Reynolds Plantation - Georgia, U.S.A.

Reynolds Plantation is a resort and residential community set around Lake Oconee in central Georgia,75 miles east of Atlanta. The resort developed by Mercer Reynolds boasts four top-drawer courses-the Great Waters Course designed by Jack Nicklaus, the National Course designed by Tom Fazio, the Plantation Course created by Bob Cupp, and the recently completed Rees Jones-designed Oconee Course-as well as a new Ritz-Carlton hotel. The Great Waters Course that opened in 1992 is carved from the Georgia pines around the nooks and crannies of the lakeshore. Nine holes play along or across Oconee, including the par-five 18th with water down the entire left side of the fairway and sickled green. Lake Oconee is Georgia's second-largest lake with 374 miles of shoreline and it makes a literary appearance in the opening paragraph of James Joyce's Finnegan's Wake

Augusta National Golf Club - Georgia, U.S.A.

Augusta National Golf Club, the home of the Masters Tournament that signals the coming of spring every April, was founded by Bobby Jones as his dream course. Jones started with the ideal property, a former nursery named Fruitlands founded by the Belgian horticulturalist Baron Prosper Berckmans. The old manor house is now one of the world's most famous clubhouses and the pitching fairways and greased lightning-fast greens are surrounded by floral fireworks in the form of azaleas, rhododendrons, amellias, and redbud. Jones engaged Dr. Alister MacKenzie as the architect and together they created a course that bril­liantly reflected their shared belief in strategic design based on the model of the Old Course at St. Andrews. The 11th through 13th holes, which play around Rae's Creek, embody the risk-reward strategy of Jones and MacKenzie. This stretch of holes is known as Amen Corner, a name that the New Yorker golf writer Herbert Warren Wind came up with based on the jazz song "Shouting at Amen Corner." The Masters began in 1934 as the Augusta National Invitational and quickly blossomed into one of golf's four major championships. Through the Masters, Augusta National has come to symbolize the perfectly maintained and abiding beauty of the American parkland course.