Excitement surrounds opening of Evans club
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Gary Player tees off to officially open Champions Retreat Golf Club. Player helped design the 27-hole course with Jack Nicklaus and Arnold Palmer. More than 150 members and guests attended the club's opening ceremonies.
Photo by Jim Blaylock
Golfing legend Gary Player stepped up to the first tee of the Arnold Palmer-designed course at the Champions Retreat Golf Club Wednesday and deadpanned that he should tee off on the nine holes he designed because the fairways were more forgiving.
After joking some with the more than 150 members and guests, the 69-year-old hit a straight drive that officially opened the elite private course designed by Player, Palmer and Jack Nicklaus.
"Golf courses give people a lot of pleasure, not only the people that are playing here but the wives and family that are living on a golf course," Player said. "It is a luxury but it is something we should be very grateful for in life."
State Sen. Jim Whitehead warms up on the driving range during the opening day of Champions Retreat Golf Club in Evans.
Photo by Jim Blaylock
More than 270 members were grateful for the opening of the course, which began as an idea five years ago by the trio, who combined for 13 Masters Tournament championships.
"This is a great day for the course and the members," said E.G. Meybohm, the chairman of the board of Champions Retreat. "It has been a process that everybody was anxious to end because they wanted this beautiful course to be ready to play. But it was also an enjoyable process."
Champions Retreat, which is located near the Greenbrier school complex in Riverwood Plantation, is the only course in the world designed together by Palmer, Player and Nicklaus. Each golfer designed nine holes of the 27-hole course.
Player's Creek Nine plays through the low country marshes of Euchee Creek. Most of Palmer's Island Nine sits on an island between the Savannah River and the Little River. Nicklaus' Bluffs Nine features undulating fairways and rolling hills.
"Every player put their own stamp on each nine," associate golf pro Shae Stancil said recently. "If you play 18 holes, then you are going to see two completely different courses."
Larry Ogletree (left) and Clayton Ogletree putt on one of the greens on the Arnold Palmer-designed course at Champions Retreat.
Photo by Jim Blaylock
While Player was the only designer to attend Wednesday's ceremonies, all three possibly will attend the grand opening of Champions Retreat in the fall when construction of all of the cottages and buildings are finished.
The course membership is restricted to invitation only, but Stock said there could be a possibility of having an event for the public.
"Right now, you have to be a member or a guest of a member to play at Champions Retreat," he said. "There is a possibility of doing something for the public to come in and view and take part and see the property. But right now, we don't have anything on the drawing board per se."