Tiger Woods and Johnny Morris look over plans for the new golf course.
Congratulations to Bass Pro founder and CEO Johnny Morris on the announcement of a partnership with 79-time PGA Tour winner Tiger Woods and the Payne Stewart family.
Scheduled to open in 2019 and named in honor of the late Payne Stewart, the new Payne’s Valley Golf Course will be the first fully public-access course in the world designed by Tiger Woods’ design firm TGR Design.
Payne’s Valley will pay tribute to the legacy of the late Payne Stewart, a friend of both Morris and Woods and an Ozarks native who won 11 PGA Tour events, including three major championships.
Morris, with the help of Bill Coore and Ben Crenshaw, is also creating The Payne Stewart Learning Facility, a practice facility with a tribute museum displaying Stewart’s personal trophies, scorecards, apparel, equipment, photos and more. Morris will also honor Stewart by expanding support to a number of charitable initiatives linked to the course.
The new course will be adjacent to a 13-hole short course designed by golf legend Gary Player opening this year and Ozarks National, an 18-hole championship course designed by architects Coore & Crenshaw debuting in 2018.
The courses will join Big Cedar Lodge’s existing golf offerings, Top of the Rock, a 9-hole par-3 course designed by Jack Nicklaus,; a 16-hole practice facility by the late Arnold Palmer; a 6,000-square-foot Tom Watson Himalayan putting complex; and Buffalo Ridge, an 18-hole championship course designed by Tom Fazio.
The golf course announcement comes on the heels of an opening date being set for Wonders of Wildlife National Museum & Aquarium in Springfield.
WOW, the brainchild of Morris, opens Sept. 21 and will include an all-new 1.5-million-gallon aquarium adventure showcasing 35,000 live fish, mammals, reptiles and birds, and an immersive wildlife museum that brings visitors eye-to-eye with the greatest collection of record-setting game animals ever assembled.
Adjacent to Bass Pro Shops Outdoor World, the 320,000-square foot experience celebrates people who hunt, fish, and act as stewards of the land and water.
