Unique in design, The Legends at Chateau Elan was crafted from the worldly experience of three great golfing champions: Gene Sarazen, Kathy Whitworth and Sam Snead. These champions lent their expertise during “on site” visits to help architect Denis Griffiths build one of top ranked courses in Georgia.
The Legends was the home of the Sarazen World Open Championship, a PGA Tour event from 1994 through 1998 to honor Gene Sarazen. For five years some of the best golfers in the world participated in the Sarazen, including Jack Nicklaus, Ernie Els, Padraig Harrington, Retief Goosen, Mark Calcavecchia, Nick Price, Davis Love, Stewart Cink, Frank Nobilo, Jim Furyk, Scott Hoch, Lee Janzen, Ben Crenshaw, Bernhard Langer, John Daly, Constantino Rocca, Vijay Singh, Payne Stewart and numerous other international golfers.
The Sarazen format was to invite the past two Open winners from every country that held a recognized national open tournament. In the early years of the Sarazen players like Ernie Els, Retief Goosen and Padraig Harrington were not exactly household names and were just coming into their own as professional golfers.
Over the years these and many other participants in the Sarazen became major tournament champions, which was exactly what Gene Sarazen had predicted.