Reynolds Plantation GR
On Lake Oconee (near Greensboro), GA (90 minutes ESE of Atlanta)
Oconee #15
Golf Magazine/Golf.com, 7/10
Golf Digest, 3/10
T&L Golf, 9/06
Course Spy: Reynolds Plantation
Published: July 10, 2010, Golf Magazine/Golf.com
Greensboro, Georgia
7,073 yards, par 72
'10 Green fees: $150-$260
888-298-3119, www.reynoldsplantation.com
Service
Doug at the bag drop has been at Reynolds Plantation for almost 20 years, and he gives as good as he takes, a perfect fit for a resort course that also has a healthy private membership. His friendly banter helped get us off to a solid start.
Pace of Play
On a Saturday morning in prime time (mid-April) we buzzed around in 4:26 — and we could have moved faster. Even with a full tee sheet, the friendly design and hyper-diligent (but not overbearing) course rangers make a round here a pleasure, not a penance.
Quality
Architect Jack Nicklaus recently revamped the layout. One minor tweak makes a major difference: converting the old inconsistent bent greens to Bermuda. They're firm and roll beautifully. What hasn't changed are the nine holes that skirt Lake Oconee.
Value
Outside of Masters Week, you've got to stay on-site to access Great Waters, so a round never comes cheap. The $150-$240 a la carte seasonal fee range is acceptable for a quality course. We paid $260 during Masters Week. Next time, we'll come on a package.
Verdict
With its underrated front nine and a back nine that skirts around Lake Oconee, Great Waters is probably the most scenic course in Georgia this side of Augusta. Add in soft green contours, and it might be the most fun course Nicklaus has ever designed.
Away Game
Southern Exposure
Golf Digest, 3/10
By Peter Finch
Photos by J.D. Cuban
March 2010
Google Maps will tell you the 90-mile drive to Greensboro, Ga., from the Atlanta airport should take an hour and 36 minutes. Perhaps this is so, if you keep to the speed limit. But nobody goes the speed limit on I-20 east of Atlanta. Even in the right lane, you can be doing 70 in a 55-mile-per-hour zone and other drivers will get right up against your rear bumper. "This is NASCAR country," a local explained.
Yet once you pull off the Interstate into Greensboro, everything seems to downshift. Which, of course, is a big part of the appeal. Harried city slickers have been seeking refuge in this sleepy, pine tree-lined territory for decades, with much of their activity focused on 19,000-acre Lake Oconee and the resort communities that have sprung up around it.
Reynolds Plantation is the toniest of these communities, with mansions lining many of its fairways, and a Ritz-Carlton Lodge that typically asks $299 a night and up.
Not long ago, only property owners and Ritz-Carlton guests could enjoy Reynolds' golf courses and other amenities. But there's a new way to experience it all for considerably less. The trick is to stay at Reynolds Landing, a golf community formerly known as Port Armor. Set less than a mile from the entrance to Reynolds Plantation, the Landing was bought by Reynolds' parent company in 2005 and became a full-fledged member of the Reynolds family, with complete access privileges, in 2009.
The Inn at Reynolds Landing has seven small but nice rooms. For $235 per room, double-occupancy, you can stay here and get unlimited golf for two on the Bob Cupp-designed Landing course right outside your window.
When you're ready to partake of the many activities available on the "other side of the road" at Reynolds Plantation, like fishing, boating, Charlie King's acclaimed golf academy or the four other courses, just drive on over. (Note: You'll have to pay green fees at these courses, as you would if staying at the Ritz-Carlton.)
Based on my unscientific poll, locals seem to like the Great Waters course best. Designed by Jack Nicklaus and opened in 1992, it has 10 holes that hug or otherwise overlook Lake Oconee. Keep an eye out for Steelers QB Ben Roethlisberger, who has a home on the course. Closed for renovation since Jan. 1, 2009, Great Waters reopens to members in March and guests in April.
The Oconee course, a Rees Jones design, features some pleasing elevation changes, and the back nine, especially, makes the most of its proximity to the lake. Oconee fans were stunned last summer when a fire burned their clubhouse to the ground, but luckily no one was hurt and, except for the big hole where the building used to be, the course is operating as if nothing ever happened.
The Tom Fazio-designed National course has three high-quality nines. Only a few of its holes skirt the lake, but you won't lack for great scenery. As at all of the Reynolds courses, most of the houses overlooking its fairways are discreetly tucked into the woods, hidden behind flowering dogwood trees and among tall pines.
The most scenic moments at the Landing course come early in the round, with holes 2 through 5 offering expansive views of the shimmering lake. The consensus among accomplished golfers seems to be that the Landing is the toughest of all the Reynolds courses, especially from the back tees (7,048 yards) and with its greens cut to tournament speed. From the 6,409-yard members' tees, I found it no more challenging than most, with the exception of its brutal, uphill 464-yard par-4 10th hole.
The first course built at Reynolds, a Cupp design called Plantation, is considered the easiest. It's the shortest layout on the property -- the regular tees are just more than 6,200 yards -- and there are only 20 bunkers, fewer than half of what you'll find on the other courses.
Hungry? Georgia's Bistro on the ground floor of the Ritz-Carlton Lodge offers the area's finest dining. Here the menu includes the likes of "day boat" scallops overnighted from Boston and barbecued Greensboro quail and duck breast, with entrees starting at about $22. Linger a little after dinner on Fridays and Saturdays and there'll be live jazz in the lobby lounge. Or you can head outside, where starting at 8 every night there's a campfire, where marshmallow toasting is encouraged.
The greater Greensboro area isn't exactly teeming with other high-end restaurants, but there are some good, moderately priced options if you know where to look. These include the folksy Silver Moon, two miles down Route 44, where the favorites include fish and chips ($12) and a full rack of ribs ($18). There isn't any Silver Moon sign. The post outside reads simply Bar & Grill. Another local favorite is Richland Creek, just to the north of Reynolds Plantation, with good live music and a busy bar scene that's popular with Reynolds employees.
A few people encouraged me to drive 20 minutes west to the town of Madison for additional restaurants and music. Madison is charming, with rows of beautifully preserved pre-Civil War homes, antique stores and museums. On a warm Saturday afternoon, I found an outside table at the Amici Italian Café, where I lazily read the local papers and watched tourists shop their way around the leafy town square. I had reached a state of total relaxation.
Then I got back on I-20, pointed the car toward Atlanta, and gunned it.
Way Beyond the Buddy Trip
As American ideas of leisure change with the times, top golf destinations follow suit
From T&L Golf, September 2006
by Bob Cullen
Reynolds Plantation, on the leafy shore of Lake Oconee in central Georgia, has ninety-nine holes of golf designed by the likes of Tom Fazio, Rees Jones and Jack Nicklaus. Each course is beautifully groomed. Each has a fine practice facility. Each plays along the blue waters of the lake or on the hillsides sloping toward it. But the golf courses are not what make Reynolds Plantation one of the places blazing the trail into the future for American golf destinations.
On the second floor of the clubhouse at the resort's Oconee course, beyond a very imposing, vault-like steel door, Reynolds Plantation hosts one of the country's first two TaylorMade Performance Lab franchises. Inside, guests can have a club fitting similar to a Tour pro's. The client dons a hat, vest, knee pads, belt and gaiters, all black and all fitted with special reflective nodes. Fully suited up, he looks like a cross between a ninja warrior and a Christmas tree. He gets a special club, also studded with nodes. The lights go down. He hits a golf ball into a screen. Nine cameras and a launch monitor record some forty thousand data points for each swing. In seconds, a computer analyzes things like how the clubhead's center of gravity might respond to different shaft profiles, given the golfer's typical swing. Then it spits out a recommended set of specifications for new clubs, tailored to the client just as scientifically as Retief Goosen or Sergio Garcia's sticks are custom-fit for them.
To further see where golf destinations are headed, walk a few hundred yards along the lakeshore to the Ritz-Carlton Lodge. Next door is a low-slung building with cedar siding. Inside it's light, airy and soothing, with earth-tone tiles, blond wood and stacked stone accents, and the faint scent of eucalyptus. This is the Ritz-Carlton Spa, Reynolds Plantation. It's got an indoor lap pool, a gym, steam and sauna, and massage rooms. Golfers can get an herbal massage featuring arnica, which is said to soothe irritated joints. If they've forgotten to apply sunscreen before playing, they can even get a special facial treatment. And, of course, pedicures and manicures are available.
That's not because the typical male golf patron has developed a sudden yen to have his toenails buffed; it's because American golf destinations no longer think they can cater primarily to men. These days, women are highly prized customers. So are children. And newer resorts are being built around services that attract them. The spa is just one of the things that make Reynolds Plantation a fully modern golf mecca.
The Ritz-Carlton Lodge itself epitomizes the new model. Its design is rustic luxury, without the brass and glass that characterize a city hotel. With 251 rooms, it's small for a resort with access to five and a half golf courses and another (a private layout by architect Jim Engh) under construction. That's because the hotel is not the center of Reynolds Plantation's business model. The community was founded twenty years ago as a second-home development, and that is still its core business.