The Golf Club of Mississippi (Old Waverly and Mossy Oak)

The balance that Gil Hanse struck at Mossy Oak is truly remarkable. It's got rolling topography without feeling Fazio-ish; it's got sneakily positioned hazards without feeling unfair; it's got a huge diversity of hole designs without feeling like the design was forced; it's got tricky recovery shots with almost no trees on the course. It's just a remarkable track. Once the native grasses finish coming in (you've gotta figure that all the sun and rain that comes in an average July will finish that off), it's going to have a legitimate claim to the title of most authentic links-style experience in the Southeast.

The first thing you notice about Gil Hanse's new course when you pull onto the property is that despite its name - Mossy Oak - there aren't many trees to be found on the vast, mostly windswept landscape. Although the club opened for preview play after Labor Day 2016 and gave golfers a glimpse late into the year, Mossy Oak officially opened this week. The course still lacks maturity, but the bones are there for this course to stretch its legs and become a truly great destination site. The course is emerging from dormancy but I found it surprisingly green for this part of the country in early March. It played firm and fast, shorter than the advertised yardage of 6,497 from the blue tees. The tips play to 7,212. There are also three shorter sets of tees ranging from 5,089 to 6,087 yards. The greens were firm and can be difficult to hold, even with a well-struck approach, to certain pin placements. I highly recommend taking a forecaddie. Mine, Tyler Cunningham, did an excellent job of showing me lines and where to land balls on greens to avoid the dreaded runoffs to closely-mown greenside areas. Here are two design aspects that I really appreciated about Hanse's work here: 1. I really enjoyed the use of bunkering that made some traps appear closer to greens upon approach, but were really in some cases 40-50 yards removed from the putting surfaces. This created a visual anomaly that I think worked very well. 2. I enjoyed the utilization of shared some fairways on the front nine. This is something that I think should be done more in modern design for obvious reasons. I walked the course and found it to be very doable, as greens and tees were very close to each other. Once the fescue grows in natural areas the course will look even better aesthetically. I really liked the use of the short par 4s throughout. No. 3 is one of my more favorite holes I've played. Nos. 8, 10, 13 and 16 also fit the bill and offered multiple strategies. The Bermuda greens do not break as much as they appear. Playing here reminded me of Streamsong and had characteristics of Kiawah, though Mossy Oak is not yet in that company. The practice facility was first rate and the staff was top notch. A special thank you to Thomas Gallagher for making me feel as if I were the only one playing that day. This course is going to get better and better with time, and I think it will inevitably work its way onto the various Top 100 public course rankings.

This course is a true test of your golf game. It has fast greens, large bunkers, and a layout that requires every club in the bag. Even so, I had a blast playing it. Combine a stay at the Cottages at Old Waverly with a round on it's course, and you have the makings of a legendary guy's weekend.

Where Mossy Oak earns that coveted fifth star are two main characteristics - a tricky, but totally engaging layout by Gil Hanse on a nice piece of rolling land that used to be a dairy farm and a high-class experience that's more affordable than other caddie-only experiences. Currently, players can walk or ride, but they must take a fore-caddie or caddie. In the future, there may be walking-only dates during the season, but that is to be determined.

Mossy Oak, which opened in September, is a great complement to Old Waverly across the street. Here's why:

* Old Waverly is mostly private, only accessible by guests who stay and play, while Mossy Oak is open to the public.

* Most holes on Old Waverly are tree-lined. Mossy Oak's site feels vast and wide open, sometimes with fairways that bleed into one another.

* Mossy Oak has those modern touches good players appreciate - falloffs and kick points near the greens that affect approach shots, multiple short par 4s (including the great driveable 10th) and mega-wide fairways that depend more upon angles than bunkers to defend par.

* While Old Waverly's challenges are all very apparent, Mossy Oak throws a pair of blind shots and some visual tricks to deceive players approaching the greens.

It's a course you need to play three or four times before you figure out how to attack it. That's just what Hanse wanted, a course with plenty of strategy and options. And like the Olympic course in Rio, he succeeded.

You can't beat days like the one I spent playing Old Waverly.

The morning was a highlight in itself - watching from a luxury box as Mississippi State University beat Texas A&M, a top five team. After the half-hour ride back to from Starkville, I teed off with long-time Director of Golf Chris Jeter for a round that ended with a par on no. 18 in utter darkness. What a marathon adventure.

This classic course designed by Jerry Pate and the late Bob Cupp remains one of the great semiprivate clubs in the South. It hosted a memorable 1999 U.S. Women's Open won by Julie Inkster and could someday host another premier event.

Golfers must stay on property to gain access. There are villas, condos and homes for rent within walking distance of the clubhouse, where fantastic weekend buffet breakfasts and lunch/dinner meals are served.

The course winds through the neighborhood, although there are secluded stretches on both nines. The back nine flirts with Lake Waverly for its most testing holes. There's nothing fluky or awkward about the layout. It's just purely enjoyable golf from start to finish.

Just want you to know that I was asked to write the first review of our work at Mossy Oak, and while I am slightly biased, I am also immensely proud of the work we did on this course. Along with my design partner Jim Wagner, we set out to maximize the potential of this beautifully rolling piece of ground in central Mississippi and to create a course that looks like it fits on this site but might not look like it belongs in Mississippi if you just looked at the photos. The land has a series of ridges and valleys that move across it and the holes were placed to take advantage of the natural contour of the land. We emphasized the creativity of the short game shots around the greens with a lot of tightly mown approaches and chipping areas. The bunkering is a slightly cleaner look for our work and the greens rely more on slope and subtle breaks than large undulations for their challenge. The native roughs are a work in progress but we are certain that when they mature they will become the highlight of the landscape and provide much of the aesthetic appeal of the golf course. One interesting highlight is that from the 6th green, if you scan the landscape you can see all 18 green sites. This is an example of the open nature of the property and our desire to retain the meadow feel of the ground that we inherited. Green to tee walks are purposely short as we hope that the walker friendly nature of the course will lead people to walk during their round at Mossy Oak. The course also has several holes where the intended line and the correct line of play may not be readily apparent and that is something that Jim and I believe adds character to a course. A course that is worthy of further study and appreciation, is a course that will keep the golfer engaged and thoughtful in their approach to play. I could go on and on, but I just want to thank the Bryan and Haas families for all of their support at Mossy Oak. We feel like we have all worked together to create a golf course that will age gracefully, and they have adopted that same attitude to attention to detail in the club amenities as we did to the golf course. We hope you enjoy our course, we believe it offers a great example of fun and interesting golf played in a natural setting.

Whether staying for the weekend or just the day, Old Waverly is a fantastic golf experience. With the addition of its second course in 2016 (Mossy Oak Golf Club), Old Waverly will rank toward the top of golf trips in the south and in the country. I've played this course for years and will never grow tired of it.

A buddy of mine and I tacked on a day at Old Waverly before heading over to a Florida-Alabama football game. I'm glad we found a way to make it happen.

We played 18 holes, had a late lunch, then went out for another nine holes before dark. This was a fantastic experience and the course was in fabulous shape.

The main takeaway is that this is a place that you could easily play everyday and never get tired of it. It's fairly generous off the tee - you can spray it a little - and is playable around the greens. If you miss one you have several options how to play the shot toward the hole.

I can't say enough great things about the staff and the members. Everyone was so friendly and accommodating and were genuinely thrilled to have us play there. It was Southern hospitality at its finest.