Golf Club of Georgia, Creekside (Private)
One Golf Club Drive, Alpharetta
770-664-8644; www.golfclubofgeorgia.com
STAFF: Jeff Paton is the PGA Director of Golf; Randy Waldron is the Superintendent
PAR/YARDAGE: Creekside plays to a par of 72 with four sets of tees – Gold (6,927 yards); Blue (6,572); White (5,912) and Red (5,004), plus two combination sets.
COURSE RATING/SLOPE: 74.6/146 (Gold); 72.5/140 (Blue); 70.0/133 (White); 70.2/126 (Red).
ABOUT THE COURSE: The lesser known of the Golf Club of Georgia’s two standout 18-hole layouts, Creekside is much more of a target-oriented course than Lakeside, which is more traditional in design and serves as the tournament course, in part because Creekside’s ninth hole does not return to the clubhouse. Creekside presented a challenge for famed golf course architect Arthur Hills, who also designed Lakeside’s layout. Creekside features a sizeable number of wetlands along the way, and you will play very few courses which required the construction of more bridges. The wetlands result in several forced carries from the tee, but none are of excessive length. Longer hitters will have the opportunity to take advantage of a short-ish quartet of par 5s, but there is a significant amount of risk involved on two of them, including the famously (or infamously) quirky fifth hole. As a group, Creekside’s par 4s are considerably more penal than those on Lakeside, although there are several vulnerable two-shotters, particularly for longer hitters. The two nines feature disparate yardages, with the back more than 200 yards longer than the front from the back three sets of tees. There are a number of excellent scoring opportunities going out, including a vulnerable par-5 opening hole, two short iron par 3s and a pair of driver-wedge par 4s. But there are also three extremely demanding par 4s, including one of the toughest you’ll encounter in the state – the intimidating 8th hole. The back nine starts and finishes with several of the tougher holes on the course, with the moderately lengthy (and more traditional) par-4 17th and 18th more like Lakeside in design. The incoming nine also includes a pair of stout par 3s, with the 11th comparable to Lakeside’s hazardous trio in terms of difficulty. Creekside’s greens complexes are a bit tamer than Lakeside’s, but the volume of hazards makes it equally (or more) challenging, particularly for shorter hitters.