Arcadia Bluffs (South)

“It’s the putting surfaces that raise the South Course to a level of interest even above the famed Bluffs Course. They look huge but play small. The 40-yard-deep 7th green has false sides left and right flowing into flanking bunkers. The horseshoe-shaped green on the par-3 12th, which, with its squared off front edges looks like a magnet to me, has 15 feet of false front on the right prong, 20 feet of false front on the left prong and a back half that’s a banked-turn of unpinnable slope. So 12 is actually a wide, shallow green that could prove difficult to hit and hold. Even trickier is the big 15th green with a tiny pot bunker front and center and a humpback ridge running front to back, everything else drifting off left and right toward sand. That’s followed by the large wedge-shaped green on the 246-yard par-3 16th, with a beveled front left edge that kick balls down a 30-yard slope of tightly mown bent grass. All are original concepts that I predict future generations will study and emulate. They’re that imaginative.”

Routed in two distinct loops, across a generous 300-acre and largely treeless parcel of sandy ground, the South course is intended to be a walkable layout where firm and fast surfaces and ever-present wind combine to challenge and delight all comers. The South course is not a facsimile of Chicago Golf Club, it’s an inclusive tribute to the Golden Age. Or to quote Arcadia’s rather corny marketing – “Complexity Veiled by Simplicity”.