Mossy Oak Golf Club, Mississippi
Even soaking wet, Mossy Oak is a beautiful golf course.
I’ve been to forty-five states in the US. One of the five to ten in which I’ve spent the least amount of time is Mississippi. I’ve got no vendetta against the Magnolia State, but rather I’ve never done anything other than drive right through it. It’s never been the destination, per se.
That is, until recently, when a work and golf outing found me deep in the heart of Mississippi. West Point, to be exact. The town of ten thousand may not exactly be a bustling metropolis, but West Point is home to a few stellar golf courses and a few members of the 90s rock band Blind Melon. Unlike Blind Melon’s most famous hit, a lot of rain fell that day in West Point.
Almost any list you come across online will have Mossy Oak Golf Club ranked as the second-best golf course in the state of Mississippi. Fallen Oak, a Tom Fazio resort offering in Saucier, is usually considered the best. Mossy Oak is currently slotted in the 70th spot on Golf Digest’s and 43rd on Golfweek’s rankings of the best public golf courses in the United States. The 2016 track is held in extreme regard among American daily fee layouts. Architect Gil Hanse is putting together quite the resume of original designs, his most famous being CapRock Ranch in Nebraska, Streamsong Black in Florida, Boston Golf Club in Massachusetts, and the acclaimed Ohoopee Match Club in Georgia.
Other notable courses in Mississippi include Old Waverly, a semi-private offering located a chip and a putt from Mossy Oak; Jackson Country Club, home of the PGA Tour’s Sanderson Championship; Dancing Rabbit, a 36-hole golfer’s paradise deep in the forest; and a boat load of sought after resort courses. Following my round at Mossy Oak, I headed northwest to play Mallard Pointe, a good if unspectacular course nestled among the southern pines outside the town of Sardis.
I flew into the parking lot at Mossy Oak a mere ten minutes before my tee time. Conditions were soggy, and raindrops flew intermittently on the first six holes. Like I said earlier, not exactly a Blind Melon kind of afternoon. That didn’t stop me from opening with five solid pars on the first six holes. We need not discuss the outlying, abhorrent double bogey.
Mossy Oak is a hard nut to crack. It’s a very minimalist design—a bit in the realm of Park Mammoth, a course I wrote about earlier this year, or Erin Hills, site of the 2017 US Open—and sports excellent green and bunker contouring. Even though you can see most of the course at any point, there’s a hint of seclusion here. Its neighbor Old Waverly seems to be the type of place that is more community and country club, but Mossy Oak is purely golf. In fact, unless you play for the Misssissippi State Bulldogs and can use their practice facility on site, there’s nothing else aside from dining in the dark and modern-looking clubhouse that can be done at Mossy Oak. The club owns its mission.
Mossy Oak sports big fairways, ninety-four bunkers, undulating greens, and a ton of prairie fescue. Also, tee boxes and greens appear closer than the normal distance. The rough collection areas are smaller than most courses, but the thick stuff wasn’t overly penal during my round. I really liked the look of the property being framed by tall trees and basically cut in the shape of a rectangle. You might look around and conclude you’re in the sand dunes of North Carolina instead of northeastern Mississippi.
The third hole, the site of my aforementioned double bogey, is the most memorable on Mossy Oak’s opening half. There is an illusion from the tee the third is extremely gettable, but ending up in the surrounding bunkers or tumbling down the false front is far more likely an outcome than attempting an eagle putt. The fourth is a visually stunning par three, and the par four eighth is a fun, uphill short par four that stands out and feels a bit different than the standard at Mossy Oak. The penultimate offering on the front feels a bit like a template hole of an old-fashioned country club. The ninth is a medium-length par three characterized by the pond on the right and the clubhouse skyline in the background.
The back nine kicks off in a spectacular manner. The tenth is a drivable par four protected on the right by a quartet of penal bunkers and a towering oak. To the left are a few villas, made to look like the clubhouse, that can be rented for overnight stays. Boy, would Mossy Oak be a stellar place for a buddies trip. The picturesque eleventh, a forced carry over water into an undulating green, concludes an awesome opening two-hole stretch on the back nine. The seventeenth is a reachable par five that sports a bunker on the left that is at least three times the size of the green it guards. Thirty thousand square feet of orange-brown sand lies ahead of your approach. The trap is visible from half the property and haunts you from the moment—oftentimes before the round—you see it. Standing on the first tee you can see the mammoth bunker, and I remember on the ninth and tenth thinking, “Okay, we’re getting closer to the sand, and it is as big as advertised.”
I’m going to nitpick a bit here, but Mossy Oak, in eliminating trees, has a bit of a variety issue. Also, there is a confusing moment on the fourth tee box in which the golfer might not have a clue where they should aim their tee shot. In fact, a small sign directs you to the left. The routing is very straightforward aside from that baffling minute you spend wondering where the heck to strike your little white ball.
At this point, Mossy Oak is probably a borderline top ten public course I’ve played in the United States. I really enjoyed my round, and the hospitality of the staff was top notch as well. A round here is always going to be a treat, and the look and feel provide a stark contrast to the average round in the American South. Whoever said Mississippi stinks has never been to Mossy Oak.