OK, it's not in Atlanta. Assuming you can follow the bread crumbs correctly from the Atlanta airport you could get to this northside golf course in 1 1/2 hours or 2 1/2 hours depending on traffic!
Anyway this Rees Jones course is the latest multi million dollar, ultra high end development north of Atlanta along with Hawk's Ridge, Capital City Crabapple Course (not really a development course but a second 18 for a very well established old Atlanta club), The Manor, White Columns (about 10 years old or so now?), Crooked Creek and the older Atlanta National Golf Club. All high end clubs asking $35,000 and up (except Crooked Creek).
I guess the main competitors are The Manor vs. The Echelon club as they are just a few miles apart, have IDs of $50,000 each and opened within a year or so of one another. Lots in both easily command $1M and the homes are enormous. Rumor was the house on the first hole at Echelon was between 11,000 and 19,000 sq. feet and had a price close to $5M.
The golf course does have some of the finest A-1 bent grass greens I have seen and even during the oppresively hot August with this record 100 year drought, the greens were perfect and rolled quite quickley--I'm guessing an 11 or so.
The course itself is decent enough on holes 1 through 8 but then I have to wonder what in the world anyone was trying to do by building a golf course on what one in my group desribed as "billy goat country". This is the most severe up and down golf course I have ever seen and some of it really sucks.
Not being a designer I will admit that maybe this is the absolute best use of land if one "had" to build a golf course on it. But as a golfer it was a joke.
Hole #9 began the mountainous trek. Uphill par 4 all the way to a blind landing area and then a blind green--no part of the green or the greenside bunker are visible--you just see a flag. I don't mind the occasional blind shot at all--just had my fill of this on #9-#18. The 11 handicapper in my group was a good player but at 65 h wasn't a long hitter. From the 6500 course this was one of several fairways he couldn't reach. BTW, the course yardages were: 6000, 6500, 7000 and 7600. We were in an event and had no choice of tees.
#10 Straight downhill par 4 to a shallow green protected by a large front bunker. My drive on this 371 yard hole came within about two yards of being on the putting surface! From 120 yards or so, none of my fellow golfers were able to hold the green from the severe downhill lies into this shallow target. Long of course is dead.
#11 Our actual starting hole and one of my all time top ten worst par 5s. From our 540 yard tees (Par 5s from the back had three of them over 600 yards and one that at 526 played about 590 but I'll describe that beauty later).
Anyway the drive requires a carry over an enormous ravine/ditch filled with native grasses. Our 11 handicapper hit it as good as he could over the shortest carry and could not get over the ravine. I'm guessing it was a carry of 190-200 yards.
After a good drive of 275 or so you can now lay up with a 5 to 8 iron. The ravine continues down the entire left side and crosses in front of the green forcing you to REALLY lay up. By luck my lay up 6 iron stopped a yard from going too far and stayed in the fairway short of the ravine--I now had 130 yards to the green. I assume most players would try and lay up to the 150 area--always fun to be forced to lay that far back on a really long par 5. If you tried to carry the ravine the fairway just short of the green was 12-15 yards wide with ravine left and enormous hill on the right--not really an option.
Oh, this green sloped away from the players as well. Most in my group of 5-11 handicppaers hit driver, 4 or 5 iron and then a 7 or 8iron. Of course, our 11 could not finish.
#12 Straight uphill short par 4. So uphill in fact that even from our 279 tees I couldn't get my best drive there (remember the downhill 10th at 371 left me within a couple of yards of that green). Two large bunkers force most play out to the right which leaves, you guessed it, a completely blind shot at a flagstick. After climbing the hill you find a three tiered green with a bunker front and right.
#13 Straight back down the hill. A par 4 of 508 from the tips and 410 or so from where we played. A ravine is off to the right and two bunkers guarded the left side of the fairway. So downhill I played a 2 iron and wedge to the green. 2 of the guys hit drivers and watched for minutes as the balls hung in the air before fading into the ravine/hazard on the right. I have no recollection of any feature on the green.
#14 From tee to green my best guess is that you climb at least 100 feet. While waiting to hit second shots I noticed that all of else were leaning into the hill to keep our balance just standing in the fairway! One player was a good skier who with absolutely no malice in his heart commented that it would be a nice ski run down the fairway!
Several tiers will built in the fairway to keep the balls from simply rolling all the way down the damn hill! One player's second shot landed in the fairway, rolled to about 40 yads short of the green until it then rolled at least 40 yards back into a level spot in the fairway! To be fair, the fairways were firm and fast thanks to the drought but this hole still sucked.
After slogging your way up the hill the green (blind) had a real cute false front that helped repel third shots as well back to your feet. I felt like I was playing "King of the Hill" with a golf hole--not much fun.
#15 downhill par 3 that actually was one of the best holes on the course. Back tees had it at 254 and thankfully our 185 tee played like 165. A cool front fairway/bowl area encouraged a running approach and this was a fine golf hole with a gorgeous backdrop.
#16 Downhill again. Right ravine, left fairway bunker (sound familiar) and a pretty bland green.
#17 the flattest hole on the course right by a main two lane road. Again, a very solid hole and a welcome relief from the hills.
#18 Very uphill drive with a left fairway bunker and a ravine/hazard on the right (seriously
). Second shot from a severe lie is again uphill to a blind green. You could see a flag but unlike some of the other uphill holes that hinted at a bunker up ahead due to the shaping (you could never see any sand), this big left bunker was a complete surprise! Yes I was in it. Literally none of us could tell if there was green 25 left, right, in front or behind on many greens including this one. I suppose the more you play, you'd learn what to do and we could have driven up to every green and checked them out before playing but 5 hours was already enough time dedicated to this round
I simply don't get why you'd try and build a course like this. I know it would be hard to say "no,no, no don't pay me whatever for building this hugely expensicve course for you" but if anyone could afford to say something like that you'd think it would be someone like a Rees Jones. On the "level holes" there were some interesting shots--a neat par 4 on the front with some inside left bunkers and then a short pitch across a hazard was nice.
Oh well, maybe I was expecting too much but it was a very dissapointing back nine
I am certain the development will do well. The Melrose corporation does a very nice job, the staff was exceptionally courteous and the homes and amenities will be out of this world. The course conditioning is nearly perfect but it's ironic and kinda sad that the weakest element in the whole project is the design of the course itself. Again, maybe this was the best that could be done with the land but for a project like this why not keep looking for suitable property???