JOHN TYSON - Digital Publishing Software | Page Turning Software

Tyson Foods Inc. Chairman John Tyson andThe Blessings, the course he helped build innorthwest Arkansas. The Robert Trent JonesJr.-designed layout stands as a challengeto all comers while the modern clubhousesports an award-winning look created byUniversity of Arkansas professor andarchitect Marlon Blackwell.Photos: Dero Sanford and Tim Hursley.a golf course and finally decided to pullthe trigger and create a golf course that iscompetitive and has all the aspects of thegame of golf in it. I’ve been fortunate tobe able to do it and to be able to give backto the college game, to the [University ofArkansas] teams out here, to watch theRazorback men’s and women’s teamsplay here.My house was here. I owned about180 acres already. Most of the raw landwas around my private residence. I’d ridearound on a four-wheeler just checkingout the land, driving around Clear Creek… My golf ball does wind up in that creekoccasionally … Around 1997 or ’98, mythought was to maybe sell the propertybut things were pretty pricey. So it waseither to sell out at that time and I’d haveto move to another property, or keep it, soI went ahead and kept the land.Jerry Pate came through with hisdesign team. Jack Nicklaus’ people camethrough. A couple of the design groups,I eliminated because of where they hadtheir price points. Robert Trent Jones Jr.came out and visited. The critical pointin that process was his assistant BruceCharlton. Bruce did most of the work;that’s who I had most of my dealings with.We’d adjust and tweak and had a partnershipof working together. A lot of peoplesay, they got one hole built and I ruinedthe other 17 of them. (Laughing).A lot of courses are designed to beplayer-friendly or resort-friendly. Iwanted to put the game of golf back intothe golf course. I wanted to have varyingsets of tees for different skill levels. If youcan’t drive it 280 yards or need the fairway50 yards wide, maybe you need to get to atee box that better fits your game.The changes we’ve made in recentyears, most of them have been mythoughts, along with talking to Bruce andBobby and getting feedback from players,getting anecdotal information. Someadjustments were done to help the visualexperience and to help with the maintenanceof the course. … We’ve madea tweak to the course every year. We’realways making tweaks and adjustments,then we look at it and make more tweaksand adjustments. … It’s a nice golf course.I think those golfers that played it earlyon, they might have found it very difficult.When we were building this course, wetalked about the philosophy of the gameand what the land would give us andwhat the angles would be like. A greatcourse is one that forces you to play all 14clubs in your bag. A brilliant golf course isone that forces you to play a 3-wood fromthe fairway, and a 3-iron, and maybe usea driver on a hole to drive the green. Whatwe thought was, how do you put the gameof golf back into the course?You can really see the technologythat has come into the game and howit has changed the game. Right beforewe started building the course and it wasdesigned, the turning point for driveswas like 260-265 yards. When we startedbuilding it, we moved that turning point(the area where drives were expectedto land) to 275-280 yards. It’s amazingthat the turning point now has gone pastwhere it was when we opened. I wastalking to some people the other day,talking to an architect. Now the newturning point is 300 yards or more. We’veadded one or two back tees, made someadjustments because of that. We justdon’t want two different golf courses, onefrom the back tees and a different one forthe shorter tees. For folks like me we’llget to our second shot and we’re getting2013 / ARKANSAS BUSINESS EXECUTIVE GOLFER 11