Mallard Pointe Golf Course

Overview: Mallard Pointe Golf Course is a Bob Cupp design operated by the Mississippi Department of Wildlife, Fisheries and Parks at John W. Kyle State Park in Sardis. The tree-lined parkland routing sits on the southern shore of Sardis Lake, although most holes do not run directly along the water. Instead, the lake becomes a recurring landscape reference near the closing holes, where elevation and exposed ground create a different visual scale from the wooded interior. Cupp’s layout combines broad fairways with strategic changes in direction, and the par-72 course can be played from several distances. It is a public course whose setting is defined by both the state-park context and the lake landscape.

History: Mallard Pointe was developed as an 18-hole state-park course in the late 1990s and is commonly dated to 1998 in course records. Bob Cupp designed the layout, which later received recognition from Golf Digest as a Best Places to Play course. The course’s location beside Sardis Lake connects it to one of Mississippi’s major flood-control reservoirs, and its operation by the state park system gives it a different history from the private and resort clubs elsewhere in the state ranking.

Did You Know? The lake comes into view to the right of the 17th hole, where a substantial drop-off makes the line from the tee a strategic choice. The 18th continues the test with a second shot that must account for wild ground along the right side of the fairway.