Grant Left Here, but
the Siege Never Ended
Clear Creek Golf Course
Vicksburg, Mississippi
Greens fee: $25 to ride 18
Date: June 19, 2020
All of American history arguably comes back to the Civil War.
Centuries of compromise and conflict — both political and spiritual — exploded into a struggle over whether the United States would continue to exist. Three quarters of a million people died, and decades of political consequences followed. After four years, Lincoln saved the Union, but neither he nor his successors saved all its people: the federal Reconstruction efforts that followed the war ultimately were abandoned incomplete, and in their place sprang Jim Crow.
It doesn’t take much imagination, then, to draw a line from Fort Sumter to George Floyd. Lee surrendered his army at Appomattox in 1865 — but 155 years later, the Civil War is the quintessential American conflict that we cannot escape. For every other American war, the end has begun a relegation to history. The Civil War is different. Try as we do, we cannot escape it. More than a century and a half after Appomattox, the Civil War simply will not end.
Interstate 20’s glimpse of Clear Creek’s first green, at 70 miles per hour.
And if it all comes back to the Civil War, then it all comes back here: to Vicksburg, sitting high atop the bluffs along the Mississippi River. Following a seven-week siege in mid-1863, Union troops clinched control of the Mississippi with the Confederates’ surrender of this river town, tucked alongside an eastward bow in the river about halfway between Memphis and New Orleans. The victory’s importance cannot be overstated: the day before Vicksburg fell, Union troops had defeated the Confederates at Gettysburg, too. The war continued for two more years, but after the dramatic one-two punch in the span of 24 hours, the Confederacy was never the same.
The same ancient, ragged loess that makes up Vicksburg’s bluffs is found throughout western Mississippi — including 10 miles east of the river at Clear Creek Golf Course, the area’s only public golf option. The land here feels tired — tired of fighting, tired of resisting. It turns out there’s more to it than just a metaphor: during the Pleistocene Ice Age, glaciers ground up bedrock as they slowly rumbled over the land; when the glaciers melted, the resulting silt washed and blew southward, forming these familiar, fragile landscapes. It’s been through a lot. This land has been through a lot.
Today, Mississippi is fighting one of the Civil War’s final battles. More than a century and a half after Appomattox, the Confederate battle emblem — an unapologetic symbol of white supremacy, then and now — still adorns the state flag, in a place where nearly two out of five people are Black. For the first time since a statewide referendum in 2001, lawmakers are seriously considering whether to remove the Confederate emblem from Mississippi’s flag. The removal is far from a certainty, though, as is the chance of another opportunity arising anytime soon. In Mississippi, as in golf, opportunities to break through are elusive.
. . .
West of Clinton, one of Jackson’s largest suburbs, Interstate 20 is pretty nondescript. A new Continental Tire plant is being built (courtesy of more than a quarter-billion dollars in state government giveaways); a church and a Mississippi Army National Guard building break up the otherwise unending rural landscape. Exit 11 feels like the wrong turn for a golf course, but for the fact that Clear Creek is visible from the Interstate a half-mile beforehand.
If Clear Creek seems out of place, then its enjoyability is an even bigger shock. Its site is mostly flat and unremarkable (save a tee shot off one of the region’s characteristic bluffs on the back nine), but its design cleverly routes the player around the property with quirky yardages — the long, par-5 first hole (529 yards from the tips, 511 yards from the white tees) precedes the course’s shortest hole (141 yards from the tips, 132 yards from the white tees). The course is minimally bunkered, but it makes its hazards count: at least four holes on the front side have sand traps guarding the front of the green, creating obstacles that are visually intimidating if not menacing. Between the unusual yardages and the front-and-center hazards, Clear Creek avoids the boredom that its otherwise bland topography might have created: on most holes, it’s throwing something new at you.
Clear Creek makes the most of its few sand traps by placing them front and center, as with the short par-3 second hole (141 yards from the back, 132 yards from the white tees).
I’ve played Clear Creek several times in recent years, with varying experiences: when conditions allow, its wide-open layout is fun without allowing players to get themselves into too much trouble (playing out from under trees is the most common risk). Within the past couple of years, the course’s future has been in doubt. But on this June morning, Clear Creek was dialed: green but firm, taken care of but not over-watered. The greens, which rely more on tilt than contours, likewise were running smooth — not that my putting could take advantage. After opening with three straight bogeys, my 6-iron at the par-3 fourth (183 yards from the back, 169 yards from the white tees) went straight for the flag. “That might go in,” I inadvertently said loud enough for the twosome on the nearby fifth tee to hear. It didn’t, but at least this time my two-putt was good enough for par.
Unfortunately, that twosome saw my efficient play and mistook it for reason to let me play through. Is there any greater terror in golf? Half their hopes are dedicated to wishing you weren’t there in the first place; the other half of their hopes are for you to hit the fairway so you’ll be gone quickly. And so you must hit the fairway — which I did, briefly, before my ball ran through the fifth hole’s sharp dogleg-left. I couldn’t find my ball quickly (everything happens quickly when playing through), so I dropped a new one — which I immediately hit in the small pond guarding the green. I don’t know what I made, other than a vow never to play through again.
The two nines lie across the street from one another, connected by a tunnel running underneath the road. I emerged at the 10th tee with just 41 strokes to my name — full of optimism that today might be my first to break 85. The 10th hole had something to say about that, though. At 587 yards from the back (573 yards from the white tees) and straight uphill, it effectively boils down to whether a player can hit targets with a drive and two straight fairway woods. I couldn’t, and limped away with a double.
Clear Creek’s back nine is nearly totally bunkerless, so its holes rely primarily on greenside mounding for defense. If it appears underwhelming at first glance, then wait until you narrowly miss a green and watch your ball ricochet sharply away, as I did at the par-3 14th (183 yards from the back, 171 yards from the white tees) — yet again, in front of a group letting me play through. I bladed my chip over the green, putted on, somehow made bogey, and fled in shame.
On this sweltering mid-June afternoon, Clear Creek was firm and in great condition. A few patchy tee boxes were the only signs of the dry weather.
The 15th, 16th, and 17th might be the most fun three-hole stretch on the course. At the short par-4 15th hole (313 yards from the back, 305 yards from the white tees), the tee shot drops dramatically off a bluff to a fairway at least 100 feet below, leaving a short iron into the green if the player judged the tee shot correctly — or a tricky punch-out otherwise. The par-5 16th (501 yards from the back, 490 yards from the white tees) is just short enough to be gettable in theory, but first requires a drive around a dogleg to a wide but blind landing area; and the 17th (419 yards from the back, 343 yards from the white tees) used to begin with a tee shot up onto a bluff; its tee boxes have since been moved up onto level ground with the green, but the old tees are still visible and perfectly playable.
I finished the back nine the same way I started it: with a tree-bound tee shot that led to double bogey. I hadn’t kept my score under 85, but the temperature hadn’t stayed under 85, either. By late June, keeping your score below the day’s high temperature is the only way anyone around here beats the heat.
. . .
Two summers ago, with Clear Creek’s future in doubt, a local parks and rec board member made an impassioned plea with the county board of supervisors to fund the golf course adequately or not at all. “If we are going to have [a golf course], we’re going to have to support it,” he said. “That’s the bottom line.”
Clear Creek’s 17th green.
Voting to fund a golf course is not an act of political courage on the same plane as the ongoing matter of Mississippi’s flag. But at least appropriations necessarily involve give and take: a dollar spent on a golf course cannot be spent somewhere else. The values judgment there is complicated.
With the state flag, though, the values judgment is far more straightforward: either a symbol of white supremacy should continue representing Mississippi, or it shouldn’t. Replacing the Confederate emblem doesn’t take a dollar away from anyone. Leaving it there, though, exacerbates an immeasurable cost.
Grant’s siege at Vicksburg lasted seven weeks. More than a century and a half later, though, Mississippi is still under siege. But this time, ironically, it’s not the Union army but Mississippi’s leaders that hold the state under siege. Still lacking the votes needed to change the flag, the Confederate emblem seems more likely than not to remain — for another generation, maybe more.
Perhaps, like Clear Creek, a pleasant surprise awaits. More likely, though, the battle flag will continue flying over a war that will not end.
. . .
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