FOREGEORGIA.COM
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GEORGIAPGA.COM
MARCH 2014
Masters PREVIEW ISSUE
Cuscowilla among state’s very best By Mike Blum
Superb design earns national status
I
t’s no secret to those who play golf throughout the state that Georgia’s best collection of courses in a condensed area is found on and around Lake Oconee. State and national lists ranking Georgia’s best courses always include a handful from Lake Oconee, with the Golf Club at Cuscowilla always one of those in a very prominent position. Cuscowilla’s name is well known to those within the golf industry and to those who enjoy searching out as many of the top-ranked courses in the various listings as they can. But for golfers not as attuned to the inner workings of the industry, Cuscowilla is just another course of indeterminate location and quality. The Golf Club at Cuscowilla opened in 1997, and immediately was considered one of the jewels of the expanding wealth of courses in the Lake Oconee area. Cuscowilla was designed by the team of Bill Coore and Ben Crenshaw, whose work over the past 25 years includes two legendary resort-oriented
Par-3 11th hole, Golf Club at Cuscowilla
facilities – Sand Dunes in Nebraska and Bandon Trails in Oregon, as well as the acclaimed Plantation course at Kapalua, site of the annual PGA Tour Tournament of Champions. Cuscowilla has been a staple of national top 100 lists almost from the minute it opened, and has consistently ranked as the best of the outstanding courses on Lake Oconee.
Coore recently visited the course for the first time in quite a while, and came away duly impressed with the work he and Crenshaw did two decades ago, despite the decidedly un-golf-like weather that hit the state earlier this year. “This is the first time I’ve seen it in a while, and they’ve done a really good job here keeping it up,” Coore said. “They’ve
maintained the contours and tied them in around the edges and created some expanse to grow with tee modifications. All I can say is well done.” Cuscowilla is a residential private club that also offers non-resident memberships, along with various stay and play packages utilizing cottages and villas on the property. It is the closest of the Lake Oconee courses to Atlanta, located on the southern tip of the lake in Putnam County. Jarrod Clark, the Director of Golf at Cuscowilla for more than a dozen years, says a sizeable percentage of the club’s membership is from the Atlanta area, with many of them settling along Lake Oconee and others selecting Cuscowilla as their second club. “We have a great golf atmosphere here and an active membership,” Clark said. The active aspect of the membership also applies to the predilection for walking, with Clark pointing out that some 55 percent of the rounds at Cuscowilla are played on foot. [ See Cuscowilla, page 6 ]
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