Are You Ready For Some Golf?
Here, a wide range of players, including men, women and junior golfers, can play their own uninhibited game of golf at four sets of tees.
The Bridges' 18 holes take players on a journey through uplands, pine savannah and coastal wetlands, more than living up to the symbolism of its name in raising the level and significance of golf on the Gulf Coast.
Rates are $65 Monday, Wednesday and Thursday; $95 Friday-Sunday; closed on Tuesdays.
Flow with the rivers
In almost any direction that golfers venture to look on the Gulf Coast these days, there is a worthy, championship golf challenge awaiting them. At the Grand Bear, located on 600 acres of prime Mississippi woodlands surrounding the DeSoto National Forest, it's all about the genteel sport of golf as only Jack Nicklaus could have devised it.
The $89-per-person fee includes greens fees and cart on Mondays, Wednesdays and Thursdays. A $99 fee applies Friday, Saturday and Sunday.
In particular, holes 14 though 17, which wind along the Big Biloxi River, are memorable, Buckley says. Yet the real test of Grand Bear may be the par 5, 5th hole, which Buckley warns leaves no room for error.
Grand Bear has received national recognition and numerous awards, most recently making the Top 10 in Golfweek magazine's Top 21 Casino Courses and the Top 50 in Golfweek Magazine's Best Resort Golf Courses.
More golfing escapes
Even after taking on the combined challenges of Fallen Oak, The Bridges and Grand Bear, the diehard player still can find plenty of hallowed ground to negotiate in The Preserve and in Shell Landing.
When golf great Jerry Pate designed The Preserve, a par-71, championship course that Palace Casino opened on a 245-acre parcel of an 1,800-acre nature preserve, the intent was to create a course second to none.
Golf fees are $120 from 8 a.m. to 1 p.m. and $90 from 1 p.m. on; closed on Monday. The course has been selected by Golf Digest as one of the Best New Courses of 2007 in the "Best New Public $75 and Over" category.
And since it opened in 2000, Shell Landing, designed by golf great Davis Love and singled out by Golf Digest as the No. 5 course in America in the best new upscale public category, also has been a favorite of serious golfers. Rates are $99 Monday-Thursday and $109 Friday-Saturday.
Ready to play?