Back
EL DORADO, Ark. - Just like 10-year-old children, 10-year-old golf courses aren't always quite sure what they want to be when they grow up.
And that's okay. They're still busy discovering their strengths and weaknesses, their passions and their aversions. There's time for them to specialize, to dream, to grow.
Opened in 2013, Mystic Creek Golf Club in El Dorado, Ark., is starting to come into its own at an exciting time to be what it is: an interesting, challenging, high-quality golf course well off the beaten path. For now, like the town on whose outskirts it sits, Mystic Creek punches well above its weight class in an otherwise mostly rural, very quiet corner of America, waiting to be discovered by curious traveling golfers.
Mystic Creek Golf Club is a hidden-gem golf course in southern Arkansas
At a time when writers, social media personalities and YouTube golf content creators continue to pull back the curtain on previously-unheralded golf courses across the country - think sensations like Sweetens Cove in Tennessee, The Fields in Georgia and many more - Mystic Creek remains relatively unknown, even in the state of Arkansas. Its base of support continues to grow as it has hosted several state-level amateur stroke and match play tournaments, as well as the Sun Belt Conference Championships in Division I college golf. And since 2015, it has hosted the Epson Tour's Murphy USA El Dorado Shootout, one of the premier tournaments on the LPGA Tour's ever-improving stateside feeder circuit.
How to get to El Dorado, Arkansas
El Dorado sits two hours due south of Little Rock, about 15 miles from the border between Arkansas and Louisiana. I flew into Shreveport (SHV), just less than two hours by car. The airport in Monroe, Louisiana (MLU) is also an option, but serves fewer destinations than Shreveport.
Some approximate drive times to El Dorado from larger regional cities:
Memphis: 4 hours
Dallas: 4.5 hours
New Orleans: 5.5 hours
Houston: 6 hours
Tulsa: 6 hours
As one might expect from its tournament pedigree, Mystic Creek is a tough golf course, running a bit against the tide of wider, less-taxing courses built in the last decade and a half. It stretches to 7,500 yards from the tips, with eye-watering Rating and Slope figures to match for those who venture to the back markers. Ponds and creeks abut the first six greens. On the shortish par-4 second, a ball that lands as much as six feet inside the right edge of the putting surface can tumble down into water. Broad, deep bunkers often foil attempts to bail out, both off the tee and around the greens. Golfers who play too long a set of tees at Mystic Creek will be shown their foolishness early and often.
If players can survive the opening half-dozen holes, things open up somewhat into the back nine. Downhill tee shots and uphill approaches are a theme, but after the initial onslaught, water comes into play on just three of the last dozen approaches. My favorite hole on the entire course, the long par-4 15th, drifts downhill and to the right off the tee, opening up an idyllic approach to a broad, graceful and characteristically undulating green. It will likely require a long iron approach, but the spaciousness of the green site is a pleasant respite. Overall, golfers who meet Mystic Creek at its level - and are prepared to play some defense - will be charmed by it.
Mystic Creek's promoters liken the deep pine forest through which the course weaves, and the elevation changes it enjoys, to the setting of Augusta National Golf Club. The club logo is an overt nod to the home of the Masters - the outline of the state of Arkansas with a cup and flag protruding in familiar fashion. Driving home the sense of homage, the course's most-photographed hole, the par-3 12th, is about an 80% mirror-image copy of the famous 12th hole at Augusta. It plays a club longer, its green is larger and the pond that stands in for Rae's Creek is a little less ever-present (i.e., you can bail out short and right at Mystic Creek's 12th).
Dollar-for-dollar (weekend green fees top out at $149), maintenance of the golf course is as pristine as it gets in the publicly-accessible realm. The agronomy team is headed up by identical, 6-foot-9 former basketball-star twin brothers Jacob and Jordan Vance, who keep the Champion Bermuda greens and Celebration Bermuda fairways in consistently great shape.
Off the course, Mystic Creek is as well-appointed as it gets. The modernist clubhouse, framed out of local timber and huge glass panels, presides handsomely and quietly over the 18th, complete with one of the best heckle-decks I've encountered. The food at the restaurant, the Mystic Grill is good enough to attract locals and golfers alike. The practice facility is on point, too, with a short-game setup I could spend hours at. Mystic Creek's original developers and current ownership know there's no getting here by accident, so they pulled out all the stops to make visitors feel very welcome.
How the hidden-gem town of El Dorado compliments Mystic Creek Golf Club
If Mystic Creek is an unlikely golf facility in the woods of south Arkansas, then El Dorado (rhymes with "tornado") is an equally unlikely town, punching well above the weight of its 19,000 person population. Originally founded in 1829, it saw the first significant oil strike in the state in 1921 and has been supported by the petroleum and gas industry ever since. Murphy Oil reigned for decades before departing in 2013, but not before instituting a program that fully funds the college education of every student who spends his or her upbringing in El Dorado's public school system.
Murphy USA split off from Murphy Oil and endures as a Fortune 500 company, owner of more than 1,700 gas stations and convenience stores across 26 states. They also own Mystic Creek Golf Club. The company is headquartered in El Dorado and contributes greatly to the ongoing charm and fortunes of the town. This includes one of the Deep South's most charming live music venues, the Murphy Arts District - "MAD" to those in the know - where acts from Willie Nelson to Styx to Ice Cube give concerts between stops in bigger cities like Little Rock, Memphis and Dallas. An outdoor amphitheater and intense indoor concert hall provide plenty of good times for locals and visitors, who flock to town for multi-day affairs like MusicFest, held every October. Combining a couple of rounds at Mystic Creek with a concert at MAD would make for a fun golf getaway.
Mystic Creek does not (yet) have on-site lodgings, so faraway visiting golfers often stay in El Dorado's quaint downtown at The Haywood, a Hilton Tapestry Collection hotel (think Hilton Garden Inn with unique furnishings and local character). A 10-minute ride from the golf course, it's convenient, clean, comfortable and helps make stay-and-play packages very affordable, even amid golf travel's pandemic-prompted boom. The Haywood is an easy walk from downtown restaurants like Fayray's, whose Cajun-accented cuisine comes courtesy of a New Orleans policeman-turned-chef.
But what about pre-golf? In addition to two swell southern diners in Off The Rail and Johnny B's (also within walking distance of the Haywood), El Dorado is home to a unique cheap-eat: the spudnut, a doughnut made with potato flour. Founded in 1948, the original Spudnut Shoppe churns out these fluffy fritters - glazed, frosted or filled - to lines that often stretch out the door as soon as the place opens at 5 am. The spudnut is a local delicacy, one you'd never encounter unless you'd already come all the way to El Dorado to play golf.
Surprisingly high-quality golf, a high-energy concert venue and great doughnuts - what more could an adventurous traveling golfer ask for?
Stay in the Swing with GolfPass!
Get exclusive tips from the pros, in-depth course reviews, the latest gear updates, and more delivered straight to your inbox.
Comments (0)