The McLemore Club

Overview: The Highlands course at The McLemore Club occupies the edge of Lookout Mountain in Rising Fawn, Georgia, where broad mountain views and pronounced elevation changes define the setting. The 18-hole layout is a par-71 design measuring 7,055 yards from the official back tees. Rees Jones and Bill Bergin reshaped the course around the cliff edge, while Steve Weisser is also credited with the current project. The routing uses open mountain ground, forested stretches and dramatic changes in elevation to produce a sequence that feels different from one hole to the next. Approaches are particularly important because the land can fall away quickly beside the putting surfaces, and the best line is not always the most obvious one from the tee. The course is as much about managing the mountain landscape as it is about finding fairways.

History: The present Highlands course emerged from a complete 2019 redesign of the former Canyon Ridge routing. Rees Jones, Bill Bergin and Steve Weisser were brought in to reimagine the property and to make the cliffside landforms more central to the strategy. The project included a new final hole and a substantially different closing sequence, giving the course a new identity while retaining its mountaintop setting. The McLemore property has since grown into a broader golf destination, but the Highlands course remains the original defining championship layout and the part of the resort most closely associated with the early transformation of the site.

Did You Know? The redesigned 18th was moved roughly 400 feet and drops more than 100 feet. Rees Jones’s project notes describe the old Canyon Ridge fairway being repurposed for a six-hole short course, making the redesign a broader re-use of the property rather than a simple cosmetic renovation.