. It was challenging, sure — occasionally too much — but its greens were fun, and its manageable length emphasized a player’s short game: if you could chip and putt, then you could score.
Since 2015, though, I’ve played a lot of golf, and I’ve thought a lot about golf courses in ways I didn’t before. For better or worse, I learned to stop relying on gut reaction to evaluate a golf course. Forget that I’d enjoyed Grand Bear several years ago; was I supposed to? Or was it the naive reaction of a golf newcomer to a well maintained course?
. . .
At No. 1, a tee shot straight toward the green runs into a greenside bunker. The better play is over the large fairway bunker, which allows an approach from the left side of the fairway and an unimpeded view of the green.
Grand Bear Golf Club in Saucier, Miss., gets lumped in with the rest of Mississippi’s “Coast courses,” but it doesn’t play like one. Grand Bear lies just off Highway 49, about a dozen miles north of Gulfport and at the end of a tight, twisty, six-miles-long road lined by thick pine forest. You’ve got to mean to get there. It’s been called a “hidden gem” by others, and that’s not the first description that I’d use — but it is a gem, and it is hidden, so maybe?
The routing itself sits on a rough-and-tumble patch of sandy property, pinched between the Biloxi and Little Biloxi Rivers and carved out of towering pines. The native terrain is not so different than that on which nearby Fallen Oak Golf Course sits — although far more earth-moving went into construction at Fallen Oak, so its features are much more exaggerated (sometimes cartoonishly so) than are Grand Bear’s. That’s not to say that Grand Bear is an exercise in minimalism — it’s a Jack Nicklaus Signature design, after all — but it’s a much fairer representation of this area’s typical landscapes.
At Grand Bear Golf Club, even the trees move from left to right.
And Grand Bear’s variety of holes makes it a more enjoyable test than Fallen Oak, which too often is difficult for difficulty’s sake. Three of Grand Bear’s par-4 holes measure less than 405 yards from the tips (from the “Brown Bear” tees, which are the course’s equivalent of white tees, those three holes run from 308 yards to 334 yards), which opens up the possibility of playing for the green with a wedge; but those holes frequently confront the player with lateral hazards placed just far enough to persuade against hitting driver. Even when Grand Bear doesn’t convince you not to hit driver, it frequently makes you stop and think.
Not all these calculations are enjoyable, though. True to reputation, Nicklaus’ design at Grand Bear repeatedly favors a player with a left-to-right ball flight; on the back nine alone, the first three holes each call for fades off the tee. For players who hit draws (hello there), the only choice is between trying to skirt the inside of the dogleg or to lay up into the bend.
The fifth hole at Grand Bear is the longest on the course (603 yards from the back tees, 508 yards from the Brown Bear tees). To compensate for the demanding length, its green is relatively defenseless.
And Grand Bear also throws out a handful of penal obstacles that seems out of place. For instance, the heavily bunkered par-3 seventh hole (179 yards from the back tees, 145 yards from the “Brown Bear” tees) tucks an unnecessary sand trap behind the green that remains blind from the tee. Similarly, the green at the short par-4 fourth hole (371 yards from the back tees, 334 yards from the Brown Bear tees) is guarded in front by a lateral hazard and at left, right, and rear by bunkers; since the lateral hazard almost always will demand less than driver off the tee, players almost always will be hitting a short iron or wedge into the green — meaning that the rear bunker will only come into play for a thinned approach. A player who’s hit a bad shot doesn’t need further punishment.
Still, Grand Bear is fun more often than it’s not. The fairway at the first hole might be the widest on the course, but a large fairway bunker cuts in from the left, pinching the player’s line of sight toward the green. And because the shot is slightly uphill, the bunker takes on an infinity effect, hiding the roomy landing area behind it and suggesting that the safer play is to tightrope-walk the right edge of the fairway, steering clear of the bunker and staying on line with the green. In truth, the fairway bunker is eminently coverable, and playing from the broad swath of ground behind it offers a better look at the green. The key, then, is to throw caution to the wind and fire the round’s opening shot straight toward trouble.
Onward to the green at the par-3 14th hole (195 yards from the back tees, 163 yards from the Brown Bear tees).
Speaking of wind, it is not an uncommon factor during non-summer months — which only makes Grand Bear more rollicking. With the January wind blowing — somehow always into my face, it seemed — I frequently found myself between clubs and wrestling with whether to muscle a short iron into a green or knock down a slightly longer club. The turf was too soggy to play running shots (through no one’s fault but the weather’s), but the fairway is mowed all the way up to the greens — so in the right conditions, Grand Bear’s shortish par-5s would lend themselves to all manner of approach shots, from a high, arcing wedge shot to a hard pitch, or even a 40-yard putt.
. . .
In the 17th fairway, as I grappled with how to traverse the hole’s final 75 yards, it finally hit me: yes, Grand Bear’s design is imperfect, in all the ways that Nicklaus’ designs are frequently (and justifiably) criticized. But I’d been right all those years ago: warts and all, Grand Bear really is a fun golf course.
Understanding golf course architecture is sometimes a double-edged sword; the ability to give voice to a course’s annoyances can lead to overthinking a course’s shortcomings, or even looking for them. Grand Bear is a helpful reminder that we all could use from time to time: if it’s fun, then nothing else matters.