I’m new to the community and finally have something to post. I got out to West Point, MS to play Mossy Oak two weeks ago and wanted to share my impressions. —ChristianThe pro shop at Mossy Oak Golf Club offers a bounty of hats in a variety of colors, but, oddly, none in the familiar camouflage the property is named after. Yet camouflage is a serviceable theme for Gil Hanse’s course design—what he chooses to disguise and what he does not. While a few features stand out against the natural setting, more offer puzzles of optical deception.
What’s camouflaged on this 160 acre square of land in West Point, Mississippi? Certainly not natural beauty: Open sky, rolling land, birds and insects abound. Yet the course is born from a transitional meadow and farmland--not cut from wilderness. As a result, there are signs of previous land use: livestock trails, retention ponds, levees, gravel roads, field boundaries, and untilled creek runs. Hanse doesn’t camouflage these either.
The result is an interesting alchemy: the course feels neither like a manicured garden nor a hike in the wild. The artifacts at first blush are in conflict with the expectations of natural golf. For example, the large retention pond feels hacked-out and obvious, an element less interesting courses might have struggled to hide. Some fairways run along conventionally flattened land only to suddenly encounter the cants and pitches of a rough-hewn grazing range. Creeks meander through the course like vasculature, establishing a boundary or suggesting a course of action.
The trees on the property are the most striking. Isolated by decades of farming, their crowns expanded, unimpeded by competition for light. Hanse employs them as sentinels to guide the routing, trick the eye, or occasionally tempt aggressive shots. Yet they rarely come into play, even on a hole that has been misplayed. The course is wide open, no hole hidden from its neighbors.
Perhaps the most deceptive tool in Hanse’s design is bunkering. Traps shared by adjacent holes abound and are easy to easy to misinterpret. Many serve a dual purpose: defining the fairway and directing the eye but also foiling players on neighboring holes who might misread a strip of sand.
Hanse has accepted the history of the land and incorporated all of it into a beautiful walk through a farm. Accordingly, it stands apart from both parkland-style perfectionism and a cultivated wilderness aesthetic. It feels like gently refined pasture golf, a feeling that peaks in the wide-open fairways and grassy vistas, where the player is farthest from tee or green. A round of fine shot values is punctuated with a few moments of sharp challenge that stand in fun contrast to the lazy rural surroundings. Let’s go over some holes to show you what I mean.
No. 1 is an open book: a wide, legible two-shotter with a modest gully to clear and a tall grove of pines to the right. The fairway is uncomplicated. It feels connected to the land that surrounds it. In the corner of the property sits the green complex. Like most that will follow, it is deeper than expected, with a false front and close traps to complicate the approach.
As with most on the course, the green is moderately undulated and hard to read from the fairway. Most of the greens have enough size and shape to offer tricky pin locations. While the greens are not marble-hard, they can be difficult to hold, with trouble waiting for any ball that rolls off.
No. 1 green.
Looking back toward the first tee.No. 2 heads out of the corner along a property line hidden in trees. Another modest two-shotter, it plays optical games in keeping with its namesake. From the back tees the flag hugs the horizon but from the forward tees the first shot can be blind, with a green backed by a cup of wetland.
From the tees you see the green…
…then from the fairway you don’t.
Properly warmed-up by the first two holes, No. 3 is a short par four with a puzzle of a green complex that will reward repeated efforts to solve it. Perched on a promontory with a sprawling oak to the left, a very narrow tongue of fairway leads to a small bicycle seat-shaped green. A conservative tee shot to the base of the complex requires an exacting wedge to hold fast. Tall bunkers are the unappealing alternative; a misplayed sand shot could easily result in a journey back down the hill.
The angle from the tee…
…and the direct angle in.No. 4 is a moderate length par three, addressing a small round hill which sports a green surrounded on three sides by a short, runaway rough. Like many Hanse complexes, sloppy iron play is punished and a failure to hold the green carries a stiff penalty. The green is uncomplicated, yet some tee positions could bring the lofty tree-line to the right into play, or nearly so.
The next tee is just down the far side of the hill and, as the first par five, turns back from where we came and connects with the No. 2 fairway. There are decisions to make from the tee: try and clear the grassy creek or keep safely short? And again from the fairway: lay up ahead of several bunkers or thread the needle to the green? Similar to Hanse’s fifth hole at Rustic Canyon, a possible alternative solution is to play long, into the neighboring fairway left, and then break in with an easy pitch.
No. 4 tee, with fairway center and No. 13 green to right.
Refined bunkering in play for both No. 2 and No. 5.
No. 5 green complex, as seen from No. 13 green.No. 6 switches back again and for the first time addresses the major geographic feature of the property, a crescent-shaped hillock that serves as the fulcrum around which much of the routing runs. The hole climbs from the pasture up onto the edge of the hillock, where a large green clings to the slope. A drive tight into the side of the hill is riskier, but provides a clean line into the green, taking a row of hillside bunkers out of play. A short walk from the green leads to one of the nicest views of the property, with much of the back nine suddenly visible behind a meadow of high grasses.
View from the back tees…
…and from the fairway, No. 6 flag low right.No. 7 is a par five with a blind tee shot that runs downhill. Two trees over the hill suggest very different lines, with different risk profiles. Aim left and it is easy to overshoot into a creek or a grove of marshland. Aim right and there is more room to run, but the distance into the crowded green complex gets longer and more testing, as there is sand to the right. The green is among the smallest on the course.
The drive on No. 7 drops down the hill. Green complex is far left.
The view looking back up the fairway.Just off the green is No. 8, a charming two-shotter, which takes such advantage of an existing grove of trees that it feels almost engineered, like a romantic English landscape. A vernal gully runs through the fairway, looking from the tee like a functional burn. The prize could be taken with two irons, or perhaps more conventionally by carrying the gully with driver and attacking the green, which roosts in the shadows early and late in the day.
Greenside bunker on No. 8.No. 9 is a short par three, with a forced carry over a stamp of wetland, a spit of fairway left and a worrying slope that veers without much rough into a small pond right. The hole shares some of the course’s finest bunkering with the 18th green.
No. 10 tees off by the clubhouse, with a short fairway that bends sharply in a dog-leg right, around a splendid Live Oak, which hides the pin from view.
No. 11 is a long par three, requiring, of almost all tee positions, a yawning water carry to a thin green that hugs the waterline of the farm’s irrigation pond. Backed by a trio of large bunkers, with high, parabolic faces, there is little room to be long. This is the only hole that plays within earshot of the country road.
Now at the opposite corner of the property from the first green, the course turns back from the road. No. 12 tees off along the pond’s levee and onto a wide, tilted fairway. Staying on schedule is essential here as a bisecting burn and severe green-front slope make recovery shots complex.
The No. 12 green, defended by a slope short and bunkers and pitched rough long, seen from No. 16.No. 13 is a par four that delivers genuine surprises, at least the first time around. Again, Hanse uses bunkers intended for another hole to camouflage the line on this hole. (Or is it the other way around?) After a forced carry over scrub, a narrowing fairway presents a limited view of the flag, which is ringed with marshland along the back.
No. 14 turns again, in yet another switchback, re-addressing the crescent hill, and begins the most engaging sequence of the course, with shot values that reflect the mounting pressure of a late-round run. The look off the back tees is open, but similar to Hanse’s ninth at Rustic Canyon, a modest bunker, unseen from closer tees, suggests a driving line and nicely complicates the view. The sloping fairway cuts left, but what is the ideal line? A lone Spanish Oak guides the way to a green complex that favors a left-side attack on this long par four.
No. 15 is the last par three of the course, making nice use of a corner of the hilltop. The green is faced with several steep bunkers and backed by a more forgiving closely-mown area. The tee also provides a valuable peek at the pin position for no. 17.
Looking up to the No. 15 green, seen from the No. 14 fairway.No. 16 sets up just right of the previous green and follows the high spine of the hillock. The offset tees provide a variety of angles to the wide fairway, which is lined by a grove of trees on the high side and a meadow of native grass on the low side. The clutch of fairway bunkers low and right is the finest on the course. A long second shot should find a green that backs up against the green of no. 8.
The bunkers demand attention from low and right on the No. 16 fairway.
A flock of starling at the No. 16 green.No. 17 has both drama and fun in store and it feels like the largest on the course. Along the side of the hillock, the land pitches gently toward native grass on the left. On the right, a large field of high rough shapes the fairway into a large curve. The flag beckons from a narrow rampart in the distance. In the face of such a vista, the first shot feels obvious, even simple. But placement is key as the green is small and remote, guarded by large bunkers left and right.
No. 17 fairway; tees are off frame left.From the tee, the green appears reachable in two, but there is so little room for error that players may talk themselves into aiming an iron only at what they can see and no more. A possible reward for such discipline is an easy pitch onto a flat green that occupies just about every inch of the hilltop. The cost of a bad gamble would be a long, sloped rough recovery.
A player in a typical second shot dilemma: choosing between a blind attempt at a hidden flag or a lay up to the front.Following a final switchback, the No. 18 tee presents two more beautiful oaks framing the clubhouse, with the late afternoon sun at the golfer’s back. After a forced carry to a gentle hillside, a dogleg left fairway hinges at the crest of the hill. If the drive doesn’t make the crest of the dogleg, the second shot to a relatively unguarded green complex could be blind. Errant shots left can easily vanish into a pond, as the slope heads directly to it. Better to lay-up and exhibit the wedge game for whatever gallery awaits.
No. 18 forward tees and fairway, from the previous green.
A fringed bunker on the far side of the home hole.
Hanse has created a diverting country jaunt that offers natural beauty and testing golf. Fitting his minimalist style, the tests are not always announced or immediately obvious, and the vibe is relaxed. Anyone who seeks a pleasant day of country golf in a unique setting will relish the two hour drive from Birmingham, Memphis, or Jackson. Now if club co-owner Toxey Haas could get his world-famous Mossy Oak camouflage onto a hat, I will gladly return to acquire one.
The clubhouse.CONDITIONS
The course was in excellent condition. Greens were pristine and moderately paced—but not fast. Fairways were clean and firm. It was a beautiful fall day, warm and sunny. The wind picked up for the last few holes and was a welcome complication. The course had been officially open about six weeks.
WALKING
The course made for an easy walk but carts are encouraged by management, as are forecaddies for groups. Holes on the perimeter of the property often have concrete cart paths, which were occasionally an eyesore. Walkers will be disappointed as there are times when they are expected to take to the paved paths, as direct routes from back tees to fairways, or over wetlands are not offered.
Natural camouflage off the home green.The notes and edits of Gene Fama Jr. are gratefully acknowledged.
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