New Challenges
by Brian McCallen

from Golf Magazine
August 2000

THE BEAR TRACE, the growing chain of Jack Nicklaus-designed courses located in Tennessee state parks, isn't the only public-access game available in the Volunteer State. Two hours west of Nashville near Kentucky Lake in Paris is The Tennessean, a Keith Foster-designed course that might have raised the competitive hackles of the Golden Bear in his prime.

Opened last fall, The Tennessean Golf Club is the brainchild of two Parisian businessmen who set out to build the finest course in the state. After purchasing a densely wooded 1,100-acre parcel, they told Foster to locate the best land for golf, irrespective of the residential community they planned to build. Foster found his favorite 275 acres and told the owners before construction began, "If I don't deliver a great golf course, it's because of me, not the land."

The Tennessean is a powerful course coaxed from a strong piece of ground. It has more natural defenses than usually are found in one place: imposing knolls, winding creeks, rock ledges, deep gulches, steepwalled valleys, and sharp elevation changes. And a lot of big trees. Towering pines and old-growth hardwoods frame the heaving fairways. The land was untouched for so long, an abandoned moonshine still was discovered during course construction. Players who bite off more than they can chew on this big-time course may be tempted to revive it.

After knitting together the site's diverse elements and softening the more radical slopes, Foster built aggressively contoured greens, dug cavernous bunkers, and slotted tees into the hillsides. The routing follows the natural rise and fall of the land. The result is enticing oneshotters, and, on most of the long holes, sweeping doglegs that drop from elevated tees into valleys and play to perched greens or greens benched into the sides of hills. The sum total of Foster's sweat and toil on what he called "the best site I've ever worked on" is a striking tour de force, something akin to the Scottish Highlands on steroids.

From the orange tees at 7,183 yards (par 72), The Tennessean will squeeze the competitive juice out of anyone who doesn't pack a long rifle and putt like an angel. The green tees are plenty tough for single-digit handicappers at 6,763 yards, while the blues, at 6,423 yards, provide a firm but fair test to those who can break 90. Average duffers should confine themselves to the silver markers at 5,646 yards. The 160-foot elevation change makes the layout play longer than the scorecard indicates, though Foster maintains the course is not as intimidating to play as it looks. High handicap ladies, juniors, and beginners can have a ball from the maroon tees at 4,777 yards.

The Tennessean's par-four opener is no picnic, but the game is truly on at the second hole, a daunting par three stretching to 201 yards that plays over running water and scooped-out grassy hollows to a green that beckons from atop a bluff. Foster buried some elephants in this green; it is severely contoured. Here's the place to go into your pro trot-walk around the hole, examine the breaks from all angles. You cannot see it all by looking only from behind the ball. The par-four third, the layout's number-one handicap hole, is a massive left-to-right dogleg that hopsc'otches a gulch and careens down a heavily mounded fairway past two oblong sand pits on the left to a large green set in a lovely stand of pines.

The back nine comes on strong. At 630 yards, the gargantuan par-five 15th is a true three-shotter. After the tee shot is placed beside a pair of bunkers at the top of a hill, a decision must be made on the second shot: Either carry over or lay up short of a creek that snakes across the fairway .140 yards from the sloping green. The petite 16th, shortest of the par threes, plays to a green set on a narrow ledge and defended at its sides by steep-faced bunkers. The par-four 17th is a dangerous beauty: A creek that swings behind the green also winds along the right side of the hole and then cuts across the fairway. The water, in tandem with an enormous bunker that pinches the left side of the landing area, pressures players to hit a straight tee shot.

Foster worked hard to produce a fitting finale to this tumultuous journey through the wooded hills of west Tennessee, The 18th is a stellar risk/reward par five that measures a scant 494 yards from the tips. The broad fairway invites a big drive, but the green, propped up on slabs of layered rock on the far side of a deep gorge, is not an easy target to hit in two.

Green fee with cart and tax included is $36 weekdays, $42 weekends and holidays. Walkers are welcome, but be warned: The Tennessean is a hike. Tee times: (731) 642-72 7 1. Accommodations are available at nearby Paris Landing State Park, which has a fine course of its own; (731) 642-4311.

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