Nearly 90 years ago, bullet fragments from the Civil War’s Battle of Atlanta were being sawed out of timber as crews made way for Bobby Jones Golf Course.

When the course opened a few years later, wildly influential Atlanta golfer Bobby Jones was the first to drive a ball on his namesake 18-hole links. Now, after a yearlong multi-million renovation that changed the property completely, the storied course is poised to present itself to a new generation.

The facility is slated to re-open Nov. 5 as a reversible course with double greens, seven tees for each hole and high-tech indoor bays. The nine-hole layouts, dubbed Azalea and Magnolia, can each be played twice for 18 holes in one direction.

Marty Elgison, president of the Bobby Jones Golf Course Foundation — a nonprofit formed by group of private citizens to renovate the “obsolete, dangerous golf course” — said not “a blade of grass” remains from the pre-renovation days. There were about five holes where players could get whacked by an errant ball on the cramped course, he said, partially because golfers can hit farther than they could in the 1930s.

Thus, the need for a reversible nine-hole design instead of 18 holes.

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