Every March I head to Orlando for a 5-day golf-a-thon with a group of my wife’s relatives (sometimes family obligations can just be hell). I drive the minivan down so we don’t have to rent another vehicle, so this year I decided to duck off Interstate 75 at Exit 16 in Valdosta and check out Kinderlou Forest, a Davis Love III design. The golf course is the centerpiece of a residential community being developed on the 600 acre homesite of an old family farm. Kinderlou Forest opened in 2004 and was named by Golf Digest magazine as one of the 10 best public access courses to open that year.
I was already scheduled to play 144 holes of golf over the next 5 days – I should have known that trying to add on another round was severely tempting fate. On 2 different days, separated by my Florida trip, I managed to play 12 of the holes at Kinderlou. On the drive down, I found out the front 9 was closed due to repair work, so I wound up playing the back 9 twice. I stopped in again on my drive back to Atlanta to catch the front side, only to be chased off the course after 3 holes by a violent thunderstorm (see below). At least the customer service was excellent – they gave me a discount on the first round and a rain check for the second.
I will post some pictures and comments on specific holes in subsequent posts:
The Front 3:
http://www.golfclubatlas.com/forums2/index.php?board=1;action=display;threadid=17884Some general observations:
1. The course is long. DLIII is one of the longer hitters on the Tour, so it might make sense for him to design a course with plenty of distance. I generally don’t play the very back set of tees, so I automatically went to the second set – only to find out after a couple of holes that the SECOND set of tees plays 7,257 yards. The Championship Tees are 7,781 yards! The par 4’s on the back are: 419, 439, 426, 436, and 460, the finishing hole playing uphill all the way.
2. The property is much hillier than I expected for south Georgia, and there are a lot of elevation changes on many holes, both up and downhill. The front 9 traverses a large, hilly area that appears to have been open farm land, while the back 9 winds through a more forested area. The property is beautiful and it appears as though they are keeping the residential development well back from the course, although it's hard to tell as not many homes have been built yet.
The course is walkable; green to tee distances are very reasonable. One downside to walking is the reliance on the GPS system on the carts, although a pro-style yardage book is available. Another potential downside is the length and hilliness of the course – you better be in shape if you’re going to walk Kinderlou.
3. The design features that stood out most to me were the push-up style greens and the flat-bottomed bunkers with grass faces. The greens had a reasonable amount of break but did not have large contours. Many greens also had drop-offs or run-offs into swales or chipping areas.
Example: right side view of the green on hole #02:
4. Visual deception is used quite effectively on a number of holes. For example, the high banks of the creek that cuts in front of the 13th green make it appear the green is very close to the creek when in fact there is a 30 yard landing area between the creek and the green. Failure to place your ball in the preferred area of the fairway on a number of holes results in an obstructed path to the green - either physically or visually.
5. There are several lakes on the property, but they are not often in play. Water is in play on a number of holes, but it is generally from creeks that wind alongside or cut across the fairways or wetlands that encroach.
Despite my bad luck here, I would highly recommend playing Kinderlou Forest if you are in the Valdosta area. It’s a beautiful parkland course, a real test of your golf game (particularly from a length perspective), and it’s an excellent value (in comparison to metro Atlanta prices).
There's a storm brewin' .....
Can you say "rain check?"
Andy