Foxfire - Players Club Course (Lockbourne, OH)

My interest in playing here back in the early 2000s was based solely on its name Players Club. It invoked images of a TPC course, Sawgrass in particular. The scorecard stretched over 7000, and all the water holes looked damn interesting on the diagrams. Unfortunately, it didn’t match the hype I imagined.  

The Players Club underlying problem is simply the mishmash collection of two very different nine holes. The original Foxfire course was designed by Jack Kidwell who added a third nine to give the club 27 holes. Each was named a different color of a fox, thus Red nine, Grey nine and Silver nine. When they decided to expand to 36 holes, the Silver nine was split up. [1-4 and 14-18] The new nine which would be the 5th-13th was designed by Barry Serafin. The two nines are so completely different that the course struggles as a whole to make sense. 

Serafin dug out huge lakes and routed his nine holes to play over them. With Kidwell’s heavily treelined parkland holes starting the round and then finishing the round, the Serafin holes look out of place. The Serafin holes have no trees with big mounds outlining the far side and water guarding the inside lines of play. It’s completely artificial looking. (The new housing nowadays doesn’t add any beauty either) 

The Kidwell nine from 14-16 is my favorite stretch of holes with rolling topography and treelined fairways. They have a classic look to them that fits in well to what Midwest golfers are used to seeing. If the whole course looked like this, the Players Club would firmly be established as one of Columbus’ best courses.  

Surprisingly, the Players Club is not well known outside of Columbus. Instead, Bent Tree, Cook’s Creek, Albany Links, and a few others come to mind for players from northeast Ohio. The hodgepodge of holes and design styles leaves it off of most radars. Nonetheless, it’s a fine course. I give it a 4 (above average)(worth driving 30-40 minutes).