MIDWEST

An Ozark legend

Osage National Golf Resort

Classic Palmer — Osage National glimmers brightly as a Lake of the Ozarks Golf Trail jewel

There are 13 courses on Lake of the Ozarks Golf Trail, any one of them able to provide the visitor with an enjoyable day’s golf. Only one, though, could be described as ‘The Must Play Course at the Lake’.

Osage National, developed by the 100-yearold, Kansas City-based Clarkson Construction Company and located just off of Highway 54 four miles east of the City of Lake Ozark, Mo., offers guests 27 holes, the first 18 of which were designed by Arnold Palmer and opened in 1992. Six years later, a third nine was added by local enthusiasts and the three nines each given a name. Palmer’s original 18 split into the ‘Mountain’ and ‘River’ Courses, while the new holes were christened the ‘Links’.

The Mountain and River nines offer two very distinct challenges — one moving through higher, forested ground, the other skirting the Osage River with a number of sizeable water hazards and huge bunkers. This is essential Palmer — beautiful golf that can be plenty tough if you’re looking for birdies but a very pleasurable walk (or ride) if bogey golf is what you typically shoot for. It’s easy to tell from his 300 or so designs that Palmer just wanted golfers to enjoy themselves whether they strove to match par or were out for the exercise. Osage National fits the description well.

Harrison Minchew, a native of Augusta Ga., who worked for Palmer for 25 years, made a significant contribution to the design of Osage National and remembers the site well even though nearly 30 years have passed since he last saw it. “It was a great site, full of interest with some lovely vistas,” he says. “The front nine holes covered a tremendous acreage and were really spaced out nicely to accommodate the housing portion of the development though there really wasn’t that much off-course construction. So it still felt like a core course.”

The back nine, Minchew adds, was laid out on the flood plain close to the river. “It was completely different,” he says. “Much flatter, so we had to get creative in adding features and interest to the holes. The soils were terrific because of the river deposits which obviously helped us build a great course.”

Shortly after opening, Osage National hosted the Michelob Skins Challenge in which Palmer took on Payne Stewart, Tom Watson and Lee Trevino. Though obviously more familiar with the demands of the layout than the others, the 62-yearold Palmer could do little to stop a rampant Stewart who shot a nine-under 63, a course record that still stands. “Wow” says Minchew who faintly remembers who played that day, but not what each player shot. “Osage was playable certainly but no pushover. Nine-under round there was pretty good. Mr. Stewart sure was a fine player.”

Two years after hosting four of the world’s greatest ever golfers, Osage National co-hosted the PGA Club Professional Championship with the Oaks at Margaritaville, Sammy Rachels winning in a playoff.

The nines are all about as popular as each other says the course’s General Manager Ryan Manselle who has been at Osage for 23 years. ‘We record roughly 32,000 rounds a year which are spread out pretty evenly,” he adds, noting that his favorite holes are the 5th on the River Course, and 8th on the Mountain. “River’s 5th hole is a great par-5 that runs along the banks of the Osage River and really typifies the course and the valley,” he says. “The 8th on the Mountain, meanwhile, provides the amazing view with a dramatic elevation drop.”

Minchew agrees. “Yep, they were two of my favorites too,” he says. “The 8th on the Mountain — the 8th as we built it — is a great hole. The view from the tee was probably the best on the whole course and the second shot with the pond on the right is pretty exciting. And the River par-5 is just a beautiful hole along the river.”

The greens at Osage National are bentgrass, the fairways zoysia, and the rough fescue — all kept in tip-top shape by Superintendent Jeff Sommerer. The course is managed by Kansas Citybased company GreatLIFE which operates an innovative franchise model across fitness centers and golf courses and which aims to make golf a family-friendly activity by focusing on healthy lifestyles, amenities, and low-priced memberships.

Member or not, though, you’re going to love Osage National.

Shangri-La Golf Club • Legends No. 9

Shangri-La’s history is rooted and future is bright on Oklahoma's Monkey Island

or all those folks who play golf in Oklahoma, there’s a high probability that just F about everyone is familiar with the 18th hole at Shangri-La Golf Club on Monkey Island in the state’s northeast corner.

It’s unique — a double-green finish. Indeed, your choice of two greens. It’s a final-hole tactical conundrum, forcing you to choose between an overwater approach (second or third shot) to the shorter right-side island green or venture on to the other green, 70 yards further and bordered by a right-side waterfall hazard. All for one, not the other.

But it is also legendary, primarily because it has been graced by Oklahoma’s greatest sports figure — New York Yankee Mickey Mantle, who once had an albatross on this par-5, 580-yard imaginative beauty. “Mickey was born 40 miles south of here (in Spavinaw) and grew up 30 miles north in Commerce,” says Mike Williams, Shangri-La’s Director of Communications and able historian. “He said this was his home course. He had his charity event here.”

It also was the last course, the last hole, Mantle ever played, in July 1995. He died a month later, on Aug. 13, and his charity event honored him one more time that September, as Stan Musial stepped in as host for his famous teammates, Whitey Ford, Moose Skowron and Yogi Berra.

“Most golf courses have that one special hole,” Williams adds. “The ‘Mickey Mantle Hole’ is our most famous, but there are eight or nine holes here that get a lot of talk and a lot of cursing. That was the deal from the beginning. They wanted to make every hole memorable.”

To get to the beginning, we need to go back some 80 years to 1941 when a dam was constructed that transformed the unworkable rocky terrain into a six-mile-long lake. The high point in the area, Monkey Island (actually, a peninsula with no monkeys), was suddenly surrounded by the man-made Grand Lake ‘O the Cherokees, and is now a flourish-

BY BOB SHERWIN

ing recreational area with thousands of waterfront homes and more than 6,000 docks. The Shangri-La Resort was built in 1964 and drew tourists and conventioneers from all around the nation. An 18-hole golf course, Old Blue, was added in the ‘70s but by the late ‘80s the resort had fallen on hard times.

It wasn’t until 2010 that Shangri-La got a second life when Tulsa businessman Eddy Gibbs purchased the property and pumped in $60 million to rebuild it. Gibbs added another nine-hole course, giving Shangri-La has three nines — The Champions, opened in 2011, The Heritage and The Legends, a conglomeration of Old Blue. The most popular 18-hole circuit is Heritage front nine and Legends back. That means ‘The Mick’ closes out most rounds. That, in turn, places more value on the Legends’ 17th hole. The local rule is that the golfer who wins the 17th has the honor to decide which of the two 18-hole greens to play.

“Our members and regulars play the back green quite a bit,” says Williams. “Most first-timers challenge the island green, and are usually sorry.”

Each nine offers slightly different experiences. The relatively new Champions has more water hazards but is shorter. Williams says women like Champions because they can score better “if they’re not distracted by all the spectators. There’s a lot more houses on the course so there’s always a gallery.”

Champions’s 412-yard eighth hole, played into a prevailing wind, is the most dramatic, or for many, traumatic. For their second shot (or third), golfers negotiate two parallel water hazards that pinch the fairway down to a meager 15 yards. It’s so narrow that the club discourages even driving a golf cart between them. There’s no effective bail out area. Depending on the length of your drive, you either need to stripe your second shot over the water or lay up. Your lay-up shot will then be around 125 yards for an up-and-down, up a hill to a long, narrow, two-tier green that slopes back to front.

“There’s also a large bunker left of the green,” says Williams. “So, if you’re not in the water, you may be on the beach.”

The Heritage course is distinctive for its green complexes. That is most apparent on the par-4, 388-yard 2nd whose green was patterned on the 130-year-old Biarritz style. The original Biarritz green is thought to have been created at the 3rd hole — called ‘The Chasm’ — on the William Dunn-designed Biarritz Le Phare Golf Club in France in the late 1880s. Biarritz greens are long and large and feature a deep swale bisecting the putting surface.

Heritage’s Biarritz hole is the shortest par-4 on the course but has the longest green at 180 feet — with a middle swale that divides the green into three distinct sections. The middle section, or the gully as they call it here, is four feet below the back and front sections. “The miserable place to be is the front part of the green when the pin is at the back,” says Williams. “You have to go downhill first then up. Too much speed or not enough? If your putt falls back into the gully, you could roll off the green.”

Williams believes that Heritage’s par-5, 601yard ninth hole — the longest on the course — is its signature. It’s all downhill though effectively shortening the distance for the always-challenging second shot. After hitting your drive on the dogleg left hole, you’ll see a creek running across the fairway and a large water hazard left. Once (if) you clear the water, you’ll then have 100 yards to the green over three massive bunkers.

“The second shot is scary with a creek, a pond and bunkers,” says Williams, adding that the smartest thing might be to lay up well to the right to set up a wedge to the two-tier green. Those same kind of risk/reward decisions are necessary when golfers close out their rounds on Legend’s back nine, finishing at ‘The Mick’ — hallowed ground for so many in this region who idolized him.

Visit the dynamic multimedia website shangrilaok.com for complete information and to plan your excursion here.

The Sunflower State's shining star

Brauer and Begay III crafted a legacy course that keeps topping the charts on the Kansas prairie with Firekeeper

It’s readily apparent how proud the Native Americans are of the Firekeeper Golf Course on the Prairie Band of Potawatomi Nation Reservation in the northeast corner of Kansas. When it opened in 2011, it was ranked the ninth best new course in America and was initially designated and remains the No. 1 course to play in the state.

As an amenity to the Prairie Band Casino and

Resort, it has attracted thousands of visitors over the past decade and created hundreds of jobs. It enhanced the area’s value and lifted the tribe both in means and in spirit. Yet what gives these proud people the most satisfaction is that it’s the first golf course on Native American land designed by a full-blooded Native American.

Notah Begay III, who grew up in Albuquerque,

N.M. and is part of the Navajo, San Felipe and Isleta people, co-designed Firekeeper alongside veteran architect Jeff Brauer. A former PGA Tour player now TV golf commentator, Begay started his own golf course development company, NB3 Consulting, in 2002. The company has developed courses in Arizona, California, New Mexico, North Carolina and New York, but Firekeeper was the first.

“When he came to us, he proposed the least amount of soil moving,’’ says Randy Towner,

Firekeeper’s general manager/head professional.

“We liked his layout, as it did not disrupt the land much, which was important to us.”

The course is located about four miles southwest of Mayetta, Kan., headquarters of the tribe’s vast reservation, 15 miles north of Topeka and about 60 miles west of Kansas City. “We wanted to build a championship golf course but resorty enough that

BY BOB SHERWIN

the 95-to-100-shooter could enjoy it,” says Towner.

Begay was the natural fit. A four-time PGA Tour winner and member of Stanford’s 1994 NCAA championship team that included Tiger Woods, he had an innate affinity for golf course design. His company’s stated mission is to work with tribal communities to build courses and sports facilities to aid economic development.

“The first seven holes are out on the prairie,” says Towner. “It looks a lot like a Scottish course. Then you transition to the valley holes, eight, nine and 10. Then you go through the woodland holes which have views that are typical of Kansas.” There also was an effort to enable golfers to maintain solitude on the course, keeping your round peaceful. Once you tee off away from the clubhouse, you won’t find another structure until you return to it.

“It goes out into the prairie and there’s nothing out there but golf holes,” says Towner. “It can play from 4,500 yards all the way up to 7,500 so accommodates all skill levels.” There are five sets of tees on each hole, the shortest being ‘Deer’, followed by ‘Bear’, ‘Buffalo’ and ‘Eagle’. The fifth set, the far back tees, are a tribute to the course’s designer and called ‘Notah’.

There are some memorable features in the opening holes. The 1st and 6th share a huge green, the par-4, 480-yard 2nd is a scenic challenge with five bunkers — including one in the middle of the fairway — that can efficiently gather in your drive. But the one to avoid is ‘the coffin’ on your approach shot — a long, deep trap directly in front of the green. Be prepared to unburden yourself when you reach No. 4 — a par-5 of 640-yards from the Notah tee. Trouble arrives on your second shot although, at this length, it could be your third, as two long, narrow bunkers protect the green at the front. The approach offers golfers a choice — go left of the bunkers toward the upper level which gives you a clearer line to the flag but runs the risk of falling into some thick native grasses that can hide your ball, or stay safe and aim for the lower level to the right. You’ll have a bigger target, but will now face a tough pitch over the front bunkers.

In the ‘valley’ portion of the course, the par-4, 440-yard 9th might look vaguely familiar. Imagine the famous 18th hole at Augusta National. Your tee shot comes out of a narrow chute with two bunkers left and unruly rough to be avoided on the right. Then it’s uphill. usually into the wind, to an elevated green guarded by bunkers left and right. Firekeeper’s closing hole, a par-4 of 455 yards with a severe dogleg to the right, gives you another dilemma. Those confident enough to hit a risk/reward shot can cut across the dogleg, over a foreboding waste area, leaving a shot wedge to the green. The safer path is around the waste area but leaves a much longer approach.

The natural amphitheater surrounding the 18th green is ideal for spectators. Indeed, the course has held various events, including a stop on the women’s Symetra Tour. “And a (PGA) seniors tournament would be right up our alley,” says Towner.

Begay turns 50 in September, 2022. How cool would it be if a Champions Tour event could be staged on the course he designed?

To book tee times or hotel reservations visit prairieband.com.