Making Championship History

Champions Retreat ~ Augusta’s Premiere Golf Club

Gary Player chose the 1999 Masters Champions Dinner as his setting to recruit Jack Nicklaus and Arnold Palmer to share in his dream of a 27-hole, private golf club, located in the golf capital of the world - Augusta, Georgia.

Since there were three distinct properties to choose from the question of who gets what quickly arose. Gary Player decided to handle the designation of the properties “scientifically,” and wrote Island, Creek and Bluff on the back of three index cards.
Because he was the senior in the group and had played more Masters, Arnold chose first. He drew the “Island” card. Jack drew second, since he had won more green jackets than Gary – and pulled the “Bluff ” card, leaving Gary with the “Creek” property.

Three great golf legends came together and each set out to design nine signature holes of championship golf on a masterful course to be sculpted from the foundation of nearly twelve hundred faultless acres of skyward Georgia pines, long-standing hardwoods and numerous wetlands along the great Savannah River, in an area to be known as Champions Retreat.