course to reveal. Created by Mark McCumber, the Tunica property began its evolution into golfing grounds as a flat stretch of arid soil, good for crop growing. As casinos sprung up in the area, golf and tennis were added to the offerings, to ensure a sure thing in the midst of so much gambling. McCumber and associates didn’ t take all the risk out of their golf course, but they certainly made it a playable venture.
Two handfuls of ponds, large and small, dot and define the scope of the golf course. Judging from aerial views of the surrounding area, they were dug for the dual purpose of irrigation and challenge. Any trees on the golf course tend to stand apart from their kind; the fairways and greens lie exposed to the vagaries of the winds that move in different directions, depending on season and time of day. Given these predispositions, the course has the potential to play not unlike a traditional layout in the British isles, assuming that the playing surface is firm. Despite recent rains, when I played the course, there were significant run-out of shots and opportunities to play both high and low balls.
Caledonia was the final stop for me on a mini-tour of sorts: the last, east-coast public course designed by the late Mike Strantz. I had previously played neighboring True Blue, the Williamsburg duet of Royal New Kent and Stonehouse, and the Pinehurst pairing of Tot Hill Farm and Tobacco Road. Mike Strantz died far too young, in the mid 2000s at the age of 50. He had interned with Pete Dye and then struck out on his own. His architecture combines the formal artistic training he received in school with the laborious guild training he received under the watchful eye of Mr. Dye. Strantz courses are deceivingly minimalist; at first glance, they are mistaken for overworked eye candy. After a hole is played, the golfer looks back and sees the variety of avenues that Strantz made available for shotmaking. Rarely is a shot a desperate, all-or-nothing affair over water or some other hazard. Turn your head enough and you’ ll find the alternate route.
Caledonia is formally known as the Caledonia Golf & Fish Club. Seated against the Waccamaw river on Pawley’ s Island, just south of Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, proper, it is understandable that the rod might be as important as the driver. We are here for the golf, and the first glance of the antebellum-style clubhouse, framed in drooping moss, is enough to take someone away from the world of paved roads, into a natural one. The entire Caledonia layout is squeezed into a smallish property, the smallest on which Strantz created 18 holes. Despite this size restriction, no drive ever feels crowded, no fairway arouses claustrophobia, and no putting surface is anything but just the right size.
As with the great architects of yore and the neo-classicists of the modern era, Strantz was never handcuffed by the standardized notion of golfing par. If a course offered more than four par-3 holes, he bit. If there were fewer than 10 par-4 traces, he took that route. Caledonia supplies three long holes and five short ones, balancing the rest with par fours. Rice was grown on the golf course grounds before Strantz arrived, irrigated by the finger of the Waccamaw that extends through the golfing property. The architect himself utilized every inch of the property to its fullest.
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