Standout daily fee layout has plenty to offer…
Major League Baseball hands out a slew of post-season awards during its Winter break, among them a Comeback Player of the Year.
If there was a comparable award for golf courses in the metro Atlanta area for 2013, the almost certain winner would be Heritage Golf Links.
The course was acquired out of foreclosure earlier this year by two brothers with extensive backgrounds in the golf industry. Heritage had failed twice previously under different ownership, but instead of trudging back to the dugout after a swing-and-a-miss strike three, Adam and Jim Owen have taken a home run trot after an extremely successful rookie season as the new owners.
“It’s been a very good year,” says Adam Owen, the operating partner and General Manager of Heritage Golf Links.
When Adam and his brother Jim acquired Heritage, the course was long removed from the promise of its early days in the mid-1990s, when it was projected to be one of the most successful daily fee facilities in the Atlanta area.
But the original ownership was unable to capitalize on Heritage’s prime location just outside Spaghetti Junction and its distinctive design, with the course never gaining much traction in the competitive Atlanta daily fee market.
The club was eventually acquired by NBA legend Julius Erving, who changed its name and focus. But Dr. J was far more skilled at dunking a basketball than operating a golf course. By the time the club was foreclosed on, things were in a general state of disrepair, and the once highly-regarded reputation of the facility was a distant memory.
Atlanta-based golf management company Affiniti Partners began the process of fixing what needed to be fixed and restoring both the name and reputation of the club, making it an attractive – if somewhat risky – acquisition target.
“We thought we had a great location and a great design,” Owen said. “We thought it was one of the best courses in the whole state.”
The Owen brothers had a lot of work to do, including extensive repairs to the building that housed a teaching academy, but had been condemned. After spending some $100,000, Heritage Golf Links now has one of the area’s finest teaching/fitting centers, with Accelerized Golf and Cool Clubs, a custom club fitter, sharing the facility.
“I think they are by far the best custom club fitting company,” Owen says of Cool Clubs, with the teaching/club fitting combination giving Heritage a well-rounded game improvement center.
After taking an initial look at the property, Owen said he and his brother came up with “a plan to turn Heritage into one of the best daily fee facilities in Atlanta.”
Among the next projects is renovation of the clubhouse, including “a complete interior re-model,” Owen says.
From a course standpoint, Heritage has over-seeded its fairways for the Winter months, which will make it one of the few courses in the Atlanta area with green grass until Spring arrives.
“If you’ve got the ability to do it, why not do it and take it to the next level,” Owen said. “We wanted to put the luster back on the course.”
Owen said he and his brother had heard some of the stories about the troubles the club had encountered and were familiar with its squandered reputation.
“But even coming up against that, we saw an incredible opportunity. We had to earn credibility and get the business back. We knew it would take a year or two, but we’ve got things going in the right direction.”
In addition to the improvements made to the teaching facility and upgrades in course conditions, Owen purchased new carts and paid more attention to the facilities’ lighted driving range, which he considers “one of the top ones in the Southeast.”
An emphasis was again placed on customer service, and with the club offering excellent rates for a course of Heritage’s quality, golfers began returning in significant numbers.
Owen has also aggressively marketed the facility, and has attracted players who were unaware of its existence.
Because if its convenient location and being one of just a handful of 27-hole daily fee facilities in the metro area, Heritage is positioned to again be a very popular site for corporate and charitable events. The many improvements that have been made this year also should go a long way to the club adding its status as a tournament host for GSGA or Georgia PGA events.
Both Adam and Jim Owen are long time PGA members, with Jim working for most of his career in Florida as a head professional and club owner. Adam has been more on the management side, coming to Atlanta after serving as General Manager at some of the top clubs in the Las Vegas area.
In addition to its location, just a few minutes off the Pleasantdale Rd. I-85 exit, Heritage Golf Links features one of the state’s most interesting daily fee layouts, as well as one of the most challenging.
The course was designed by Mike Young, whose resume includes quality daily fee facilities all over the state. Heritage is one of his best creations, and also one of the most demanding from a Course Rating/Slope standpoint, even though it is not a long course by any standard.
The original 18, which consists of the Legacy and Heritage nines, is just 6,850 yards from the back tees and 6,453 from the blues. There is a sizeable gap between the blues and whites (5,750), with a combination set helping to shorten some of the fairly lengthy carries required off the blue tees on a handful of holes.
Length is not what accounts for the stout Course Rating/Slope numbers. The original 18 is rated at 74.3/146 from the tips, 72.2/141 from the blues, 70.6/138 from the combo “member” tees and 68.6/131 from the whites.
Apart from a pair of Tour-length par 3s, both of which are listed at 220 from the blues but don’t always play that long, and a handful of par 4s with some intimidating tee shots for the distance challenged, Heritage is actually a relatively short track.
All four par 5s are on the friendly side, at least from a yardage standpoint, with two very short par 3s and half the par 4s in the short-to-medium category.
The original 18’s main challenge is posed by the large, undulating putting surfaces that provide the layout with much of its character. Young has included all sorts of humps, bumps, slopes and ridges in the greens complexes, with the overall hilly terrain also impacting short game shots.
There are several holes where you are likely to encounter a pitch shot from well below the surface of the green or a bunker shot that has to be lofted over a relatively high lip. But the putting surfaces remain the primary concern, especially if you wind up on the wrong side of one of the ridges that bisect many of the greens.
With green speeds typically on the reasonable side, the putting surfaces at Heritage Golf Links are demanding but fair, and will provide you with one of the most entertaining challenges you’ll face to your green reading skills and putting ability.
Although it is within a residential setting, the original 18 is free of encroaching development, with plenty of movement from tee to green on most holes and ample amounts of fairway on most holes, with typically thin tree lines.
The rolling nature of the layout is one of its most prominent features, and you can expect to encounter some uneven lies within the fairways, as well as the possibility of some difficult stances on or near mounds if you miss the short grass.
Hazards are a serious concern on only about a half-dozen holes, with some carries off the tee required on a trio of par 4s (4, 12 and 18), along with one of the two lengthy par 3s (5). The greens at the par-5 14th and the demanding 18th are both closely guarded by hazards, with a creek winding around and through the short par-4 second.
The front nine (Legacy) opens with a trio of holes lacking for serious length but sporting three of the testier putting surfaces on the course, with the short, downhill, par-3 third featuring a sizeable ridge through the middle of the green that can produce some perplexing putts.
Among the more interesting holes on the nine is a vulnerable but pesky downhill par 5 (No. 8), which includes several bunkers in the lay-up area that are not clearly visible for shorter hitters, and a sharp drop-off behind the green for those capable of capitalizing on the hole’s downhill nature to go for it in two.
The nine closes with the longest par 4 on the course, with a sharply uphill second shot not very forgiving to those who come up short.
The back nine (Heritage) includes back-to-back parallel par 5s (14 and 15), with the slightly downhill 14th reachable for longer hitters, who will have to contend with water just short and left of the green. Left side pin positions with water surrounding on three sides can make for some perilous short approaches.
The 18th begins with the longest forced carry off the tee, with an 85-yard disparity between the white and blue tees. The carry from the latter is more than some players can handle, with the proximity of the water along the green making it a sufficiently challenging finishing hole from the whites.
The third nine (Tradition) is shorter and friendlier, playing to a par of 35 with three par 3s, and is located across a street from the Legacy and Heritage nines.
“Some people request that nine,” Owen says. “It’s not as tough as the original and they love it. A lot of people go over there.”
For information on Heritage Golf Links, call 770-493-4653 or visit www.HeritageGolfLinks.com