Frederica Golf Club

Frederica Golf Club is sprawled across a massive 340-acre site that is set within a private residential community on Lake Frederica, which forms part of the 400 acres of interconnected waterways that traverse the entire property. Frederica is a fisherman’s paradise with lakes stuffed full of trophy bass and the most impressive boathouse we’ve ever seen is the centrepiece of the aquatic scene.

Created for Sea Island heir Bill Jones by Tom Fazio, who received a helping hand from former R&A Secretary, Sir Michael Bonallack, Frederica is a big golf course with a capital B. No doubt using St Andrews as a benchmark, Fazio/Bonallack built some of the biggest greens in the USA, reputedly the biggest ever created by Fazio.

The front nine is perhaps the weakest link at Frederica but it contains a number of strong par fours. It’s the back nine that gets the juices flowing and there’s water, water everywhere waiting to claim your golf balls.

The risk-and-reward finale is perhaps the best hole on the course. It’s a reachable par five that doglegs to the left, tempting the bigger hitters to have a go at the green in two, but only the best hitters will prevail as the green juts out into water.

Frederica opened in 2005 and is the younger sister to Ocean Forest, the course that opened ten years earlier and changed the direction of Sea Island.