“Lower barrier to comfort” is an understatement. “Exceptional regional cuisine, southern hospitality and a lower barrier to comfort makes Champions Retreat the place to be Masters Week.” “Champions Retreat offers the premium golf experience in the Augusta area, allowing for a voyage on courses designed by golf’s greatest legends, Nicklaus, Palmer and Player,” said General Manager Cameron Wiebe, an affable Canadian who came here after stints at some of Southeast’s top private clubs including the legendary, hyper-private Everglades Club in Palm Beach, Florida. It’s truly the center of the golf universe for those few spring days, and it gives Champions Retreat the opportunity to show the world what it’s got going on as a club, a destination and an experience. The Masters mystique permeates just about every corner of day-to-day life in Augusta and the surrounding towns, and, of course, drives much of the region’s commerce, especially just before, during and immediately after “toonamint” week. THE AUGUSTA EFFECT Salmon, steak, barbecue, s'mores - Champions Retreat serves it all in style. Which brings up a third feeling on that 8 th tee: The gut-leap of realization that the biggest tournament in golf, and the flawless course that has hosted it for more than 80 years, is just a 20-minute drive (or, for some, a five-minute helicopter ride) away. The remaining week? That’s when Champions Retreat opens its gates to the public, mostly in the form of corporate hosts and their guests, for the Masters.
There’s the middle-of-nowhere setting among dense forest that gives no clue of the 16 luxury cabins and “rustic upscale” clubhouse complex just a few hundred yards away, which cater to a broad array of golf and social members - most of them local, the rest from across America with a handful from other countries - 51 weeks of the year. Standing on the 8 th tee of Jack Nicklaus’ rollicking Bluffs nine at Champions Retreat, under the friendly Georgia sun of mid-autumn, brings into focus every element of golf’s attraction and lasting appeal.įirst there’s the hole itself, a handsome mid-length par 3, its tee elevated to afford a view of the reedy Southern slough stretching from the green’s left shoulder to another green perhaps a quarter-mile away, on Arnold Palmer’s Island Nine - much of it strung along the Savannah River - with yet a third nine, the Creek, authored by Gary Player, off to the west a bit. The par 3 8th hole on Jack Nicklaus’ Bluffs nine at Champions Retreat
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