OUR
REGULAR GAME NO. 2
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When it
comes to golf, we are truly blessed to live in Louisiana.
Unlike our neighbors to the North, who must put their clubs away
for months at a time over the winter, we can play our favorite game all
year round.
And that’s not the only reason we’re blessed.
Over the last ten years, Louisiana has really started to come of
age as a golf state. It
probably began with the opening of The Country Club of Louisiana in the
mid-1980s. Designed by none
other than Jack Nicklaus, it featured a truly first rate golf course.
I was fortunate enough to attend the opening, which featured a
clinic by Nicklaus himself.
After that, Nicklaus designed English Turn in New Orleans.
Also a private club, it became the host site for the annual PGA
Tour stop in the Crescent City, which is now known as the Compaq Classic.
Other great courses began popping up around the state.
The famed architect Robert Trent Jones designed Le Triomphe in
Broussard, outside of Lafayette, a great track that now hosts the annual
Buy.Com event, the Louisiana Open. Southern
Trace in Shreveport opened around the same time and hosts Louisiana’s
other Buy.Com event, the Shreveport Open.
The competition had a healthy effect.
Older clubs began to update and redesign their courses.
Oakbourne Country Club in Lafayette was among the first to rebuild
its old, traditional, “push-up” greens to USGA specifications, and it
remains a top venue for golf around the state.
Following Oakbourne’s example, Bayou deSiard Country Club in
Monroe and the Lake Charles Country Club also rebuilt their greens and
modernized their courses. These
projects were expensive, but provided significant improvements that were
long overdue.
These developments weren’t limited to private clubs, either.
The state was fortunate to see the construction of some wonderful
public access courses come along around the same time, from Eastover in
New Orleans, to The Bluffs on Thompson Creek north of Baton Rouge at St.
Francisville, to Cypress Bend at Toledo Bend near Many, to Gray Plantation
Golf Club in Lake Charles. And
then, with the arrival of the casinos, there were still more new courses,
such as Tamahka Trails at the Paragon Casino near Marksville, and the
course presently under construction at the Grand Casino of the Coushatta
Tribe near Kinder outside of Lake Charles.
There’s still much more. The
Goodyear family built a fabulous course called Money Hill Country Club on
its timber plantation near Abita Springs, north of Lake Pontchartrain.
Designed by Florida architect Ron Garl, it’s one of two courses
built on uncharacteristically hilly land in a state that is otherwise so
flat we mark speed bumps as a change in elevation.
The other, of course, is The Bluffs on Thompson Creek.
There’s a saying in golf architecture that you can’t
manufacture good golf course property, even with the earth-moving
equipment available today. That’s
very true. Even Donald Ross
wouldn’t be able to turn a flat, uninteresting landscape into another
Pinehurst No. 2. The first
requirement for a great course is great land, and both The Bluffs and
Money Hill have it. Arnold
Palmer’s design group did The Bluffs and took great advantage of the
beautiful property overlooking Thompson’s Creek, and Ron Garl produced a
masterpiece at Abita Springs. I
have personal affection for Money Hill because Garl reproduced some
classic Alister Mackenzie bunkers, especially on the tenth hole, that give
the course a wonderful, traditional feel.
In either case, you’ll find it hard to believe you’re in
Louisiana when you play these gems.
I’ve probably left out some deserving courses, but time doesn’t
allow me to mention all of the great courses in the state.
Among the others is the University Club in Baton Rouge, which I
really like for its natural and minimalist design, The Island, Pelican
Point, Old Oakes, and Santa Maria. All
of these are great places to play, so don’t pass them up if you get a
chance to tee it up at any one of them.
Everyone no doubt has their own favorites, and I’m no exception.
As a member of the Golf Digest Course Rating Panel, it’s been my
privilege to play virtually all of the great courses around the state. It’s only appropriate, therefore, to leave you with my own
personal, and unofficial, rating of Louisiana’s top courses, based on
their natural beauty, playability, conditioning, and architecture:
1. Money Hill Country
Club
2. The Bluffs on
Thompson’s Creek
3. The Country Club of
Louisiana
4. Southern Trace
Country Club
5. English Turn Golf
and Country Club
6. Tamahka Trails Golf
Club
7. Lake Charles
Country Club
8. Gray Plantation
Golf Club
9. LeTriomphe Golf
Club
10.
Cypress Bend Golf Club
You probably have your own favorites as well.
Send us your “Top Ten” list, and we’ll see how it compares to
ours.
So we’ll see you next time for our “regular game.” Until then, may you answer every bogey with a birdie.
About the Author
J. Michael Veron is the acclaimed author of The
Greatest Player Who Never Lived and The
Greatest Course That Never Was. His third novel, tentatively titled
The Caddie, is scheduled for release in the spring of 2002.
Mike's work has earned him the title of "master
of fiction" from USA Today, and Travel and Leisure Golf Magazine
has called him "The
John Grisham of Golf." In addition, the New York Times hailed The
Greatest Player as "Golf's
Literary Rookie of the Year," and the Seattle Times ranked The
Greatest Player as second on its all-time list of "Five Wonderful
Golf Books." At one time,
The Greatest Player and The
Greatest Course were the first and third best-selling sports fiction
in the country.
Please contact us
for more information on Mike and his work.
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