Grand Bear Golf Course

Overview: Grand Bear Golf Course is a Jack Nicklaus Signature design set deep inside the DeSoto National Forest near Saucier. The course’s woodland character comes from towering pines, cypress wetlands and long stretches without houses, roads or other built features in view. Nicklaus used the size of the property to give the holes room to breathe, and the routing avoids the repetitive parallel corridors found at many resort courses. The result is a substantial par-72 layout with broad changes in direction, varied hole shapes and a strong separation between the maintained playing surfaces and the surrounding forest. The setting is quiet in visual terms, even when the course is demanding from the longer tees.

History: Grand Bear opened in 1999 as part of the Mississippi Gulf Coast resort and casino development. It was created as a Signature course by Jack Nicklaus, with the property extending several miles into the DeSoto National Forest. The club’s current presentation continues to identify the 1999 opening and the Nicklaus authorship as central facts. Since the course was built in a large forested tract, its history is also a story of preserving a sense of separation from nearby development rather than building a residential golf course around the holes.

Did You Know? Grand Bear’s official course description notes that no two holes parallel one another. That simple planning choice is unusually important here: it keeps the forest between successive holes and helps produce the secluded character for which the course is known.