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A Full-Fledged Golf Destination - The Hombre Spreads It's Wings
PANAMA CITY BEACH, Fla.
 - In two short years, the Hombre Golf Club has evolved into a full-service destination resort, complete with recently developed on-site lodging and the addition of a top-level instructional program.
"The new additions are making a big impact on our community," said Dan McGrath, general manager at Hombre.
"We are offering many new benefits to our clientele and to the resort destination of Panama City Beach."
Hombre was designed and developed by Wes Burnham and the Par-72 championship golf course opened for play in 1989. Since then, the facility has hosted five major professional golf tournaments (the Ben Hogan Tour, now the Buy.Com Tour) and has been a regular part of the PGA Tour's fall qualifying series.
Hombre has always offered golfers a top-drawer facility that included a full-service clubhouse and pro shop that over-looked the ninth and 18th greens as well as a large practice facility that offered daily instruction.
Two years ago, Burnham began to realize his goal of turning Hombre into one of the region's leading golf destination as the home of the Martin Green Golf Academy.
Green has worked with some of the game's biggest names including Senior PGA Tour stars Hubert Green, John Bland, Hugh Biaocchi and Dave Eichelberger. He became more closely associated with Hombre after working with one of Burnham's co-developer, Wally Nall. Nall attend-ed one of Green's schools and was impressed enough by what he saw to initiate negotia-tions to have Green settle at Hombre.
Next came the 1999 completion of the initial phase of The Village at Hombre, a collection of townhomes, each featuring 1,600 square feet of luxury and comfort and two bedrooms each with a total of four queen-sized beds.
The Village has grown to 28 units, according to McGrath, and gold packages have been selling briskly.
And finally, sometime this fall, a third nine holes will be completed, bring to 27 the number of championship holes available.
"We hope we can open it early in the fall, but we've has so little rain, it has slowed down our progress," Burnham said of the newest holes.
The layout of the third nine will compliment the original 18 holes. It will feature plenty of mounds, which in many cases will benefit the golfer by keeping his or her ball in play. Water will come into play on four of the new holes and the total yardage from the back tees will be approximately 3,300 yards.
Also, there will be 26 homesites located in and around the new nine holes, Burnham added.
The back tees on the original 18 holes were already called the "Bad Hombre" and the addition of the new nine will create a new naming system for each nine-hole layout. The new nine will be called "Good" and will be combined with the "Bad" and the "Ugly".
The name is the only thing "ugly" about the course, which already boasts the reputation of being one of the finest tests of golf on the Gulf Coast.
Article by: H.J. (Junior) Ingram, Jr.
Reprinted from the August 2000, Southern Golf
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