New Player course, Mountain Top, will give Big Cedar Lodge in Missouri two outstanding par 3 courses

HOLLISTER, Mo. -- In the wake of the announcement of the new Tiger Woods course being planned for Johnny Morris' Big Cedar Lodge Ozarks Mountain resort, two more courses will open before then. One of them -- the new 13-hole par 3 course by Gary Player -- is pretty much complete and will open some time in 2017.

The new course, which will be called Mountain Top and located on Buffalo Ridge near the Buffalo Ridge Springs Course, will give the resort 22 holes of par 3 golf. It'll contrast the already established Jack Nicklaus/Johnny Morris designed Top of the Rock, the only par 3 course to play host to a PGA Tour or PGA Tour Champions event -- the Bass Pro Shops Legends of Golf.

Like Top of the Rock, the new Player course has plenty of great vistas and dramatic greens and bunkering. It's about 2,000 yards total with holes ranging from abut 80 yards to 200 yards. Most of the greens are fairly big and undulating, but the most dramatic feature is the limestone outcroppings throughout the course.

By the time the new Woods course (which will be called Payne's Valley in honor of Springfield, Mo. native Payne Stewart) and a new Bill Coore & Ben Crenshaw design, Ozarks National (2018) open, this mega outdoors resort will have 76 holes of golf. In addition, Woods is also planning to design a family-friendly par 3 course after Payne's Valley is constructed.