Bob, "The Preserve Golf Club" in Vancleave, Mississippi, is about 90 minutes west of Pensacola, Florida, just off I-10. Both that course and Pensacola Country Club's new course were designed by Jerry Pate Design Group. Last weekend, GCAers Tiger Bernhardt, Michael Christensen, and I played both courses with Steve Dana, Pate's lead architect on the projects. Chris Moore of New Orleans, another GCAer, joined us for the round Saturday in Pensacola.
The Preserve here is so named because it's adjacent to and at times surrounded by a natural preserve of beautiful savannah and wetlands. The uplands for the golf course was obtained through a land swap that created the savannah preserved for posterity. It's a core course with no plans for housing in the future, as it is owned by the Palace Casino as an amenity for those gamblers who also like to play golf.
It was a pleasure to see Steve Dana shoot even par rounds on both courses. Being both a strong player (Princeton golf team in the early '90s) and the architect gave Steve a strong background for good golf!
Both courses are well designed, with classic features built with low lying modern construction techniques and superb drainage design. Pensacola suffered from poor drainage for many years. The new course drains very well and is playing very firm at this point. The greens at The Preserve (Mississippi version) are pretty wild, and, as Michael points out above, a couple of the pins were set right on the precipice of very steep contours.
It was a fun weekend in pretty warm and humid conditions. I appreciate the guys who came to play, and thanks to Steve Dana for joining us - and showing us how it's supposed to be done.
