Dancing Rabbit Golf Course

Hole 13 at Dancing Rabbit I had played golf in Florida, Arizona, Myrtle Beach, and California, but never in the "Deep South" - until summer 1997 when I took a 12-day trip to play 11 courses in Mississippi, Alabama and Georgia. Now, all I can say is, "I wish I was in Dixie."

I flew to Jackson, Mississippi, in late July. For the most part, golf's infrastructure in Mississippi lags behind that of Alabama and Georgia. Predominantly agrarian and rural, the state has had trouble competing for business and tourist dollars with its more urbanized and economically robust neighbors. Since the first one opened in 1992, the casinos have helped dramatically. But state leaders know that Mississippi must entice visitors with more than gaming, a few southern mansions in Natchez and a Civil War museum in Vicksburg.

One casino has built a golf club - a first-class golf club.

Hole 9 at Dancing Rabbit The first stop on my tour, Dancing Rabbit Golf Club, is arguably the best course in Mississippi. It is located in Philadelphia, in the red clay hills region of Mississippi on the Choctaw Indian Reservation next to the Silverstar Resort and Casino. The casino, the only land-based gaming operation in the state, was built after the tribal council legalized gambling about the same time the state did. The resort includes a 500-room deluxe hotel and a Las Vegas-style casino that attracts big name entertainment and 3½ million visitors a year. Casino revenues finance the golf operation.

Dancing Rabbit, named after the final treaty with the U.S. government ceding land back to the Choctaws, is a good walk decidedly unspoiled. The site features a mature hardwood forest on rolling land that was left undeveloped by generations of Choctaws.

On his first walk-through, course co-designer Tom Fazio commented that the place looked like it was made for a golf course. The aim of Fazio, who collaborated with former Open champion Jerry Pate, was to make the course look like it had been there for a long time. Despite only being opened in summer '97, it does.

At just over 7,100 yards, the Azales course features 13 elevated greens and almost as many elevated tees. More than a few approaches require carries over crests and hollows. Yet, typical of Fazio designs, Dancing Rabbit is an honest, fair test of golf.

Dancing Rabbit has been landscaped beautifully with azaleas and dogwoods. An extrawide curbed concrete cartpath permits two carts to pass while protecting the turf. And an underground air ventilation system protects the bent-grass greens in a hot-humid climate that is normally hostile to bent grass. Congressional's superintendent Paul Latshaw toured the course that spring before the Open at Congressional and, according to William Richardson, the tribe's director of economic development, "[Latshaw] told my superintendent that he wished his greens were as good as these."

The golf club, including the picture postcard clubhouse with two wraparound verandas and guest suites on the third floor, was Richardson's idea. He knew the club would make a good fit with the tribe's other enterprises but he also envisioned a private golf club that would rank among the best in the country. Play is restricted to the 300 members and their guests and resort guests on golf packages.

Hole 10 at Dancing Rabbit Richardson visited some the country's better golf clubs to learn all he could about developing his club. He knew his plan would go nowhere without Chief Phillip Martin's approval, so he took the tribal leader to Annandale, the Nicklaus course in Jackson and the site of the Deposit Guaranty Classic. "I showed Chief Martin the 4th hole," said Richardson. "He looked around and said, 'It's nice. How much does a course like this cost?' I told him anywhere from $3 million to $10 million. 'Ok,' he said, 'but if we do it, it must be the best.' Of course, I agreed." Estimates of Dancing Rabbit's cost range from $12 to $18 million.

Pate, according to Richardson, has been promoting the club as the next Augusta National. If Dancing Rabbit achieves that lofty stature, it will have to compete with Dancing Rabbit No. 2, also a Fazio-Pate collaboration, which is near completion right next door. Richardson says it promises to be even more spectacular. Opening is scheduled for Spring 1999.