Gulf Hills Golf Club near Biloxi - Gulf Coast golf in pictures

There was a large boat sitting on the fifth green at the Gulf Hills Golf Club in Ocean Springs, Miss. after Hurricane Katrina tore through in August 2005, and dozens more scattered around the golf course. So were Jet-Skis, and washing machines, and just about every other sort of debris you can imagine. The greens were caked with bayou mud, the trees bent or snapped like popsicle sticks. The shady oasis of a course Gulf Hills had been was no more.

Course officials and the membership, which owns the club, got down to work. The renovated course, 85 to 90 percent complete as of early 2007, has some subtle elevation changes, especially on the front nine. Gulf Hills is short, but there's good hole variety and the course is well-conditioned. Hazards are few, but the smallish, old-fashioned greens can be troublesome. Enough big oaks remain to give this Biloxi-area course a walk-in-the-park feel, and officials have started a live oak program to bring back more of the shade.