The Oaks Golf Club near Biloxi, Mississippi

There are those who make the case that many Biloxi-area golf courses are in better shape than they were before Hurricane Katrina hit. The Oaks Golf Club is Exhibit A.

It probably has more to do with the new management and superintendent than with the storm, but the course is immeasurably better than it was two years ago. It had terrible greens then, but also great potential, which it is realizing now.

Listed on Golf Digest's 2006-07 Best Places to Play roster, The Oaks features a particularly nice collection of par 3s. Most play over water with the green sitting sideways to the tee box and the pin usually placed behind some yawning bunkers, as in Nos. 5, 7, 12 and 16. You have to fly it in with a soft touch.