Imagine building 26 golf courses at the height of the golf development bubble, with nine figures in public pension money — in an effort that now loses money year after year. Welcome to the Robert Trent Jones Golf Trail.
In theory, 12-hole designs should be cheaper to play, build, and maintain. But in the staid industry of golf course development, there’s been no rush to test the theory. The minds behind Sweetens Cove are ready to change that.
At first glance, LaFortune Golf Course in Tulsa appears fairly nondescript. But it quickly reveals that it learned a few tricks from its neighbor, Southern Hills.
Cider Ridge Golf Course in Oxford, Alabama, is more a forgery of a golf course than a real one: penal and poorly thought out, routed from the scraps of land left over from a surrounding housing development.
For a golf course in south central Tennessee and designed by one of the world’s most famous architects, comparisons between Sewanee and nearby Sweetens Cove are inevitable.
The Refuge in Flowood, Miss., reopened in 2021 after a four-year renovation. In hindsight, though, the renovation appears to have been less about the golf course and more about decorating the new hotel next door.
Wolf Hollow Golf Course, on the campus of a community college in southwest Mississippi, is a true diamond in the rough: a shot-making joyride, all for a preposterously low greens fee.
I take lessons. I read hornbooks. I think I’m better than I was 10 years ago — a better lawyer, a better golfer, a better man. But I’m not certain. And the numbers don’t look good.
Few institutions deliver disappointment as consistently as baseball and golf. And yet season after season, and round after round, we keep coming back. The reason, I think, is hope.
With the goal of breaking ground in September 2021, the team spearheading a 12-hole King Collins design in Jackson, Miss., has begun laying the groundwork for a fundraising push beginning in late 2020.
In my southwest Mississippi hometown, a once-heralded Arthur Hills design is far from the vision it promised a generation ago — but is still worth saving.