4. (4) Troubadour Golf & Field Club

Troubadour, part of the Discovery Land Company’s growing international portfolio, is integrated into a high-end, amenity-rich development 30 miles south of Nashville. (The name is a reference to traveling musicians, familiar figures in these parts.) Sparing no expense, the course is built upon the bones of the former Hideaway at Arrington course, originally routed and built by the firm of von Hagge, Smelek and Baril.

Troubadour’s elevated tees take players on a tour of the surrounding central Tennessee foothills. Though the holes play mostly down through established corridors, the redesign has eliminated much of the previous severity, replacing fields of steep, grassy moguls and ornate bunker clusters with longer, graceful lines. A number of greens were remediated away from hazards to more accessible locations, significantly at par 5s like 3, 9 and 12. Fazio and associate Blake Bickford also pushed the lateral boundaries farther toward the tree line, creating substantially more playing space, establishing greater visibility for their lovely golf compositions and introducing clean, large-format bunkers that guide the eye toward favored landing areas. The highlight is the panorama-rich run of holes 10 through 15 that ride up and down through isolated topography, cross creek ravines and generally look like they’ve existed there for decades, not months.