The variety would be the spice of life. The same can be said golf courts, and members of Reynolds Lake Ocone have a new flavor on their already large menu of golf options at Waterfront Resort and residential property.
The famous course designer Tom Fazio took the basic ingredients that make Reynolds Lake Ocone such a treat, added a few surprises and developed a completely fresh dish by introducing Richland, the new private 18 -hole course which includes nine new holes to complete an already existing new. The new provision covers 7,090 yards with a peer of 72.
“My goal is always to create distinctive and unique golf courses,” said Fazio on Richland’s opening day. “There are a lot of variations in land – a lot of ups and downs, the ins and outs, the twists and turns – which is ideal for golf. This is what makes this natural setting so beautiful ….
Fazio and his team started with the existing new bluff of the national course of 27 holes from Reynolds and added the new new ones, dividing the bluff in n ° 1-5 and 15-18 of the layout of New Richland. The new holes are n ° 6-14, playing through what now rolls the ground south-east of what was the nine bluff. And these new holes are like nothing else in the vast resort community, which now offers seven 18 -hole lessons.
Most of the six previous courses – Great Waters, The Preserve, The National, The Ocone, The Landing and Creek Club – play through corridors lined with trees or along the shore of the lake, generally offering limited views or without any views of the neighboring holes. On the other hand, the new new in Richland offers long views on several holes as they rise and fall on hilly ground. Instead of large pines separating the holes in Richland, there are plentiful herbs and exposed mounds.
Also different: there are no houses within the limits of new new ones in Richland. You must cross a residential street while climbing up to the nine most recent holes, but from that moment, the only interruption is a unique catering truck serving as a transitional house.
Not that the project started on open ground.
Fazio Design’s veteran partner, Bryan Bowers said that the nine holes site was strongly wooded when the team started, and these trees hid a large part of the 75 -acres plot.
“We entered and moved a large amount of earth to shape golf holes,” said Bowers on the day of opening. “When you move the dirt, you need to clean the trees. The solution was therefore to return and plant native herbs. When we got out and we were looking at the holes, the conclusion that we came back was that it is really treated, it is open, it is different from anything at different points of view – we think it was really attractive. ”.
Fazio said that all of this was part of the delivery of three key ingredients that he is still looking for: drama, quality and variety. The environment in the form of a meadow that his team has created certainly stands out. By removing most trees, players can see the terrain and the holes they are about to play – only the n ° 9 at the remote end of the package, one by 4 of the 451 yards, plays its entire length through its own pine corridor. The rest of the nine have less and thinner stands of trees at stake, opening up lines of view and building a satisfactory level of anticipation as the players move through the landscape.
“At Richland, we like the idea that we are going to have these nine holes that we are going to mix with an existing new which has a lot of golf holes (in the corridors), and we are going to mix them to create this open space,” he said.
But while the newly introduced landscape is easy for the eyes, the holes sitting on it are far from the pushtovers. Fazio said the most difficult holes of the 18 fall combined in the middle, with the n ° 10 – the fifth hole of the newly built – possibly the most difficult. After loading snacks at the catering truck, the players face one by 4 on the rise, 436 yards which plays about 40 meters more. Green with several flat sections is kept by a single bunker at the front right, but the installation surface has a false front and roll-offs on the sides. An aggressive approach that flies too deep can bounce back on a hill, leaving a delicate descent land. Peer here and you’ve been to deserve these snacks.
“The strength of this golf course … is in the middle,” said Fazio. “These are the hard golf holes. This adds to the level of uniqueness as well as individual character. ”
Greens show many features often found on Fazio lessons, serious in places and more accepting their centers. Fazio has said that these last nine greens have slopes less than many greens that it has built over the years, the result of an improvement in agronomy which allows greater green speeds. If the contours were too large, shots and short -term shots would be too difficult.
“In the past, Pitch and Slope was part of the design process to make the game difficult,” said Fazio. “But now you have to be very careful that the terrain and the slope are not too serious.”
Fazio and his team also renovated the existing bluff nine, which he designed and opened in 1997. These nine holes saw a complete renovation of the bunker with several new added traps, and hair bunker coverings were added throughout the 18 to improve drainage and packaging. Several of the green vegetables on the new bluff have also been reshaped or moved, areas of foul grass have been added in places and several shreddering areas with low content have been introduced.
“It is part of human nature to believe that you can always do something better,” said Fazio about the renovation of his own work on the bluff and the introduction of the nine holes.
The members were aligned on the day of the opening of October, eager to hear Fazio describes their new playground. The Richland course, positioned in the Richland Community Pointe de 500 Acres, will be the second private course in Reynolds Lake Ocone, joining the Creek club designed by Jim Engh as such.
This leaves five public access courses open to customers of Lake Ritz-Carlton Reynolds Ocone or luxurious co-ownerships and chalets of the station. Great Waters, designed by Jack Nicklaus, is classified by Golfweek Best as courses n ° 2 to public access in Georgia and is equal to the 72nd on the list of the best resort in the United States. The OCONE, PRESSERVE and NOW-18-HOL The National also ranked among the 15 best public access courses in the State and appear on several other golfweek rankings.
The options are dizzying with so many solid golf holes in a seaside resort and a real estate community.
“Richland adds a separate seventh game experience for members of Reynolds Lake Ocone, highlighting the talents of Tom Fazio’s design and site topography,” said John Gunderson, president of the developer of Reynolds Daniel Communities and associate director of Reynolds Lake Ocone. “It is difficult to imagine a finer collection of golf courses in any community in the country.”
