Top of the Hill
Discovering the breathtaking mountain-top retreat of McLemore
The mountain-top majesty of the McLemore Club
Sometimes it works to begin stories at the end. At the McLemore Club, atop Lookout Mountain in north-west Georgia, a round of golf on its Highlands Course builds to an unforgettable crescendo. And you can take “Highlands” literally, in terms of a final green that is more than 2,000 feet above sea level. The panoramic view from the 18th reaches for miles over the untouched wilderness beauty of McLemore Cove and Pigeon Mountain.
This is some way to draw a round of golf to a close.
“It is different here at McLemore,” starts William Duane Horton, President of the McLemore Club. “People come here just to look at the land and to experience it. This golf course celebrates the natural areas and is carved into the land in a way that makes it look part of the character and like it belongs here.”
The Highlands course was designed by Rees Jones and Bill Bergin and it opened for play last year, while the club also offers a six-hole Short Course of rare quality.
“This is not just a golf course,” says Jones, who has been trusted with key renovations at classic American clubs including Oakland Hills, Hazeltine, Bellerive and Baltusrol. “Golfers come here and they know they are in a special place. McLemore is about more than just playing golf. The views are phenomenal and that is half the experience of playing golf, just enjoying being at a place with views that calm you.”
The 18th is a par-4 that plays up to 435 yards from the tips, with the left side of the hole defined by the cliff’s edge and a dramatic 100-foot drop. The fairway is 40 yards wide so offers golfers plenty of scope to find safety, but a determined hook off the tee by a right-hander will send the ball onto a long-haul flight path into the wooded valley below. The green location also tests a golfer’s mettle as it snuggly sits just feet from the rocky precipice.
A 245-room hotel should open in 2022 but for now, guests are welcome to stay in an array of beautifully crafted cottages that tuck unobtrusively into the wooded landscape, while the brand new clubhouse opened on October 24.
“The clubhouse looks better than we had even hoped,” explains IV Whitman, VP of Marketing. “It has a very elegant design and it is amazing how it has come together, combining authentic old world craftsmanship with new world construction techniques. It has been built with strength and durability, with materials like rock, zinc, slate and exposed timbers.”
Hiking, mountain biking, road cycling, hang-gliding and rock climbing head the array of activities on offer beyond the golf course at the McLemore Club so the options for exhilarating action are all there, although guests should be pre-warned that McLemore exudes a sense of serenity that members and guests tend to recline into.
“Sitting back and taking in the amazing surroundings with a cocktail seems to be the most popular activity here after the golf,” admits Whitman. “It is just what people end up doing.”
Adds Roland Aberg, Master Planner for the McLemore Club: “McLemore is a retreat from fast-paced, suburban living, coming up to a more pastoral and relaxed way of life. You cannot create all of this. It has to be there [already] and that is what McLemore has. It has a lot of beautiful, natural places within the property and that is what McLemore is all about.”
Concludes club President Horton: “When you come to McLemore you see that it does not need anything more. It already has more than we could have imagined. It is an island in the sky.”
Click on themclemore.com to find out more.
“McLemore is a retreat from fast-paced, suburban living, coming up to a more pastoral and relaxed way of life”