Golf course architects not named Tom Fazio, Gil Hanse or Tom Doak dream about being handed a once-in-a-lifetime piece of property that is playable yet epically scenic beyond belief.
Bill Bergin, a former professional golfer whose Atlanta-based firm celebrates its 30th year in business in 2024, was blessed with such a site atop Lookout Mountain, 30 minutes outside of Chattanooga, Tennessee, in Georgia’s northeast corner.
Bergin, who teamed with Hall of Fame architect Rees Jones in 2023 in a renovation of the former Canyon Ridge course in Rising Fawn, Georgia, is ready to open an encore course with Jones 1.5 miles down the road that promises to propel McLemore Resort to one of the top golf destinations along the East Coast, if not North America.
The new McLemore course, called The Keep, measures 7,800 yards on a relatively flat piece of mountain property. The layout is expansive yet walkable, but the main feature is a series of five breathtaking cliff-edge holes. Concentrating on golf along these holes and not photography will be one of the challenges for those who tackle The Keep.
“I’ve been there every week and every time I walk on the course I do have that ‘Wow’ moment and tell ourselves how lucky we are to work on a property like that,” Bergin says. “And what is cool is you visualize all the good times that people are going to have. There will be generations of good times out there, so that’s pretty exciting as well.”
The Keep will have a soft launch in September and plans to open for resort play the first week of October — just in time for the start of the fall leaf season.
Bergin met Jones on a Florida project 10 years ago and the two hit it off and became good friends. They were reunited again to work on the former Canyon Ridge that was renamed the Highlands Course when the developer came to Bergin with a request.
“They wanted a national hotel and I guess they needed a bigger name than Bergin to anchor this project,” he says. “I was already under contract and I had already done most of the design work (at Highlands Course) so I told them I would call Rees and see if he was interested in being involved in the project.”
Jones, one of the game’s legends when it comes to golf course design, didn’t hesitate to join Bergin again.
“Rees came in on the first project and again the relationship fostered between us even more,” Bergin says. “So when it came time to do The Keep they wanted to keep us together.”
Former PGA Tour and TV personality Charlie Rymer grew up in nearby Cleveland, Tennessee, and spent many weekends in and around the Lookout Mountain area. He was introduced to the McLemore Resort brass by his stepbrother, whose best friend happened to be a general partner of the resort. There was initial talk of Rymer becoming an ambassador for the golf courses, but the talks soon elevated to where he was named executive vice president in 2021.
“They reached out and asked me to come by and see the place, and it was kind of love at first sight,” Rymer says. “The first time I stepped on the property I was just completely blown away. It was a day where the clouds were literally underneath the golf course. I had been on Lookout Mountain so many times but I didn’t realize it was 70 miles long.”
Rymer, who is also an investor in the resort, helped oversee the building of the two golf courses and the stunning Cloudland Lodge, a Curio Collection by Hilton hotel that opened in February 2024. It too is located on the mountaintop cliff with outside dining and an infinity edge pool offering unparalleled views.
Locals claim to be able to see seven states from Lookout Mountain.
“The vistas here really are incredible and the geology is fascinating,” Rymer says. “You’ve got these big ripples and what is the oldest mountain range in North America. On a clear day you can see pretty easily 70 miles and there is just ridgeline after ridgeline off into the distance.
“There are some days when we have these cloud inversions come in and the valleys fill up and it looks like a bowl of cream. It’s just incredible. We like to say we’re above the clouds. Some days we’re in the clouds. In fact, one day I had a cloud I invited into my house.”
The Keep is garnering a lion’s share of the attention these days and rightfully so, but the Highlands Course offers a more up-and-down mountain experience with an 18th hole on the cliff too that has been named by one of the top finishing holes in the world by Links Magazine.
Rymer agrees that the Highlands Course is known for its dramatic 18th hole and some great views, but says The Keep is in a unique class.
“The new course is a different animal in that we have those 50-to-70 mile views on every single hole,” Rymer says. “I really don’t know of any place like that. I tell people it’s kind of like a catcher’s mitt the way the course is shaped.”
Bergin says he was fortunate to have the routing on The Keep come together “spectacularly.”
“Our owners allowed us to have this cliff edge with no interference, which is primo real estate for them, so it’s all golf, all on the edge of the mountain,” Bergin says. “You know it’s funny how small furniture looks funny in a big house. Well same thing with in that big furniture looks funny in a small house. And this course has this big scale, and so it’s a bit of a teaser to your eye. You get out there and it looks like an 8-iron shot and it’s a 5-iron shot. And it’s a beautiful walk. One hole just feeds into the next hole.”
McLemore Resort has a lot going for it, including a location that places it within a two-hour drive of 14 million people in such major cities as Atlanta, Birmingham, Chattanooga and Nashville.
“A lot of pictures and videos have come out of here that are great but they don’t do it justice,” Rymer says. “I tell people you can’t really see McLemore, you gotta feel it. Yeah, I know that sounds a little corny but it’s the truth. I’ll sit a lot of times in the corner of our clubhouse and people will walk by and you can see their face light up, and they reach for their phone and start taking pictures. I love living and working at a place where people come and they’re blown away and they start taking pictures of it. That’s pretty darn cool.”
“The Keep is literally any great golf course you can think of in America that fits on a rolling piece of property — say in Raleigh, North Carolina, Atlanta or Chattanooga — except it happens to be at 2,000 feet [above sea level] on the edge of a cliff. You just don’t see that anywhere,” Bergin says. ”I’m a big fan of all of the Sand Belt-type of destination golf courses that have been built recently, but that’s what everybody’s building, wouldn’t you say? We are not that, and that’s what makes us different. We are fresh air, we are breezes and we are vistas for days.”
