Venerated golf course architect Bill Coore once called Johnny Morris “Walt Disney on steroids,” referencing the Bass Pro Shops founder’s combination of imagination and determination to build his Big Cedar Nature Golf into a bucket-list travel destination.
It doesn’t hurt that Morris has a much better palette to work with among the lakes, streams, valleys and caves in the Ozarks around Branson, Missouri, than the featureless landscape Disney had to transform out of whole cloth in central Florida.
Morris – who turned an operation selling fishing tackle out of the back of his father’s liquor store in 1972 into 177 Bass Pro Shops and Cabela’s across the U.S. and Canada – has developed Big Cedar Lodge into one of America’s go-to resorts. Five golf courses – with an audacious sixth on its way – each carrying environmental and sustainability certification from Audubon International are part of Morris’ Ozarks wilderness retreat and conservation oasis.
Branson, in the southwest corner of Missouri, was already on the map before Morris poured his heart and wealth into showing off his beloved Ozarks with Big Cedar. That makes it unique to other popular golf resort destinations such as Bandon, Cabot, Sand Valley or Streamsong where the primary (or only) option available when you get there is the resort’s golf. Branson gets 10 million visitors per year drawn to its wide range of attractions that include three lakes, zip lines, the Silver Dollar City theme park and more live-entertainment seats than you can find on Broadway or in Vegas. So, if your traveling party or family isn’t into playing golf all day, there’s plenty to do without sticks in hand.
The golf complements the other attractions, with courses that sprawl across the undulating and dramatic Ozarks terrain.
Branson has 10 public courses (with its 11th under construction) within 20 minutes of one another including designs by Coore and Ben Crenshaw, Tiger Woods, Tom Fazio, Jack Nicklaus, Gary Player and Bob Cupp. Five of Golfweek’s top-10 rated courses you can play in Missouri are in Branson – the three from Big Cedar (Payne’s Valley, Buffalo Ridge and Ozarks National) as well as Branson Hills and LedgeStone. GolfPass listed Branson Hills as one of its top 50 favorite courses in the U.S., while the Big Cedar trio of championship tracks are rated top 100 resort courses in America by Golf Magazine and/or Golf Digest.
And while Big Cedar offers high-end lodging, there are plenty of affordable options in Branson from hotels to villas that can accommodate multiple families or foursomes.
On our recent journey there, we stayed at Thousand Hills Golf Resort’s lodge No. 6 right behind the 13th green, easily accommodating eight to 10 golfers comfortably, illuminating the spectrum of options available to prospective golf visitors. Thousand Hills’ course is short by resort standards – a 5,111-yard par-64 layout with nine par-3s and one finishing par-5 – but not remotely easy, presenting a unique contrast to the brawny Big Cedar tracks.
Big Cedar is the big ticket, which makes sense given its quality. It’s a trophy golf experience that many are happy and willing to pay for.
All to say that while the lion’s share of the focus on Branson golf should and does go to Big Cedar, there are multiple other options available to suit any budget.
Big Cedar is the big ticket, which makes sense given its quality. It’s a trophy golf experience that many are happy and willing to pay for. But it makes up only about 50 percent of the Branson golf pie, the other half coming in at a lower price point for visitors who might want to get more affordable golf in and save up for a Big Cedar splurge* on Tiger’s Payne Valley spectacle, which has peak-season (April-October) rates of $450 for public guests ($350 for Big Cedar guests). Or sometimes it’s just tough to get a spot at Big Cedar with it booked well in advance like Bandon and other popular destinations since COVID.
* Another awesome Big Cedar splurge option would be reserving half a day to spend exploring Top of the Rock with its limestone cave trails, Native American and nature museum, Arnie’s Barn relocated from its original home in Latrobe, Pennsylvania, the pristine secret garden Jack Nicklaus nine-hole par-3 course, sunset cannon ceremony overlooking Table Rock Lake and five-star dinner at the Osage Restaurant. Just saying, worth it.
Big Cedar Nature Golf already holds its own against the bigwigs in North American golf resorts. The course that draws most of the attention is Tiger’s first public-course design and homage to Missouri’s own Payne Stewart at Payne’s Valley. It’s the evocative bonus 19th hole – complete with its own actual bar to bide the time waiting to take your shot at the island green set in the middle of a limestone canyon pool – that turns heads, but the 18 holes that precede it boast the widest fairways and biggest greens you’ll encounter in the Ozarks. It’s not easy, just forgiving.
The Coore and Crenshaw Ozarks National is the more challenging test – a “players course” with a back nine presenting a worthy test to any golfer – that wends its way across and over a series of ridgetops with sweeping views across the Ozark valleys (and the wooded ravines that fall away from many of the fairways). Course rankings are subjective and in the eye of the beholder, but it would rate atop the three big courses in this book.
Then there’s Buffalo Ridge, a lush Fazio course that comes by its name honestly with actual bison grazing in places adjacent to the course and buffalo skulls serving as tee markers. The oldest of the Big Cedar courses under Morris’ stewardship was the first to rewrite the property’s potential that wasn’t done justice by a John Daly design dubbed Murder Rock that first resided there. With exposed limestone outcroppings and caves (all uncovered by Morris’ deep understanding of the land) and copious springs, streams and ponds, Buffalo Ridge plays out like a series of signature holes as it reaches its crescendo on the back nine. It even has a hole dedicated to the late Dale Earnhardt dubbed “The Intimidator,” the long par-3 (of course) ninth that carries over limestone steps and waterfalls that play with your confidence on the tee.
What Big Cedar does as well – or arguably even better – than any golf resort is short courses. Top of the Rock was the first and its most famous, but Jack’s little gem gets a stiff challenge from Gary Player’s 13-hole Mountain Top. It’s a rollicking good time set on the highest point of the property, with a wide array of tee boxes ranging from long to short and wrought-iron bridges winding through limestone features that make the walk as compelling and picturesque as the holes themselves.
But just in case those weren’t enough to help visitors fill out their itineraries, a third par-3 course coming soon will balance out the golf offerings with three world-class and distinctly different short courses (a first in the destination resort business) to complement three world-class and distinctly different championship courses.
It will be aptly named Cliffhangers.
“We believe what is taking shape will offer one of the most extraordinary par-3 course experiences anywhere,” reads the official Big Cedar statement regarding the Cliffhangers. “As well, it will be fun! In fact, we are sure it will be one of the most fun experiences in the world!”
Two exclamation points!! That’s a lot, but if anyone has laid eyes on the steep and rugged limestone hillside where Cliffhangers is under construction, exclamation points and question marks are the go-to punctuation, mixed with some ALL CAPS to boot.
“They’re building a golf course THERE?!”
It takes the kind of unique vision that Morris possesses to even consider such an audacious idea of building a par-3 course on a wall of exposed rock. But Morris is the kind of guy willing to put his money and his imagination to work to show off the unique nature of the Ozarks. When the practice range at the Top of the Rock became a sinkhole, Morris leaned in by excavating the whole thing to create the mesmerizing lost canyon cave and nature trail.
Morris (with his son, John Paul) is spearheading the Cliffhangers design himself – an ambitious project with workers meticulously excavating the limestone walls like an archeological dig site as it makes room for a grassed 18-hole short course to somehow fit on the shelves of the 50-acre cliffs with about 400 feet of vertical descent from the Mountain Top clubhouse at the top to Payne’s Valley at the bottom.
Cliffhangers, which will be riding-only considering the severity of the terrain, will incorporate a lot more shorter holes than its more sizable Big Cedar brethren, but it will not yield in drama with plans for some tees to be tucked into caves, greens built on shelves and underneath waterfalls and some holes that could offer puttable downhill options.
Just one more reason to put Branson on any golf traveler’s bucket list.