The architect is using land from the club’s existing nine and will introduce Golden Age styling to the new design
The nine-hole False River Golf and Country Club in Ventress, Louisiana, will reopen in autumn 2026 as an 18-hole course with Golden Age styling, designed by Nathan Crace.
Located around 30 miles northwest of state capital Baton Rouge, False River has operated as a nine-hole facility since 1963. The club is named after a nearby 15-mile oxbow lake that formed when the Mississippi River changed course in 1722.
Local businessman Jim Moore acquired the club and some adjacent land in 2023. Moore also owns one of just two houses located on the golf course property. “I joined False River in 1968 and fell in love with the club and the community,” he said. “After joining, I began helping the member-owned golf course with improvements for more than 50 years. When I first joined, the club was family oriented. All my children grew up there – spending summers at the pool, then off to play golf, and back to the pool to eat the best hamburgers in the area! Over the years, like other clubs, the family-oriented activities started to dwindle away. During the pandemic, I made the decision to purchase the club because I wanted to bring back that family atmosphere from years ago to our club and community.”
Crace said: “It was a typical nine-hole layout from the 1960s. It was small and compact, but it was in great condition. Mr Jim wanted to save it when it was struggling back in the pandemic. One of the first things he did was resurface the greens with TifEagle and had hired a great superintendent. He then called me and said, ‘I’d like you to come look at this golf course I have and the 100 acres of land around it because I would like to make it an 18-hole course’. At the time, I didn’t know him and I wasn’t familiar with the golf course – he gave me the location, and I drove down about a week later. I met him, the general manager and superintendent and then rode around the property.
“The more we started talking about what to do with the course and new land, the more I realised Mr Jim had some pretty grand plans. At some point it became evident that money was not a major concern. That’s when he told me that at his age his goal with False River was to leave something special behind for the community that had given him so much over the course of his life. He wanted it to be unique and high quality and something that anyone from anywhere could come to play and enjoy.”
Moore said: “I am in my late 80s, and I want to leave a legacy to the community that I love so much. Our vision is to become one of the top golf courses in Louisiana. I want the best and I want it for the community. When it’s all said and done, I will have invested about $40 million into this project and I am aware I will never see a return financially. I’m doing it because I want to leave a golf course and club that families and all ages can enjoy for many generations to come. I am doing this for the people in this community to have a first-rate golf course and country club. And I am doing this to attract golfers from across the country and around the world to come to Ventress, Louisiana, and see how special this place really is! I want my investment to strengthen our local economy and the community as a whole.”
The unique shape of the course layout is, in part, a result of the French arpent system in Louisiana, a seventeenth century colonial land survey method that created long, narrow ‘ribbon farms’ along waterways. “The property is akin to a very long and skinny piece of pizza – it’s about a mile-and-a-half-long from the clubhouse to the furthest point, which is now the fourteenth green,” said Crace. “So, therein lied one challenge: we had to get the new nine wrapped around the old golf course while being mindful of the property limits.”
Nathan Crace is designing nine new holes and renovating the existing nine at False River (Image: Watermark Golf)
Crace’s original plan was to build the new nine holes on the new land and to completely renovate the existing nine to match the style and character over the course of two years. In September 2025, Moore asked Crace and Mississippi-based Sports Contractors Unlimited, “If we start next month on the new construction, can we just shut down the existing nine this winter and keep going and reopen all 18 in the fall 2026, instead of nine holes in 2026 and nine holes in 2027?”
“All we had was the masterplan,” Crace laughed. “We put together a construction cost estimate, Mr Jim approved it, I started the grading plan, and within two weeks of Mr Jim green-lighting the project, the contractor was moving dirt,” said Crace. “I did the entire grading plan and green plans in nine days because we had to get started.”
One of the first steps Crace oversaw was a tree management programme. “We got rid of the trashy trees – sweet gums, etc – and left all of the live oaks,” he said. “There are some beautiful live oaks that we were able to work around. There’s also a pecan orchard that holes three, four and five go through. We left some clusters to frame shots, but a lot of the little pecans had to come out. It wasn’t a massive tree removal operation, but we wanted an open playing experience where you can look over to the next hole and see some of your friends playing, and enough trees to maintain a parkland feel. And the giant cypress trees on the back of the property are incredible!”
A visualisation of Crace’s design for two adjacent Biarritz greens (Image: Golfgraffix)
Crace has created a six-acre irrigation lake in place of a 15-foot-deep drainage ditch that ran through the middle of the property.
Along with the contractor, Crace is working with three shapers on the project. Two are shaping fairways and tees and the third is primarily shaping greens and bunkers. “Having worked with all three guys before, they know what we’re looking for and we are moving fast with very few minor adjustments,” said Crace.
“Mr Jim didn’t want to do just another Louisiana-style golf course. The goal when we are done is for False River to look and feel like we completed a sympathetic restoration of a 110-year-old course that no one knew was hidden here. At False River, because we were essentially starting from scratch, we wanted to incorporate some elements of the Golden Age with some nods to different design theories. There are no true ‘template greens’, but we do have a modified Redan that goes left to right, an Alps hole, a really nice Punchbowl green, a Lion’s mouth and what I believe to be the only course on the planet with two Biarritz greens – on the long par-four second and par-five sixth that back up on one another with a low-cut area of turf in between. It’s a unique spot and fun.”
The first plays as it was originally routed but with Crace renovating all features and shifting the tees for a new angle. He has lengthened the second hole by building a green in a new location, flipped the direction of the seventh, completely reworked the eighth and moved tees and the green on the ninth, which will play as the eighteenth.
“There are three corridors that still remain,” said Crace. “However, I almost hate to call it a renovation because we have completely blown the entire place up and created something new.
“On the third hole we now have a Lion’s Mouth bunker in front of a volcano green, which sits up like a plateau and is fronted by a creek that runs across the property. It’s a short hole, only 145 yards from the back, but if you flirt with the edge of the green, it’s going to roll off down into a low-mow area.”
The par-three third has a Lion’s Mouth bunker and a volcano green (Image: Golfgraffix)
“At the fourteenth, there are some beautiful 80-foot-tall cypress trees at the back that we wanted to save to make an incredible backdrop,” said Crace. “It’s also the only swamp on the property; it’s just about as Louisiana as it gets on this hole!
“Each time I’m on-site, I change my mind about what my favourite hole is,” said Crace. “Early on, I thought it was the fourth. It’s a par five with a slight dogleg left, but the way we’ve bunkered the hole, it almost plays like a double dogleg. It looks great the way the fairway is shaped and how the bunkers cut into it. Then I look at the volcano green on the short par-three third and think about how deceptively dangerous it is or how the Alps on the sixteenth disguise this huge rolling green where you can only see the top of the flagstick and I change my mind again – and we haven’t even built the tenth green yet and that’s the Punchbowl-inspired complex! I simply can’t pick a favourite hole any sooner than I could pick a favourite child.”
Moore added: “Someone asked me what the signature hole was and told them we have a signature course!”
All bunkers have been lined with Better Billy Bunker and filled with Premier Play sand from Arkansas. The entire course will be sodded, and all the short grass areas, fairways and tees will feature Stadium Zoysia from Bladerunner Farms. Green surfaces will be TifEagle and rough will be TifTuf bermudagrass.
Crace is aiming to create a course inspired by the Golden Age of golf architecture (Image: Golfgraffix)
Despite closing for the project, False River has already attracted more members. “The public will also be able to access the golf course during the week and certain times on the weekend,” said Crace. “It’s only 30 minutes from Baton Rouge, so I imagine on football weekends at LSU, the course will be packed on Fridays and Sundays each fall.”
With an investment of around $40 million, Moore has made it his mission to make False River’s golf course – and its clubhouse, which is under renovation – a key stop for golfers visiting Louisiana. A new pool is already open, indoor/outdoor pickleball courts opened in early April, a timber frame pavilion is nearing completion, and a state-of-the-art golf course maintenance facility is being built.
“It’s been a great team effort and I have to mention my general manager, Angel Bain, who I hired because she shares the same vision I have to produce the best experience and our superintendent, Dante Caldera, who has done a great job since I bought the course and will get this new course in fantastic shape,” said Moore. “This will be a great golf course for years to come because I have a team that believes in our vision to provide a destination golf course and country club. False River, New Roads, Ventress and St. Francisville are all only 30 minutes from downtown Baton Rouge. This will be an economic driver for our communities. This is going to be big for our community and big for the state of Louisiana!”
“Mr Jim is not doing this to make money; he’s doing it for the community,” said Crace. “Everybody in town knows him, he’s just the nicest guy you’ll ever meet. This project is to leave something behind for the community when he’s gone, for generations to come. It’s never been about Mr Jim; it’s always been about the community.”