Amanda Doherty grew up in northeast Atlanta, a little more than two hours from the world’s most famous golf course. By the time her invitation to the inaugural Augusta National Women’s Amateur arrived in 2019, she’d spent enough Sunday afternoons in April in front of her TV that she could see every inch of Augusta National in her mind. She’d never played Augusta National, but she knew it.
Not so much with Champions Retreat.
“People had told me that it was a nice course and a neat place,” said Doherty, a recent Florida State grad and newly minted Symetra Tour rookie, “but I didn’t know much about it.”
Champions Retreat, which hosts the first two days of the Augusta National Women’s Amateur, features three nine-hole courses. But the tournament employs only two of those tracks: the Arnold Palmer-designed “Island” course for the tournament’s first nine, and the Jack Nicklaus-designed “Bluff” track for the second nine. Bunkering on the second nine is far more minimalist in style and size than on the first nine, and relies on tenacious contouring to defend itself greens.
She wasn’t alone. Even after the ANWA’s success, Champions Retreat — where the first two rounds of the ANWA are played before the final round at Augusta National — remains something of an unknown quantity…that other course that co-hosts the ANWA.
In the second year of its newfound fame, though, Champions Retreat finds itself at the ironic end of a 20-year journey: from an exclusive private club that resisted comparisons to Augusta National, to co-host of an enormously popular tournament that places it shoulder-to-shoulder with its famous neighbor. If the ANWA is an important golf tournament, then Champions Retreat is an important golf course — to the tournament’s players, and to the fans who watch the tournament.
That’s a heavy expectation to bear. But Champions Retreat vindicates that importance.
“There’s not really a boring hole out there,” said Doherty, who finished T21 in 2019. “It’s an interesting course.”
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If there’s one thing that people know about Champions Retreat — other than co-hosting the ANWA — it’s the club’s too-perfect-to-be-true origin story. The tale tells that Gary Player, Jack Nicklaus, and Arnold Palmer drew straws (or index cards, in some versions of the story) at the 1999 Masters Champions Dinner for their pick of three sites on 365 acres in nearby Evans, Ga. Who “won” the contest changes, depending upon who tells the story — but that at the end of the draw, the three had divided the property with plans each to design nine holes, for a property-wide total of 27.
The story seems too shiny and perfect, even for Augusta. But as far as Chris Cochran knows, that’s truly how it went.
Huge, meticulously edged bunkers reminiscent of Alister MacKenzie’s style appear over and over throughout the Arnold Palmer-designed Island nine at Champions Retreat — including this greenside trap at the Island course’s fifth hole.
“That’s the story I heard,” said Cochran, who was Nicklaus’ senior design associate at Champions Retreat. “You could go with age, beauty, or number of majors. They decided to pull straws.”
The three sections of property run west to east through an old pine forest and over water to a slender, twisting island in the Savannah River. Player took the westernmost section — what eventually became the club’s “Creek” nine. On the east, Palmer’s routing onto and around land in the Savannah River was dubbed the “Island” nine. And in between, Nicklaus’ course rolls up and down lightly treed ridges and hillocks — Champions Retreat’s “Bluff” nine. Palmer’s Island course plays as the ANWA’s first nine, with Nicklaus’ Bluff track as the second nine.
The three loops could not be more distinct from one another, separated not only by their design teams’ philosophies, but also by topography and distance from one another. The northernmost section of the property where Nicklaus’ loop runs is more undeveloped, with raucous hills and drop-offs. The land movement in Palmer’s course along the riverside is more subtle but still rolling.
“It was a beautiful site — heavily wooded, with beautiful pines and a nice roll to it,” Cochran said. “It was a very nice site.”
The comparisons to Augusta National are inevitable, of course: a design project overseen by three Masters champions with 13 green jackets among them for an exclusive private club, immaculately maintained, and all of it just 14 miles northeast of Magnolia Lane.
Undoubtedly, Champions Retreat and Augusta National are two different golf courses. But just as undoubtedly, the two share common threads: the Bluff nine’s rolling terrain is reminiscent of Augusta National’s ninth and tenth; positioning off the tee is critical to scoring; and then, there are the greens.
“Honestly, they’re pretty similar,” said Auburn rising senior Kaleigh Telfer, who finished T12 at the 2019 ANWA as a sophomore. “While I was playing my practice round and the first two rounds, I would’ve thought I was playing on Augusta greens. They’re really slopey, and they’re pretty big. You definitely have to have your speed on point. And after that, at Augusta, I noticed that some of them are pretty similar.”
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Intentionally or not, Champions Retreat offers windows into its architects’ views of Augusta National’s most memorable elements. For Nicklaus, it’s the greens. For Palmer, it was the bunkering: his layout is adorned throughout with bold, splashy sand traps in the style of Augusta National’s creator, Alister MacKenzie — wide and deep with huge scalloped edges, and positioned thoughtfully to raise a variety of challenges. On some holes, the bunkers are a minefield that players dodge again and again; on others, a single trap dictates the entire hole’s strategy. In other places, Palmer’s team “stacked” bunkers on top of one another to create the illusion of proximity — a specialty of MacKenzie’s.
The huge, V-shaped oak tree in the fourth fairway at Champions Retreat’s Island nine is a perfect target off the tee — provided the player doesn’t block herself out by getting too close.
“They’re big bunkers — big fairway bunkers and big greenside bunkers,” said Harrison Minchew, who worked as Palmer’s director of design services when Champions Retreat was built. “We set it up where the greens were going to be the predominant challenge, and then the strategy of the fairway bunkers was based on the best approach to the green.”
The Island nine’s par-4 second hole (468 yards from the championship tees, 392 yards from the member tees) presents an early example of this design strategy. With just two sand traps — one near the landing area on the fairway’s left side, and another curling around the left-front corner of the green — it is one of the Palmer design’s most lightly bunkered holes. But the two hazards dominate the player’s strategy: attacking the left side creates the shortest path to the green, but it brings both sand traps into play; the wide fairway to the right of the bunker offers plenty of safety and a path to the green that’s clear but longer.
Just one hole later, though, the challenge could not be more different. At the par-5 third hole (542 yards from the championship tees, 469 yards from the member tees), an S-shaped fairway curls among a half-dozen traps; the hole’s moderate length makes reaching the green in two possible, but even a conservative play must reckon with the bunkering at every step.
But Palmer’s design also allows moments to pause and enjoy the scenery. His most memorable hole is the long par-4 fourth (453 yards from the championship tees, 400 yards from the member tees). A wide fairway, flanked on the right by the hole’s only bunker, meanders alongside the quiet Savannah River, which separates the course’s Georgia home from South Carolina (which is reachable for long hitters from the fifth tee box). Even here, though, strategy has no time to sleep: the hole’s most prominent feature is an enormous, V-shaped oak tree in the left half of the fairway; an ideal tee shot begins at the tree but comes up short enough to allow a wide opening into the Island side’s only bunkerless green.
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In contrast to Palmer’s design, sand traps play no leading role at Nicklaus’ Bluff layout, which serves as the ANWA’s second nine: its bunkers are far smaller, more minimalist in their presentation, fewer in number, and less common around the greens. And yet the Bluff greens are Champions Retreat’s most devious challenge: full of swales, and guarded by runoffs. Tee shots are tighter than on Palmer’s Island nine, and out-of-position approaches to even innocuous-looking pin positions can be full of danger.
For instance, at the par-3 second hole (185 yards from the championship tees, 145 yards from the member tees), a front-right bunker flanks a narrow tongue of green, compelling players to aim tee shots toward the middle of the putting surface. But there lies all the danger: a false front slopes sharply back toward a gully 40 yards away, and swales along the back of the green stand ready to pull a long shot out onto the fringe. The green looks utterly toothless from the tee box — but in truth, it offers almost no room to miss.
The topography of the Jack Nicklaus-designed Bluff course at Champions Retreat is reminiscent of Augusta National, but the design evokes other courses more clearly — like the course’s sixth hole, which feels more like Muirfield Village than Augusta.
“You definitely have to be putting well, especially with regard to speed, because the greens are really fast and undulating,” said Telfer, who shot rounds of 69 and 78 at Champions Retreat in 2019 before finishing the ANWA tied for 12th. “You’ve also got to put your ball in a good position off the tee box. There’s a few holes that require a demanding tee shot, but once you get it in play, the hole is gettable.”
Dastardly greens routed through dramatic east Georgia hills draw inevitable comparisons to Augusta National. But Nicklaus’ design is perhaps more closely related to Donald Ross’ Pine Needles in North Carolina: like Pine Needles, the Bluff nine becomes more difficult as the player gets closer to the hole. At the Bluff’s par-4 first hole (432 yards from the championship tees, 379 yards from the member tees), the fairway rises up along a crest similar to Pine Needles’ opener, but then slopes downward so that the tee shot finishes blind like Pine Needles’ second hole. The tough par-4 fourth hole (467 yards from the championship tees, 421 yards from the member tees) and its long, shallow green require a high shot with a long iron — not unlike No. 2 at Pine Needles. And the tee shot at the par-5 fifth hole (555 yards from the championship tees, 509 yards from the member tees) soars over a ravine, with the rest of the hole turning left and played sharply uphill — similar to Pine Needles’ uphill, leftward-turning fourth hole.
The downhill, par-3 eighth hole on Champions Retreat’s Bluff nine, which plays as the ANWA’s 17th hole.
Still, Champions Retreat’s Bluff holes are unmistakably Nicklaus rather than a carbon copy of anything else; four of the Bluff’s five par-4s bend from left to right, and the short par-4 sixth hole (340 yards from the championship tees, 309 yards from the member tees) could fit in just as well at Muirfield Village: a fairway wood to a downhill landing area, and a wedge across a rocky stream to a small, secluded green. And the Georgia pines that merely frame the Island nine’s landscape often come into play on the Bluff track.
“There’s a stretch of holes that, if you hit it on the left or right, it can get pretty tough,” Telfer said. “And it’s pretty narrow.”
Telfer would know. After her opening-round 69 at the inaugural ANWA, she struggled in her second time around Champions Retreat. Telfer’s second round on the Bluff side was especially tough: she was four-over in her last six holes (including her only double bogey of the week), but still made the final round at Augusta National.
“There’s just two or three holes on the [Bluff] nine that are really narrow, and if you get it in play, it’s gettable,” Telfer said. “But if you don’t, then you’re gonna struggle.”
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Any association with Augusta National comes with impossibly high expectations. Even so, the first ANWA was universally viewed as a rousing success. And when Augusta National chairman Fred Ridley announced the ANWA in 2018, he made no secret about his hopes that the ANWA would become part of the Masters viewing experience. “This championship will become an exciting addition to the Masters week,” Ridley said, “and it furthers our effort to promote the sport and inspire young women to take up the game.”
If the ANWA is is becoming part of the annual Masters experience, then unavoidably, so is Champions Retreat. Any worthy companion in a tournament co-hosted by Augusta National must be, at minimum, a worthy golf course.
“I felt like it was a good course to play before Augusta,” Doherty said. “Obviously they’re very different golf courses, but you have to attack them in the same sorts of ways.”
The 2020 ANWA’s cancellation stole Champions Retreat’s newfound moment in the yearly sun, but invitations will be honored at the 2021 event for players who remain amateurs. That will include Telfer, whose second-round 78 only increased her admiration for the course.
“I loved it,” Telfer said. “I thought it was in perfect condition. It sets up tough, and depending on the pin positions, it can be gettable or not. But I loved it.”
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