By Fred Altvater
Last month we saw Bass Pro Shops Legends of Golf at Big Cedar Lodge, a stop on the Champions Tour, held on the Jack Nicklaus designed Top of the Rock par-three course and for the first time on the newly opened Ozarks National.
Johnny Morris, billionaire owner of both Bass Pro Shops and Cabela’s, has created a golf destination in southern Missouri that rivals any of the great golf resorts in the country.
Branson receives over 9 million visitors annually and is famous for its limestone caverns and 50 theaters that produce live shows, but the area is also loaded with a multitude of other activities and attractions. 
One of the newest is a tour of the massive sink hole that developed below the sprawling clubhouse at Top of the Rock. When crews began cleaning up the hole, they kept digging and Morris decided to make it another interesting attraction at Big Cedar Lodge.
In addition to Big Cedar Lodge, Morris has been adding top-notch golf courses at Buffalo Ridge. He purchased the financially strapped residential community and has turned it into a golf destination that every Golfaholic must visit.
Morris hired Tom Fazio to return to renovate the existing Branson Creek course to turn it into a world class tournament venue and renamed it, Buffalo Ridge Springs. The course sits atop a ridge and features elevation changes, artistic contouring and beautiful bunkering. It is a wonderful Fazio design.
The second course built on Buffalo Ridge was Gary Player’s Mountain Top. It is 13-hole, par 39 short course, that is a blast to play. Design features include elevation changes and unique rock formations. Short courses are showing up at great golf resorts and this is one of the best.
The third course at Buffalo Ridge, Ozarks National was designed by the award-winning team of Bill Coore and Ben Crenshaw. They are experts at using the natural contours of the rolling topography to produce a masterpiece. It will soon be drawing rave reviews from everyone who visits Branson.
Crews are feverishly working on the Tiger Wood’s design, Payne’s Valley, that is set to open later this year. Payne Stewart is a native of Missouri and this course was named in his honor. The course has 19 holes and visitors to Payne’s Valley will find a memorable finish.
It is also rumored that Morris has contracted Woods to build a second course, after Payne’s Valley is complete.
There is so much more to talk about in Branson, the live shows, hiking, biking, as well as, world-class fishing, but this golf destination with designs by Nicklaus, Fazio, Player, Coore/Crenshaw and Woods rivals any golf destination in the world.
