Bear's Best Atlanta

Bear's Best Atlanta is a Jack Nicklaus design that assembles 18 replica holes drawn from Nicklaus's most celebrated course designs around the world, including Muirfield Village, Castle Pines, PGA National's Champions Course, Sherwood Country Club, Shoal Creek, and the PGA Centenary Course at Gleneagles, Scotland — creating a single round that samples the breadth of one architect's career in a parkland setting north of Atlanta. The course stretches to 6,824 yards from the Gold tees with a rating of 73.6 and slope of 144, and is managed by Invited (formerly ClubCorp).

Bear's Best Atlanta opened in 2002 in the upscale gated community of Edinburgh in Suwanee, Georgia, approximately 30 miles northeast of downtown Atlanta in Gwinnett County. The course was conceived by Jack Nicklaus as a showcase of his personal favorite holes from the vast catalog of designs his firm had produced over more than three decades of course architecture. The concept was simple and audacious: rather than designing a new routing from scratch, Nicklaus would curate 18 holes from his existing portfolio and faithfully replicate them on a single Georgia site. Nicklaus selected holes representing the full range of his design philosophy — from early 1970s designs that established his reputation through the highly praised layouts he produced in the 1990s and 2000s. Each hole is a measured reproduction of the original, using the same bunker shapes, green contours, and hazard placements that define the original holes on their home courses.

Yardage markers and hole descriptions at Bear's Best Atlanta identify the source course for each hole, giving golfers a guided tour through Nicklaus's career. The hole selections include par threes, par fours, and par fives drawn from Muirfield Village Golf Club in Dublin, Ohio (Nicklaus's home course); Castle Pines Golf Club in Castle Rock, Colorado; the Champion Course at PGA National Resort in Palm Beach Gardens; Sherwood Country Club in Thousand Oaks, California; Shoal Creek in Hoover, Alabama; Bear's Club in Jupiter, Florida; and the PGA Centenary Course at Gleneagles Hotel in Perthshire, Scotland, which hosted the 2014 Ryder Cup. Several holes from lesser-known Nicklaus designs are also included, giving enthusiasts exposure to courses they might never otherwise encounter. Golf.com and Golf Digest named Bear's Best Atlanta among America's best new courses when it opened in 2002. The course was also recognized as one of America's top 100 courses by several publications in its first years of operation.

It provided a unique experience not replicated by any other course in the southeastern United States — an opportunity to play famous holes without traveling to multiple destinations. The course is operated by Invited (formerly ClubCorp) and functions as a semi-private facility with both daily fee play and membership options. Bear's Best Atlanta has proven popular both as a golf experience and as a corporate entertainment venue, attracting outings and tournaments that use the replica format as a conversation piece and competitive framework. The course hosts charity events and junior golf programs throughout the season. From the Gold tees, Bear's Best Atlanta plays to 6,824 yards with a GSGA rating of 73.6 and slope of 144.

The Nicklaus tees (6,513 yards) rate 72.1/142, the Blue tees (6,138 yards) rate 70.2/136, and the White tees (5,624 yards) rate 68.2/126 for men. Women play the White tees at 73.8/135 and the Red tees (4,725 yards) at 68.9/121. The Edinburgh community in Suwanee has grown considerably since Bear's Best Atlanta opened in 2002, and the course has matured with it — the plantings Nicklaus specified in his original design now providing the tree canopy and landscape definition that replica-format courses require to feel grounded rather than artificial. The surrounding Gwinnett County golf market, which includes several strong private clubs and public facilities, has given Bear's Best Atlanta a competitive context in which it has continued to perform as one of the area's most distinctive experiences. The semi-private model — combining daily fee access with membership options — has proven well suited to a course whose primary appeal is the novelty and quality of the Nicklaus hole compilation.