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Reynolds Plantation and The Georgian Resort

For all its diversity, Atlanta is not known as a major golf destination. But that is changing. Some visionaries, golf enthusiasts with capital, are recognizing that Atlanta’s stature as a corporate capital, major gateway city, and desirable place to live means there’s a big market for golf. In a Field of Dreams in reverse, their refrain is: "They’re coming. Quick, let’s build it!"

Deploying pans and scrapers like Romel’s panzers in the North African desert, they’ve enlarged and reshaped the landscape of Atlanta with attractive courses and resorts like Reynolds Plantation, White Columns, The Georgian Resort, and the private and spectacular Tournament Players Club (TPC) at Sugarloaf.

Given Georgia’s place in golf history, the trend is inevitable. After all, its largest city was the birthplace of Bobby Jones, whose legacy to the game is arguably unmatched. Today, a fair contingent of PGA and Senior PGA Tour players live in the area, and both tours have annual events here. In 1998, The Tour Championship was held at East Lake, Jones’ old club, and the 2001 PGA Championship will be hosted by the Atlanta Athletic Club.

"In the few years since I moved here," one nouveau Atlantan told me, "golf in this area has exploded."

The percussion is heard 75 miles away, near Greensboro midway between Atlanta and Augusta. Here, off I-20 in the state’s central farm belt, is Reynolds Plantation, a 7,000-acre lakeside residential and resort community that is zooming to the top of golfers’ travel lists.

Reynolds Plantation

The plantation lies on rolling hills covered with magnificent mature pine forests bordering beautiful Lake Oconee. Oconee means "great waters" in the language of the Creek Indians who settled here 250 years ago. Treaties in the late 1770s ceded Indian lands to Colonial Georgia which honored discharged soldiers with gifts of land parcels. Mercer Reynolds was one beneficiary.

Since then, generations of Reynolds have kept ownership of parcels that made up the original Reynolds Plantation. First opened in the early 1980s, the community and resort are being developed by the family-owned Linger Longer Development Company, chaired by Mercer Reynolds of Cincinnati.

Reynolds Plantation is for active visitors and residents seeking tranquility in a breathtaking natural setting. Human night owls will find good hunting elsewhere, as life after sundown is fairly tame. But during the day, recreationists can feast on three superb golf courses, miles of biking and hiking trails, tennis, a fitness center, and water sports serviced by a marina. The complex also has business facilities and two excellent dining rooms at the clubhouses. Resort guests stay in cozy two-bedroom cottages with high-ceilinged living rooms, decks and sleeping lofts.

Growing numbers of homeowners, including Sam Nunn and Newt Gingrich, are making Reynolds Plantation either their primary or secondary place of residence. Some residents commute to Atlanta. Here, sensitive planning assures that the rich natural endowment will not be spoiled. The site’s abundant wildlife includes deer, red fox, bald eagles, wading birds and otters.

The biggest event in the area’s recent history was the damming of the Oconee River in 1979 by Georgia Power to create Oconee, Georgia’s second largest lake. Oconee, a sprawling, jigsaw-puzzle-piece-shaped lake, has transformed the character of the area from a sleepy community of farms and small rural houses to an upscale settlement.

The plantation includes 50 miles of shoreline. The lake separates the primary complex that encompasses two courses, Plantation and Reynolds National, from Great Waters, the 680-acre residential community of private homes, golf cottages and Great Waters, a Jack Nicklaus signature course.

Great Waters, which hosted the Anderson Consulting World Match Play quarter finals in 1995 - 1997, is a 7015-yard par 72 test from the back tees. The outward eight holes in the uplands is undistinguished, but the layout comes alive at #9, a 376-yard downhiller to a green perched tightly against a thumb of the lake. From there, the course winds around a forested peninsula that features eight Kodak-moment lakeside holes, the best of which is #12, a 521-yard dogleg left requiring a drive over a cove of the lake to a narrow landing area from where the fairway slopes sharply upward to a bunkered green. Great Waters, which opened in 1992, is among the better tracks in the Nicklaus portfolio.

Even more stunning is Reynolds National by Tom Fazio, who has worked holes of panoramic dimensions over ridges and valleys framed by towering pines. Following a forested front nine showcased by the terrific 554-yard 6th to a huge, peninsular green that juts into a man-made lake, the back meanders down to Oconee (with three holes on the lake) and back up through upland forests and over lakes and streams. A third nine, sure to please Faziophiles, is scheduled to open soon.

Reynolds’ third and oldest course is Plantation, co-designed by Robert Cupp, Fuzzy Zoeller and Hubert Green. Adjacent to Reynolds National and opened in the mid-1980s, it is a pleasant hilly jaunt with four fine finishing holes.

In 2001, Reynolds Plantation will expand with the opening of a Ritz-Carlton 250-room hotel and complex and a Reese Jones’ layout that is already drawing comparisons with the architect’s best designs. The course will be available exclusively to hotel guests.

For reservations at Reynolds Plantation, call 1-800-733-LAKE.

The Georgian Resort

About 25 miles west of downtown Atlanta off I-20 in rural Paulding County is The Georgian Resort, being developed by Grand Cypress Development, whose worldwide portfolio includes Grand Cypress Resort in Orlando and Peachtree Tower in downtown Atlanta.

Grand Cypress founder and head, Herman Vonhof, a Netherlands-born Atlantan, wants to raise Atlanta’s image as a golf destination. Some 3.2 million business travelers a year come to Atlanta for meetings, staying an average of almost three days. Vonhof’s aim with The Georgian Resort is to stretch those visits.

Tom Fazio designed the first of two courses on the resort’s 1150-acre tract. The course, called The Frog, is managed by Marriott International, which will also manage a four-star 508-room resort hotel and complex slated to open in 2001. The complex will include a conference center, golf academy, tennis and spa facilities, an equestrian center and hiking trails. Some 300 select home sites will be developed around the second 18, also to be designed by Fazio. With options on 650 acres, Vonhof may build yet two more courses on site.

Opened in November 1998, The Frog is a 7,000-yard (73.7/137 slope from the tips) par 72 moderately hilly layout designed primarily for resort play. The holes wind through thin stands of oaks, pines and other native trees. There are several lakes on the course whose holes run closely adjacent to each other. A few quirky design features seem uncharacteristic of the architect. The opener is a 457-yarder that features a blind approach shot from the right side of the fairway. The landing area between a lake and fairway bunker on the par 5 4th would be considered narrow by U.S. Open standards, and the 361-yard 6th is so steep it can almost be driven. Popular with guests, The Frog is well suited to outings of groups with widely varying abilities. And although not one of Fazio's best, it is nonetheless a fun course to play.

For information on The Georgian Resort, call 770-459-4400.

Please continue for reviews of White Columns and TPC Sugarloaf.

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Alan B. Nichols is a professional golf-travel writer residing in Bethesda, MD.
He is the featured golf-travel writer for GolfLink. Alan appreciates your
comments on his features and the courses he has written about. 
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