Open appeal: Reynolds Lake Oconee adds some spice with Tom Fazio's new Richland course

USA Today

19-03-2025

AI-assisted summary
Reynolds Lake Oconee opens its seventh golf course, Richland, designed by Tom Fazio.
The course features nine new holes with rolling terrain and long views across multiple holes.
Fazio aimed to create a challenging course with a unique character, featuring dramatic elevation changes and strategic bunkering.
Variety is said to be the spice of life. The same can be said of golf courses, and the members of Reynolds Lake Oconee have a new flavor on their already vast menu of golf options at the waterfront resort and residential property.
Famed course designer Tom Fazio has taken the basic ingredients that make Reynolds Lake Oconee such a treat, added a few surprises and developed a completely fresh dish in introducing Richland, the new 18-hole private course that features nine new holes to complement an already existing nine. The new layout stretches to 7,090 yards with a par of 72.
'My goal is always to create distinctive, one-of-a-kind golf courses,' Fazio said on Richland's opening day. 'There's a lot of terrain variation – lots of ups and downs, ins and outs, twists and turns – which is great for golf. That's what makes this such a fine natural setting. . . . Members will enjoy this golf course because it has character and will never play the same. This new course will provide a challenge and have endless possibilities for a fun and captivating golf experience.'
Fazio and his team started with the existing Bluff nine of Reynolds' 27-hole National Course and added the new nine, splitting the Bluff into Nos. 1-5 and 15-18 of the new Richland layout. The new holes are Nos. 6-14, playing across what is now rolling open land southeast of what was the Bluff nine. And these new holes are unlike anything else at the expansive resort community, which now features seven 18-hole courses.
Most of the prior six courses – Great Waters, The Preserve, The National, The Oconee, The Landing and Creek Club – play through tree-lined corridors or along the lake's shoreline, typically offering only limited or no views of neighboring holes. By contrast, the new nine at Richland offers long views over multiple holes as they rise and fall across hilly terrain. Instead of tall pines separating holes, at Richland there are hearty grasses and exposed hillocks.
Also different: There are no homes within the confines of the new nine at Richland. You have to cross a residential street while climbing uphill to the newest nine holes, but from that point on, the only interruption is a unique food truck serving as a halfway house.
Not that the project began on open land.
Veteran Fazio design associate Bryan Bowers said the site of the new nine holes was heavily wooded when the team began, and those trees hid much of the 75-acre parcel's character.
'We came in and moved a significant amount of earth to shape the golf holes,' Bowers said on opening day. 'When you move the dirt, you have to clear the trees. So the solution was to come back in and plant the native grasses. When we got out there and were looking at the holes, the conclusion we came back with was that this is really neat, it's open, it's unlike anything at Reynolds. Vistas of holes, different perspectives, seeing golf holes from different vantage points – we thought that was really attractive.'
Fazio said it's all part of delivering three key ingredients that he always reaches for: drama, quality and variety. The rolling meadow-like environment his team created certainly stands out. By removing most of the trees, players can see the terrain and the holes they are about to play – only No. 9 at the far edge of the parcel, a 451-yard par 4, plays its entire length through its own corridor of pines. The rest of the new nine feature fewer and thinner stands of trees in play, opening sight lines and building a satisfying level of anticipation as players move across the landscape.
'At Richland, we love the idea that we're going to have this new nine holes that we will blend with an existing nine that has a lot of single golf holes (in corridors), and we will blend them together to create this open space,' he said.
But while the newly introduced landscape is easy on the eyes, the holes sitting upon it are far from pushovers. Fazio said the most difficult holes of the combined 18 fall in the middle, with No. 10 – the fifth hole of the newly constructed nine – possibly being the most difficult. After loading up on snacks at the food truck, players face an uphill, 436-yard par 4 that plays about 40 yards longer. The plateaued, multi-section green is guarded by just one bunker on the front right, but the putting surface features a false front and roll-offs to the sides. An aggressive approach that flies too deep can bounce over and onto a hill, leaving a delicate downhill pitch. Make par here and you will have proved yourself deserving of those snacks.
'The strength of this golf course . . . is in the middle,' Fazio said. 'Those are the hard golf holes. That adds to the level of uniqueness as well as individual character.'
The greens show many features often found on Fazio courses, severe in spots and more accepting toward their centers. Fazio said these newest nine greens feature less slope than many greens he has built over the years, a result of improved agronomics that allow for greater green speeds. If the contours were too great, putting and short-game shots would be too difficult.
'In the old days, pitch and slope were part of the design process to make the game challenging,' Fazio said. 'But now, you have to be very careful that the pitch and slope isn't too severe.'
Fazio and his team also renovated the existing Bluff nine, which he designed and opened in 1997. Those nine holes saw a full bunker renovation with several new traps added, and capillary bunker liners were added throughout the full 18 to improve drainage and conditioning. Several of the greens on the Bluff nine also were reshaped or moved, areas of fescue grass were added in spots and several low-mow chipping areas were introduced.
'It's part of human nature to believe you can always do something better,' Fazio said of the renovation to his own work on the Bluff and the introduction of the new nine holes.
Members were lined up on that October opening day, eager to hear Fazio describe their new playground. The Richland course, positioned within the 500-acre Richland Pointe community, will be the second private course at Reynolds Lake Oconee, joining the Jim Engh-designed Creek Club as such.
That leaves five public-access courses open to guests of the Ritz-Carlton Reynolds Lake Oconee or the resort's luxurious condominiums and cottages. Great Waters, designed by Jack Nicklaus, is ranked by Golfweek's Best as the No. 2 public-access course in Georgia and is tied for No. 72 on the list of top resort courses in the United States. The Oconee, The Preserve and the now-18-hole The National also rank among the top 15 public-access courses in the state and appear on multiple other Golfweek's Best rankings.
The options are dizzying with so many solid golf holes at one resort and real estate community.
'Richland adds a seventh distinct playing experience for Reynolds Lake Oconee members, highlighting the talents of Tom Fazio's design and the topography of the site,' said John Gunderson, president of Reynolds developer Daniel Communities and the managing partner for Reynolds Lake Oconee. 'It's tough to imagine a finer collection of golf courses in any community in the country.'