Tom Fazio is building an 18 hole golf course, Frederica Golf Course, on St. Simons Island, GA. Tom Paul and I were graciously shown this work in progress. It is a project of enormous scale: 7 million cubic yards of fill are being moved (much of it from an area that will be a 250 acre lake), huge trees are being relocated, and the construction costs alone dwarf many overall budgets by a number of magnitudes. But you know something? It looks terrific! The designers and construction crew (Medalist Golf) are taking great care to use natural looking lines that blend in very well with land forms in the distance. The manufactured slopes and contours look remarkably natural on ground that is essentially flat. Two holes (4,18) have centerline hazards short of the green. Water comes into play on 6 holes (2,10,11,12,14,18). With 6 sets of tees (that's a lot of tee markers), a par of 72, and 7383 yards from the Championship tees, 7068 from Medal, 6739 from Member, 6332 from Club, 5915 from Senior, and 5363 from Ladies there is yardage for any game.
The par 3s from the Championship tees are
196,240,178,162
The par 4s
382,462,485,327,485,453,350,438,470,455
The par 5s
580,573,540,607
The grassing should be complete later this spring and the course opening sometime next year. There will be very high-end housing around this core golf course. It should be an interesting opening and one I anticipate being well-received.