When Augusta National ushers in the Masters each April, the golf world gets its annual glimpse of golf perfection. How else can one describe the beauty on display, with colorful azaleas blooming at every bend and manicured fairways and greens so picturesque they look like they were painted.
Not far away on the shores of Lake Oconee is another place of masterful golf perfection. At least that’s how most of the 4,000 resident would feel about golf life at Reynolds Lake Oconee.
Indeed, with 117 holes spread across six courses designed by the likes of Jack Nicklaus, Tom Fazio and Rees Jones, not to mention Reynolds’ rare Kingdom of Golf presented by TaylorMade and run by top-ranked Golf Digest instructor Charlie King, where else can someone have different world-class golf experiences every day of the week?
Chicago-area natives and avid golfers Tom and Mary Tunnicliff discovered this masterful golf course development formerly known as Reynolds Plantation when Tom visited Reynolds during a guy’s golf trip in the early ‘90s. After watching the 10,000-acre property continue to develop and steadily grow into one of the leading lakefront and resort-style communities in the country, Tunnicliff and his wife, Mary purchased a golf-view homesite and membership in 1999. Nearly 20 years later, they couldn’t be happier with their second home in the south.
“Everything here is just beyond amazing” says Mary Tunnicliff. “As a golfer, I’m in Mecca. It’s just a golf heaven.”
Tunnicliff doesn’t feel this way simply because Reynolds Lake Oconee has everything a golfer would seemingly ever want or need. It’s the fact Reynolds Lake Oconee is continually improving, restoring and renovating what many already consider best of class. This capital commitment by Reynolds owner MetLife is remarkable to say the least.
In fact, since MetLife’s initial investment in August 2012, Reynolds Lake Oconee has undergone approximately $40 million in community-wide improvements and enhancements. The owners even gave its prized property a new identity in March when it officially rebranded Reynolds and changed the name.
However, while the name and logo might have changed at Reynolds, one thing that hasn’t is its ongoing commitment to golf perfection. So what does perfection look like these days?
For vice president of agronomy Lane Singleton, whose staff is charged with delivering championship conditions at Reynolds Lake Oconee on a daily basis, this perfection is defined in a number of different ways.
For instance, in just over three years, Singleton’s team converted 400,000-square-feet of golf greens to cutting-edge Champion Ultradwarf Bermudagrass, covering 45 holes at the National and Oconee courses. Meanwhile, more than 135 bunkers were rebuilt; another 75,000-square-feet of new teeboxes were either reshaped or resodded, and 95,000 ornamental grasses, plants and ferns were installed to increase water drainage and accentuate the landscaping.
This, of course, doesn’t include numerous other capital improvement projects from newly installed or repositioned irrigation lines to overhauled halfway houses and rebuilt restrooms to seawall repairs and tree removal for air circulation and aesthetics.
Then, to put a punctuation mark on everything, Reynolds’ picturesque palette of golf was celebrated May 1 with the reopening of the Plantation Course after a major tee-to-green restoration of Reynolds’ original course designed by Bob Cupp in 1988. Singleton worked closely with Cupp on the redesign, which included restoring all 18 greens to their original size and shape and replanting them with high-performing Penn A-1 bentgrass.
Elsewhere on the ever-popular Plantation Course, golfers will notice 18 newly shaped teeboxes and the addition of forward tees on seven holes, an overhauled look and feel of the layout’s bunkers, rebuilt cart paths, an enlarged practice area, nearly two miles of new subsurface drainage to enhance course conditions and 10,000 ornamental grasses and plants.
To be sure, one of the more exciting components of the comprehensive renovation was a flexible new short-course routing integrated for golfers interested in playing quicker rounds and/or fewer holes with less clubs in tow.
Reynolds is calling this innovative new option the “Quick Six”— a unique six-hole “course within the course” that offers a variety of tee box options while utilizing the existing greens on hole Nos. 1-2-3 and Nos. 7-8-9. None of the “Quick Six” holes play longer than 130 yards, so a “round” will take approximately 60 minutes.
“The Plantation was our first golf course and a lot of people love the course,” says Singleton. “We’ve got 117 holes out here and most of it is very traditional. So the idea behind doing this course within a course was trying to do something that’s going to appeal to more audiences.
“More kids for example, or somebody who doesn’t have the 4 ½ hours for a round of golf. I really believe it’s just one element of golf that we have not had and we had an opportunity to do that on this golf course. Hopefully it brings a lot of enthusiasm.”
Better yet, Reynolds residents, members and guests have another shining new place to play golf.
“There’s been a ton of capital improvements over the past few years and it’s not just on our golf courses but throughout the community,” Singleton adds. “That’s created a lot of positive buzz around the area and hopefully in the country. These golf course renovations are just a commitment by our parent company MetLife and Daniel Corporation, our senior team, to just say, ‘We know we’re pretty good, but here’s where we want to be going forward.’
“We kind of want to set ourselves apart, or at least try to just disconnect ourselves from the norm. There’s not too many people, companies or golf courses that are doing what we’re doing right now. Since MetLife bought us, we hit the ground running and we have not looked back. It’s neat to be part of a company that has such a commitment and the backing to do it. We recognize golf is an important element of what we offer. We’ve got a lot more things here at Reynolds, like Lake Oconee, but golf is very very important for us. Our membership has absolutely embraced everything we’ve done over the past few years, and how could you not. Look at the money that’s been spent and look at where our community is right now.”
Some might even describe that place as Golf Perfection.
