Articles

AUGUSTA & REYNOLDS PLANTATION

“GEORGIA ON MY MIND”

After having conquered “the impregnable quadrilateral of golf” - the British and U.S. Amateur Championships and the British and U.S. Opens - in 1929, Georgia native Bobby Jones, at the adventurous age twenty-eight, retired from competitive golf and set out to build his dream golf course, somewhere in the American South. Jones was “the model American athlete come to life,” according to Herbert Warren Wind, who went on to write, “his eyes gleamed with both a frank boyishness and perceptiveness far beyond his years.” It was with Bobby’s same ingrained “perceptiveness” that the Ritz-Carlton Hotel Company sought out a location more than a decade ago now, to build the first destination resort of its kind in the United States in nearly 100 years. Both these altruistic pursuits would come to fruition in the rolling, pine covered hills of Georgia.

In the case of Ritz-Carlton, these good folks were fortunate to discover a long treasured, family retreat in the foothills of eastern Georgia which has steadily been establishing an internationally renowned reputation on the American golf landscape. Now revered as the South’s premier residential lake and golf community, Reynolds Plantation was recently named one of “The World’s Eight Most Exceptional Golf Communities” by the Robb Report.

Just a short drive from the hustle and bustle of Atlanta, this once tranquil hunting and fishing getaway, lovingly referred to as “Linger Longer” by the Reynolds family, seems a world away! Towering oaks, thickets of loblolly pines, fragrant magnolias, flowering dogwoods, and the unhurried waters of beautiful Lake Oconee (a Creek Indian term meaning “great waters”) provide an idyllic sanctuary for an authentic golf and “lingering” experience.

An exclusive meeting venue in the tradition of a grand American resort, The Lodge at Reynolds Plantation offers an exquisite blend of gracious southern charm and legendary Ritz-Carlton luxury. Tucked away on a secluded peninsula among the pines and draped in beds of ivy and blooming myrtles, The Lodge greets their guests with cordial bellhops in argyle socks and knickers before they enter the soaring, beamed lobby reflecting the pre-Civil War and Native American heritage of the 10,000-acre resort.

In addition to the 256 handsomely appointed guest rooms (each with a private balcony), The Lodge offers 6 two and three bedroom golf cottages which feature spectacular lakeside accommodations complete with stone verandas, wood-burning fire places, wrap around porches, and your own BBQ Butler upon request. Countless other luxurious amenities are offered guests of The Lodge including personal chiminea fires for cozy, starlight snuggling complete with lodge-provided blankets and sweet, traditional s’mores; an award winning spa; fine dining; swimming pools; three full-service marinas; a new lakefront Lake Club wellness center and tennis complex; miles of scenic walking trails where deer, wild turkey, red-tailed hawks, and bald eagles abound; the vanguard, privately secluded, creatively adaptable, 16-acre Reynolds Golf Academy campus inspired by the golf traditions of Jones’ hometown of Atlanta; and, oh yes, 99 holes of incomparable golf designed by the greatest architects in the game.

Acknowledged as the “North American Golf Resort of the Year” shortly after opening in 2004, few communities or resorts can boast the caliber of courses found at Reynolds Plantation. Home of the Anderson Consulting World Match Play Championship of Golf from 1995 through 1997, Jack Nicklaus’s signature Great Waters design took full advantage of the magnificence of the setting at Reynolds. Despite Jack’s routing along the ever present waters of Lake Oconee, many have called this work one of the most user friendly courses Nicklaus has built, so relax and enjoy the vistas!

The original Plantation course designed by Bob Cupp, with help from U.S. Open Champions Fuzzy Zoeller and Hubert Green, set the high standard for all succeeding courses at Reynolds Plantation to meet. While certainly not visually intimidating (hardly more than a dozen bunkers are scattered about the design), as Cupp describes, “It is the beauty of the land, the subtleties of the rolling terrain, the variety in the length of holes, and the size of greens makes the Plantation a great course to play.”

Voted the “Best Present Day Architect” by Golf Digest, Tom Fazio was chosen to add to masterful, existing designs at Reynolds. Employing the dramatic, existing topography, elevation changes, mature stands of hardwood and pine, natural streams, several ponds, and memorable lake views, Tom created the magnificent National Course which features three nines: The Ridge, Bluff, and Cove. “It’s no surprise that Reynolds National turned out as well as it did because the Reynolds folks have the patience and commitment to do things right,” Tom recently expressed on a return visit to the site.

Located within just a “bump” wedge shot of the Ritz-Carlton Lodge is one of the latest additions to the Reynolds Plantation roster of great golf course architecture, The Oconee Course. Named after the communities’ single largest asset, 19-thousand acre Lake Oconee, The Oconee is another masterful design by the “U.S. Open Doctor” Rees Jones. World renowned for reworking some of the games most revered venues, including Pinehurst #2, Rees smartly utilized an intuitive routing plan over the stunning terrain presented to him by the Reynolds family. There is an abundance of exciting, risk/reward golf on The Oconee, with breathtaking elevated teeing areas providing panoramic lake views. “We have uncovered a dramatic golf course without changing a lot of what we found when we got here,” observed Jones.

Most recently, The Creek Club became the first private club within the Reynolds Plantation community and is named partly in recognition of the rich Native American heritage which the Creek Indians have contributed to the region over many generations. Jim Engh, Golf Digest’s “Architect of the Year 2003”, aligned this golf course along the channels of Richland creek which rambles throughout the property and, much like creek, his design flows with constantly changing features, appearing mild at some points, while dramatic, bold and wild at others. Of particular note, and one that would bring a smile to Bobby Jones’ face, Engh constructed three separate and unique green complexes on the 18th at The Creek, providing a variety of challenges each and every time the closing hole is played.

Finally, in addition to being honored as “The Best of the Best” Golf Community by the acclaimed Robb Report, Reynolds Plantation has also been named one of the “Top Family Friendly Resorts.” Indeed, every guest at The Lodge will feel inspired by the setting, pampered by the staff, and privileged by the world-class amenities, all without feeling rushed or hurried. The Reynolds’ and Ritz-Carlton vision of creating an environmentally sound community in Jones’ Georgia where families and golfers could “linger longer” and reconnect with one another (and their golf games) has become a reality at the Ritz-Carlton Lodge, Reynolds Plantation.

Now, let’s get back to Jones’ pursuit of HIS dream golf destination. Just a short drive southeast of Reynolds Plantation, along the tranquil banks of the Savannah River which separates Georgia from South Carolina, lies the Garden City of the American South, Augusta. In 1930, Clifford Roberts, a business friend of Bobby’s who was well aware of his desire to build a course somewhere in the South where a championship might one day be played, suggested to Jones that Augusta was “calling him home.” Jones was fond of Augusta’s mild winter climate and believed a club there might afford him some privacy (a scarcity up in Atlanta), a place where he could “linger longer”. In addition, Jones liked the idea because by 1933, neither the Open nor the Amateur – the two biggest tournaments conducted by the United States Golf Association (U.S.G.A.) – had ever been held in the American South. Jones had long wanted to redress that geographical imbalance. They agreed to proceed.

The Augusta National Golf Club, home of the prestigious Masters tournament, the “holy grail” of all golf tournaments, was founded in 1931 by Jones and Roberts on the site of a former indigo plantation and commercial nursery named Fruitlands. Bobby was immediately captivated by the property with its robust, rolling terrain blanketed by blazing azaleas, yellow jasmine, fluffy dogwoods, and flowering peach and tea olive, all set amongst tall stands of statuesque loblolly pines. Seeing the land for the first time was “an unforgettable experience,” Jones later wrote, “It seemed that this land had been lying here for years just waiting for someone to lay a course upon it…”

Jones hired Allister MacKenzie, a prominent Scottish architect, to design his beloved Augusta. Both men shared a passion for the Old Course at St Andrews, and its influence is readily apparent in Augusta’s initial links design which encouraged a horizontal, or “ground” approach. MacKenzie, who more than once referred to Augusta as the “World’s Wonder Inland Golf Course”, believed the surest way to challenge the best was to ask them to control the trajectory of their shots. Like the Old Course, the most important concept behind the Augusta National design - and one to which MacKenzie, Jones, and Roberts all agreed upon from the outset – was the course should be demanding for the expert player yet not intimidating to the average golfer. Fairways at Augusta would be generous with the absence of clearly defined boundaries between many holes (a feature of the Old Course that appealed to MacKenzie), trees would be widely spread, bunkers would be few, green complexes large with much undulation, out-of-bounds would seldom be a danger, and the rough would be kept low. It was to be, as MacKenzie proclaimed, “a course pleasurable to all.”

These “pleasurable” ideas for Augusta National opposed the dominant American design philosophy of the time, which was perhaps most clearly on display at Oakmont Country Club near Pittsburg. Built in 1903 and still viewed by many as the archetypal American championship course, the fairways of Oakmont were narrow, the rough was thick and deep, and every hole offered numerous opportunities for a wayward shot to be irrevocably lost. Bobby and Allister both believed that such ruthless and penal designs made the game unpleasant, and obscured the difference between great golfers and merely good ones by leaving no reasonable possibility of escape. Imagine if Phil Mickelson had not had the opportunity to recover from the pine straw on #13 during the final round of last years Masters, when he was apparently “stymied” behind the pines. “Amen Corner” is still reverberating with the roars of Phil’s creatively, heroic escape which earned him his third green jacket.

With MacKenzie’s death in 1934 and Jones ceasing to play much after 1938, the future of the “pleasurable” ground game at Augusta was in doubt. Sure enough, subsequent changes including more penal bunkering and the increasingly fast pace of the greens (Augusta now has the highest surface ratings for condition and speed in the United States) had become such as to negate any realistic chance of a “bump and run” for one’s approach shots. With the ground game gone, the course was now vulnerable to changes in technology and this brought on several changes from at least 15 different architects. Not only has Augusta National been lengthened by some 400 yards, but a tree planting program was implemented in the late 1990’s to reduce the width of play. And while there are some who believe all the tinkering with its original design has undermined Augusta’s “less is more” uniqueness, Augusta National was just rated America’s #1 golf course in 2010 by Golf Digest, edging out the usual titleholder, Pine Valley. Obviously, there are many more who have accepted the “tinkering” as a natural process and rank Augusta higher now for design variety, resistance to scoring, shot values, conditioning, and oh yes, let’s not forget aesthetics, ambience and memorability!

So, how is it that Bobby’s annual little private gathering of friends, the Masters, has become the most glamorous, most watched, most imitated golf tournament in the world? Is it the prestige brought to the tournament from its beginnings by the presence of Jones, whom is till listed as the club’s President in Perpetuity nearly three decades after his death? Could it simply be the unforgettable beauty of the golf course, with its azaleas and dogwoods in dazzling April bloom? What about the drama and deafening roars emanating from the back nine every annual Sunday, where the exciting risk-reward features of Allister’s and Bobby’s design allow for great shots from great players? “The acoustics back in Amen Corner are like nothing else in the world,” proclaimed Master ’84 and ‘95 Champion Ben Crenshaw. “You know who it is. You know what it is. It’s unique to tournament golf.” Most would agree with all of these theories, but according to David Owen in his well received book, The Making of the Masters, “The hidden and greatly misunderstood figure in the history of the Masters and Augusta National is Clifford Roberts, the club’s chairman and ‘benevolent dictator’ from its founding in 1931 until shortly before his suicide in 1977.’”

It was Roberts who, when Augusta was unable to overcome the obstacles associated with hosting a U.S.G.A. Open in early April, came up with the idea for the club to hold an annual tournament of its own. A private event wouldn’t have the automatic appeal of the Open, but might still attract notice, bring in some needed revenues, lure some new members, and the biggest one, he quickly realized, was that Jones might be persuaded to come out of retirement and play! With Jones in the field, while still retaining his lifelong amateur status, the new tournament would instantly become the most talked-about golf event of the year. Without Jones, a new tournament in a small city in Georgia in the spring of 1934 would not have had a chance of survival. Bobby agreed to play, the Masters was born, and Augusta National quickly gained international attention.

Thanks in large part to their “benevolent dictator”, Augusta National Golf Club is now known around the world not only as a conservative institution where decorum is paramount, but also as a place where the traditions and integrity of the game are jealously guarded and membership is strictly by invitation only, there is no application process. Robert’s firm authoritarian hand and skill at constantly imagining improvements where others saw perfection helped build the Masters into the tournament it is today, and Augusta National into every golfer’s heaven. His meticulous attention to detail had no limits: He didn’t like deciduous trees, because in his view fallen leaves were a species of litter, so he would have all the old oaks and maples thinned up to allow for more sunlight to plant more varieties of pine. Pictures in Augusta’s clubhouse are still hung with two hooks, because crooked frames drove him to distraction. The golf shop still makes change with brand new currency, because he couldn’t stand dirty bills. He grew tired of men wearing flashy clothing which he considered inappropriate for a golf club and decided a uniform (you guessed it) green jacket would be the best solution to eliminate competition among the members.

Still viewed almost universally as the best-run golf tournament in the world, if not best-run sporting event, the Masters, as Roberts would have insisted, has maintained its standing without acquiring any of the trappings of success. The youngest major in golf is also the oldest modern one. There are no advertising banners or billboards pasted with corporate logos at Augusta. Roberts saw to it that the television broadcast was scarcely interrupted by commercials. It was the first “stadium” course because the tournament was played on terrain that was routinely reshaped to provide better sight lines for spectators. It was the first to use bleachers – which Roberts preferred to call “observation stands.” It was the first to systematically rope galleries and to allow only players, caddies and officials “inside the ropes.” The Masters was the first seventy-two hole tournament to be scheduled over four days. Spectators can still buy lunch for about what they might pay for a soft drink at any other tournament, because Roberts believed that anyone who had traveled hundreds of miles to watch a round of golf ought to be able to buy a decent meal at a decent price. And asked what they’re playing for, the competitors still name not a sum of money but an article of clothing.

Clifford Roberts’ unremitting effort and passion to create an extraordinarily agreeable experience, whether it be for spectators, competitors, or correspondents at Augusta National was exemplified in sportswriter Herbert Warren Wind’s journal of his first Master’s visit in 1947: “It was the prettiest course I had ever seen, its Bermuda-grass fairways were over seeded with an Italian rye grass that gleamed a lovely shade of green in the sun. It was a treat to be there…the players were courteous and approachable. The spectators knew their golf. The pimiento cheese sandwiches at the refreshment stands were fresh and exotic. The clubhouse, an elegant ante-bellum manor house wrapped in wisteria, overlooked the course, and let you know you were in the Deep South as explicitly as did the mockingbirds’ song and the abundant flora.”

This April, appreciative patrons completing their lifelong pilgrimage to Augusta, Georgia will be celebrating a significant milestone for the Masters; the tournament will be held for the 75th time. Others who realize their dreams at Augusta this year will note that it is the 50th anniversary of Gary Player’s win in 1961 that made him the tournaments first international winner. While some of the “younger” gallery members who have possibly come to the Masters to simple “breathe the air” and take in the smells of the blooming azaleas, magnolias and dogwoods, will remember that it also the 25th anniversary of 6-time champion Jack Nicklaus’ improbable victory in 1986 at age 46. And, as David Owen shares in the final pages of his book: “Nearby, waiting among old friends, is a woman who has attended every Masters since the end of the Second World War. Someone asks her which of those fifty-odd tournaments she liked the best. She thinks back over five decades of competition – a period that defined the true coming of age of American golf and encompassed unforgettable performances by Snead and Hogan and Palmer and Player and Nicklaus and Watson and Ballesteros and Crenshaw and Faldo and Woods and so many others – and answers, as Clifford Roberts would have, ‘I think this one is going to be my favorite."