The Jones Creek Golf Course Reopened This Spring. Evans Buyers Are Still Pricing the Old One.

"It had gone five years back to nature." That's how Andrew Brooks, the golf operator who took over the derelict Jones Creek Golf Course, described what he found when he first walked the property. The fairways were gone. The bunkers were gone. What used to be one of Columbia County's best-known courses had reverted to something closer to a forest.

Eight years later, in April 2026, Jones Creek reopened during Masters week with new Bermuda grass fairways, rebuilt bunkers with new sand and drainage, and additional tee boxes on holes 4, 12, and 13. A Par 3 Tour closest-to-the-pin event with 128 golfers marked the return. For a lot of buyers scanning Evans neighborhoods this summer, the headline writes itself: the golf course is back, so the golf course community premium should be too.

That's the part worth slowing down on. The course that reopened in 2026 is not built on the same business model as the course that closed in 2018. If you're comparing Jones Creek to other Evans golf neighborhoods on the assumption that "golf course community" means the same thing it meant in 1995, you're pricing an amenity that no longer exists in the form that built the neighborhood's reputation.

What Actually Reopened

Jones Creek Golf Course was built in 1985 for roughly $3.5 million, designed by Rees Jones and later updated by Tom Fazio. The community wasn't even named after its architect. It's named for William Jones, who bought the land back in 1856, a detail that tells you how long this particular patch of Columbia County has had a name before it had a fairway.

For decades the course anchored what locals describe as one of the area's most prestigious addresses, six miles from Augusta National and a favorite short-term rental spot during Masters week. Then, in 2018, it stopped operating entirely.

The 2026 version isn't a restoration of that old model. According to coverage from The Augusta Press, the golf course property and the clubhouse property split into separate ownership paths during the shutdown years. The clubhouse changed hands twice, first to a developer in 2019 and then to a different ownership group in 2023, while the golf course itself sat in limbo through a failed 2020 foreclosure auction that didn't even draw a minimum bid. Bond Golf Global, the operator behind the 2026 reopening, spent roughly eighteen months running a Toptracer-powered practice range on the site before committing to rebuild the full 18 holes, and even that timeline slipped. The company had originally targeted an August 2024 opening, but Hurricane Helene set the cleanup back further before the course finally reopened this spring.

Brooks was candid about where things stood at reopening. He told WRDW the course had been restored but wasn't finished, saying he wanted to see the new sod fill in before calling it "perfect." That's useful for any buyer weighing a home against this amenity right now. The course is open and playable, but it's still young turf on rebuilt ground, not a mature championship layout.

Why It Closed in the First Place

The backstory matters for more than trivia. Jones Creek's course sat next to Willow Lake, and the golf club's ownership group sued Columbia County over stormwater runoff, arguing the county had contributed to flooding that damaged the course and the lake downstream. A federal judge ruled in 2017 that the county couldn't fully escape those claims, but by September 2018 the club suspended operations anyway, citing the delay and uncertainty of the ongoing litigation.

For anyone shopping golf-adjacent lots in this part of Evans, that history is a due diligence prompt, not just background. A neighborhood built around a water feature and a low-lying course has a documented drainage dispute in its recent past. That doesn't mean today's lots carry the same risk. It means it's a reasonable question to ask before assuming a pond view or a creek-adjacent lot is purely upside.

The Neighborhood the Course Built Isn't the One Reopening

Here's the part that changes the math. Back in 2020, while the course was still dormant, Jones Creek HOA president Tripp Nanney gave an interview to Club + Resort Business that's aged into something more interesting than it probably felt at the time. He told the outlet that developers had informed him golf course amenities used to rank near the top of what buyers wanted in a community. By 2020, he said, golf had slipped to something like twentieth on that list, with walking trails and nature paths climbing into the top five. An informal poll of Jones Creek residents found about 60 percent still wanted a golf course as the neighborhood amenity, but a meaningful share preferred trails, sports fields, or other outdoor space instead.

That split matters because the course that came back in 2026 isn't positioning itself as the exclusive, membership-driven club that originally defined the address. Its own marketing describes a mission of "Quality Golf for All," daily public tee times, and limited membership options rather than a mandatory country club structure. Homeownership in Jones Creek has never required a country club membership. HOA dues cover the neighborhood pool and tennis courts (a non-resident pool membership ran $495 for the 2024 season), while golf access and any club membership are handled separately, directly through the course operator. That separation existed before the closure and it's still true now, but the course itself has shifted from a members-first identity toward a public, walk-up model open to anyone willing to book a tee time.

In other words, the amenity that's back is more accessible and less scarce than the one that built the original price premium. That's good news if you actually want to golf without joining anything. It's a different value story than "exclusive golf course community" if that's what you assumed you were buying into.

Jones Creek Versus the Neighbor Down the Road

Bartram Trail, built in 2005, has spent years marketing itself as Columbia County's only public golf course. That framing is now technically outdated. With Jones Creek also operating as a public, daily-fee course, the distinction buyers used to lean on between the two communities, established-and-private versus newer-and-public, doesn't cleanly separate them anymore.

What still separates them is age of construction and lot character rather than golf-course exclusivity. Jones Creek's homes mostly date from the late 1980s through the early 2000s, with mature trees and larger, more varied lots. Bartram Trail's homes tend to run newer, with a more uniform family-oriented layout and a course built specifically around Euchee Creek's terrain. If you're choosing between the two based on golf access alone, you're choosing between two public courses now, not between a private club and a public alternative.

What to Actually Verify Before You Price the Golf Course as a Feature

A few questions are worth asking directly, whether you're touring a resale in Jones Creek or comparing it against another Evans golf neighborhood:

• Does the HOA structure require any country club dues, or are golf fees entirely separate and optional, as they are in Jones Creek today
• Is the specific lot you're considering adjacent to one of the renovated holes (4, 12, or 13 saw new tee boxes) or an older section of the course
• What does the seller or listing agent know about the property's proximity to Willow Lake and any drainage history tied to the neighborhood's past stormwater litigation
• Is the golf course amenity something you or your household will actually use, given that even the neighborhood's own HOA leadership has said trail access and green space now compete directly with golf in what residents want

None of this means Jones Creek is a worse buy than it was in 1995 or a better one. It means the reopening changed the shape of the amenity, not just its availability, and a buyer who prices the address on nostalgia for the old country club model is working from a story that's eight years out of date.

If You're Weighing Evans Golf Communities Right Now

The reopening is genuinely good news for the neighborhood. A course that sat overgrown for the better part of a decade now has new turf, a working practice facility, and enough momentum that a club fitting studio opened on site in July 2026. But good news for the neighborhood and a return to the old pricing logic are two different things, and the difference is exactly where a buyer can either overpay for an assumption or negotiate from a clearer picture of what they're actually getting.

If you're comparing Jones Creek, Bartram Trail, or another Evans golf community and want help sorting out which lots, sections, and HOA structures actually match what you value, Candace Riddle can walk the specifics with you. Book a consultation and let's figure out what the golf course amenity is really worth to your move, not what it used to be worth to someone else's.