By Mike Blum
The economic downturn that has hit the United States so hard over the past decade has done significant damage to the golf industry.
Among Georgia’s most prominent victims was the Currahee Club, a decidedly upscale private club development in the northeast Georgia community of Toccoa that opened in 2003 but was in financial distress almost from the day it opened.
Bankruptcy followed and the club’s development ground to a halt. But the course was properly maintained despite the club’s financial woes in the hopes that a buyer would emerge and start Currahee Club on the road to recovery.
Landology, a Jacksonville based real estate investment firm and operator, acquired Currahee Club last year, and has begun the process of fulfilling the promise that Currahee held when it opened almost a decade ago.
The club is about to break ground on an extensive amenities center that will include swim, tennis, various sports courts and a fitness center, with the projected opening around this time next year.
Currahee’s new ownership has brought in Andrew Ward as Managing Director, with Ward coming from Cuscowilla on Lake Oconee, where he helped established that club as one of the state’s most successful upscale semi-private facilities. Ward has been joined by head golf professional Clark Spratlin, one of the top players in the Georgia PGA Section and a well-regarded instructor and club professional.
With new ownership, a healthy supply of capital and a first rate staff, Currahee is positioned to maximize the appeal of its primary asset – one of the state’s most spectacular courses.
Located in the foothills of the Appalchian mountains, Currahee offers one breathtaking view after another from its stunning JimFazio design. Although not as well known as his brother Tom, Jim is more of an architectural artist that his brother, and he has painted a picture at Currahee that is a must see for anyone with a great appreciation for the visual appeal a skilled golf course designer can create when presented with such a splendid canvas.
Fazio had a large and rugged piece of property from which to design Currahee, picking the most suitable land for the course from the 1,200-acre development. The course takes up a sizeable share of that, with nine miles of cart paths connecting sometimes distant tees from the previous green.
The awe-inducing views begin on the first hole, with Lake Hartwell visible in the background from the elevated tee, which is perched 165 feet above the fairway.
But the sheer beauty of the hole, and the 17 that follow it, is balanced by the challenge Fazio’s layout poses. With a sizeable number of hazards in play, tree lines and native grasses off the fairways and large, undulating greens well-protected by bunkers, Currahee will put every aspect of your game to the test.
Then there’s the rolling nature of the terrain, which will produce some slightly uneven lies from the fairway and leave you with sharply uphill pitch shots if you miss to the low side on one of several greens perched at the top of a hill.
The course rating and slope numbers attest to Currahee’s challenge. The course can play as long as 7,500 yards, with the Currahee tees around 7,200 and rated at 75.2/148. The Member tees are a playable 6,665 (73.0/140), with the Alternate tees a nice fit at around 6,050 and rated at 70.1/134. The forward tees are a stout test at 72.3/135, measuring 5,325 yards.
Because of the amount of trouble in play and the challenge posed by the changes in elevation, tee selection is vital. Spratlin relates that some people who have tried to bite off more of Currahee than they could chew have gotten a little indigestion.
“If you play the proper set of tees, nobody doesn’t like it,” he said. “We have at least five sets of tees on every hole.”
The few times the course has hosted tournaments featuring club professionals, it has more than held its own, and even accomplished players like Spratlin have been tested by the Member tees.
“Once you figure it out, everybody loves it,” Spratlin says. “But this is a hard course.”
If you play the proper set of tees, Currahee is not especially long, with the exception of a hole or two. The long par-4 seventh is the most demanding hole on the course, playing 431 from the member tees and 397 from the next set with the second shot all carry over water. There is a strip of fairway that serves as a lay-up area, but you still have to deal with the water to reach it.
Three of the four par 3s require carries over water, with much of the trouble on the course coming on the first seven holes. Included in that stretch is a gorgeous but perilous par 3 (No. 2); the first of two par 5s with greens set well above the surface of the fairway (No. 5); and a wonderful short, downhill par 4 (No. 6) with the green jutting out into a lake that borders three sides of the putting surface and is also a concern off the tee.
Like the front nine, the back begins with a par 5 from a steeply elevated tee, with a different view of Lake Hartwell and the mountain ranges beyond it. The green is one of several perched well above the surrounding terrain, and misses to the low side on any of those holes will require a deft touch with a lofted wedge.
The nine includes several more visual standouts, with the 13th green visible from the tee at the top of an ascending fairway that appears to be skyscraper height from your first vantage point. Once you make it up to the green, you’ll encounter one of the most undulating putting surfaces on the course, with mounds along the edges creating all sorts of movement.
The 14th is more level from tee to green, but offers similarly eye-catching vistas, with a split fairway on either side of a ravine necessitating some thought off the tee on a course where you can give it a rip off the tee on almost all the holes. The landing areas are on the generous side, but the elevated tees can accentuate off-target drives, and there aren’t many holes that will treat stray tee shots very kindly.
The nine concludes with the second of the two par 5s with a pronounced uphill third shot (No. 16), followed by the spectacular par-3 17th, which appears to have been lifted from the famous quarry hole at Florida’s renowned Black Diamond Ranch. The hole tops out at 250 yards over a pond that was formerly a quarry. It’s a stunning hole with eight tees flanking the quarry and one of a number of greens on the course with a pronounced ridge through it.
The most prominent example is found on the par-3 12th, which is partitioned into two sections, with the ridge making it a serious challenge to get from the safer right side to pins cut on the left, which offers precious little margin for error short, long or wide
left.
The 18th is a long, uphill par 4 with plenty of sand, but like many of the bunkers along the way, some of them are more decorative than strategic, and add to the already vast visual appeal of Fazio’s truly memorable layout, which is aided by outstanding conditioning, particularly the superb bent grass putting surfaces.
Golf was about all Currahee has had to offer for much of the club’s existence, but that is changing. Ward stresses that the club is going to have a strong family orientation with the addition of a broad array of amenities and increased use of the expansive property on which the club was built.
Currahee also features an impressive 48,000 square foot clubhouse, which was painstakingly furnished by the original owners, who did not scrimp on the details and left the new owners with a first class product they can proudly display to prospective members.
The club also offers access to Lake Hartwell, with 3 ½ miles of shoreline and three committed docks.
With the amenities construction just about to begin, Currahee is offering one year preview memberships at extremely affordable rates, which vary depending on how close you reside to the club.
The club is also offering preview vouchers to those who want to check out its truly memorable golf course, which has maintained its status in lists of the state’s best despite the problems that the club encountered in its early years.
Currahee is less than a 90-minute drive from the I-85/285 interchange (Spaghetti Junction) and accessible from both I-85 and I-985. For information, visit www.currahee.com or call 1-888-560-2582.