Oxford, Miss. – The University of Mississippi’s Ole Miss Golf Club has been under the knife since January of 2008 and is set to emerge with more than just a simple face lift. Golf course architect Nathan Crace of Watermark Golf/Nathan Crace Design was retained to administer the course surgery and has announced that contractor Eagle Golf & Athletics has completed the work. The course is set to reopen in October.
“In our line of work, you’ll often hear architects say that they have a great piece of property to work with and all that needs to be done is to find the course on it,” says Crace. “That gets overused and if the process were that easy there would be no need for architects, but on this project we did have a great piece of land. This is beautiful and rolling wooded property and the existing course never took advantage of that setting until our renovations this year.”
In addition to the complete redesign of all green complexes and bunkers, Crace also was tasked with designing a new irrigation system and new irrigation lake, regrassing the fairways with hybrid bermudagrass, designing new fairway bunkers, expanding the driving range tee and developing a new concrete cart path routing for all eighteen holes. The University also wanted to stretch out the course where possible to add some needed length while also making the course better for a growing number of ladies and senior golfers, so new back tees and forward tees were added on several holes.
“There were not too many areas of the course that didn’t receive at least some degree of improvement and the extra effort by the University, the golf course staff, and the contractor are evident in the quality of the finished product,” Crace says.
This is the second time the University has turned to Crace to help them with work at Ole Miss Golf Club. In 2006, he was brought in to design a practice facility specifically for the men’s and women’s golf teams.
“Our main objective was to provide the best possible product for the funds invested by the University," he says. "Everyone will agree we succeeded in achieving that goal and in fact surpassed most expectations.”
When golfers arrive at the course, the first changes to be seen will be the fourth, fifth, and sixth holes that run along the entrance road into the property. Crace says those holes were designed to give the golfer a taste of what to expect throughout the course before they get to the parking lot.
A large new irrigation lake now frames the right side of the fourth fairway and protects the front and right of the new green, the previously existing ditch that crossed the landing area of the fourth fairway is gone, and a large bunker now guards the left side of the putting surface.
The par-3 fifth hole features two new bunkers protecting the back left pin placement of the new rolling green and the following par-5 sixth hole is now a bona fide risk-reward hole.
The sixth is just one of a number of holes that feature new fairway bunkers and the two that now juxtapose the landing area on this reachable par-5 create a double dogleg effect that will be tempting to long hitters trying to get home in two, yet equally rewarding for the sensible golfer who takes a more strategic route to the green.
“When you drive in and see those three holes with the new greens and bunkers and the trees that frame the holes, it’s exciting,” says golf course superintendent David Jumper.
Crace has always had a love for dramatic short par-4 holes and his work at Ole Miss Golf Club is no different. He says that from the day the dirt began moving he had a special feeling about the 13th hole, a slightly dogleg left par-4 that plays along a ridge running parallel to the Oxford Airport and is subsequently exposed to constant wind. The green sits on a knob that extends from the end of that ridge and appears to be perched on the precipice of a sheer drop. From the tee, three bunkers guard the fairway and three more roll and tumble their way along the fairway to the green itself - making the temptation for long hitters to challenge the dogleg a tough decision on the tee.
Other featured changes include lengthening the par-5 14th hole and relocating that hole’s green complex. Crace added new back tees and moved the green back and left - out of an existing valley that was prone to flooding - and benched it into the wooded hillside. The result is a green that is perched above a new lake on the right side in the old valley floor, dotted with two pot bunkers to keep golfers honest, and framed by a backdrop of hardwoods and pine straw beds that looks like a scene from a golf magazine.
Now the course features a strong finishing stretch from holes 15 through 18, capped off by the short par-4 18th hole. In the past, the hilltop green perched high above the fairway caused frustration for approach shots that came up short - and rolled back down the hill, leaving a 100-plus-yard shot back to the green! Crace designed four new bunkers benched into the hillside at different elevations to help prevent that from happening now and keep long hitters honest off the tee. Not to say that a golfer would want a third shot from one of the bunkers ranging from five to twelve feet below the 8,000 sq.ft. putting surface, but the new 18th - like its seventeen other brothers and sisters - now makes for some great theater on a previously undercapitalized piece of wooded property quietly tucked away in north Mississippi.
For more information about the renovations of Ole Miss Golf Club or Watermark Golf/Nathan Crace Design, you can visit the Watermark Golf web site at www.watermarkgolf.com.
