- Statesboro is a city of 35,000 with a lively downtown area featuring shops, restaurants, and lodging. It’s home to Georgia Southern University enrolling 26,000 students in the University System of Georgia. The University capitalized on an opportunity to acquire the shuttered Southern Links Golf Club in town in 2010. Southern Links was designed by Arthur Davis in the mid-1980s.
His influences and work history in golf course architecture include Robert Trent Jones, Sr, George Cobb, and WIlard Byrd, and ultimately created a partnership with Ron Kirby. Once the University acquired the course, they hired Robert Walker, a longtime Arnold Palmer Course Design architect for a course remake in 2013. So, all in all, a rather substantial pedigree of architectural influences on the Georgia Southern University Golf Course.
The layout meanders through a residential development with most of the holes bordered by homes. It’s a parkland style layout with pine trees lining the broad fairways with water in play on the majority of the holes. Maybe the most interesting stretch comes from 7-9 as it winds counterclockwise around a large lake. The course is also well bunkered with 35 contoured sand traps and pot bunkers along the fairways and greens of varying shapes and sizes. It can play as long as 6,850 yards, 73.2/134, course/slope ratings with four shorter tees down to 5,304 yards.
