Big Cedar Lodge’s new Cliff Stick 3-Pole Course Will Keep Golfers on the Edge

“High-top” is not a recommended move in the golf swing. But it can pay off well in golf design.

Bass Pro Shops founder Johnny Morris never got rid of the bold course features at Big Cedar Lodge in Miseri Ozarks. For example, on the Payne’s Valley, a championship layout designed by Tiger Woods, Morris helped dream of a 19th hole with a head turn that played on the lake, reaching the green supported by a waterfall struck by a towering limestone wall.

Now, further evidence shows that Morris is willing to push golf to the edge.

The title of the project emphasizes this: Cliffhangers, a new 18-hole PAR-3 course designed by Morris with his son John Paul. During six years of development, it is scheduled to open to the public on July 4.

Cliffhangers, dubbed “the most eye-catching 3-pin golf course in the world” by Big Cedar, sat in local seats, originally planned as a practice facility until Morrises decided that the location should get something more eye-catching.

Their design would have been an adventure ride, along the route of steep mountain trails, rapidly flowing streams, past waterfalls and mazes of limestone caves, shooting along the last Tee inside the cave, through the cave, along the green waterfall.

Cliffhangers is the sixth session of Big Cedar and the resort’s third PAR-3 program. Other layouts include Ozarks National, a design by Bill Coore/Ben Crenshaw, ranked 55th in the top 100 courses for American golf that can be played in the United States, while Rock tops up with Jack Nicklaus’ design becoming the first PGA Tour-3 course approved by the PGA Tour and the first PGA Tour in the Championship.

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