The downhill green overlooks the Tennessee River with the stately plantation-style clubhouse set high on a bluff above- another Kodak moment.Īlabama’s acclaimed Robert Trent Jones Golf Trail, a statewide string of 11 golfing destinations featuring 26 courses and 468 holes, with greens fees along the trail averaging under $75 even during peak season, and the RJT Golf Trail courses are not, your average or typical public golf courses. The par 3,18th is probably the most scenic on the Trail. Play the right tee to make your experience an enjoyable round and if you play for safety rather than length, you can score well. The golf course is one of the longest in the world at 8,092 yards, virtually timeless with water on 14 holes bordered by 3 feet long prairie grass rough. Fighting Joe was named after a Confederate General, who after the Civil War, became a General in the United States Army named Joe Wheeler. This uphill par 4 has a grand view of Lake Wilson with the beautiful clubhouse next to it. The scenic finishing 18th is one of those Kodak moments. Driving into the open side of the fairways provides good shots into the large contoured greens, and with a little study, you can master this one. With little water in play, the course seemed to blend into the countryside perfectly playing among soft elevation changes. The 7,971 yards Schoolmaster, named for President Woodrow Wilson, has narrow but receptive tree-lined fairways. My next stop was the Shoals Golf Club in Florence, tucked away in the remote northwest corner of the state with two monster golf courses, the Schoolmaster and Fighting Joe. “Short” is not the right word- “Captivating” is better. The short course is 18 par 3s with just as much thought and design from the RTJ team as its big brothers. The River is a throwback to the bygone days when very little dirt was moved to construct a golf course. It’s saving grace-zero bunkers- nada, nix, not a spec of sand. In complete contrast, the River course laid out on a former soybean farm in the flood plain of the Flint River has 16 holes with water that comes into play. An old mule barn was saved from destruction and adorns the 5th hole, a perfect photo-op. Highlands stretches out to 7,428 yards and has four sets of tees to make your links experience both enjoyable and memorable.
The Highlands course is a Scottish links-style design complete with flowing fescue bordering the fairways with two dynamic finishing holes. I began my Trail experience at Hampton Cove in Huntsville, a 54 hole facility with two drastically different championship-caliber courses and an 18 hole par 3 course. When the Trail opened, Alabama was attracting about $2 billion annually from tourism that number is now close to $15 billion.
“Build it they will come.” About 15 million rounds have been played so far. David Bronner, head of the Retirement Systems of Alabama, came up with the Trail concept – wooed Senior out of retirement – as a way to boost tourism in Alabama while funding the state’s pension plan. “By the end of the first quarter this year, golfers from all 50 states and over 30 countries will have visited and played the Trail,” says John Cannon, President of the Robert Trent Jones Golf Trail.ĭr. In its 28 years, the Trail has dramatically increased its national and international profile. “Maybe the best (golf) bargain in the country.”–The Wall Street Journal. “One of the 50 coolest places in golf.”-Golf Magazine. “Some of the best public golf on earth.”– The New York Times. I recently took a whirlwind tour of some of the locations and was overwhelmed by the sheer beauty and diversity of the courses, the hospitality of everyone associated with the trail and the incredible value for so much memorable golf.
Since then, three additional facilities have been built and one existing club near the Gulf of Mexico has been added. The first four, each with two championship courses and one short course, opened in 1992 three more sites opened the next year. The project included simultaneously building golf complexes each with at least 36 holes at seven locations throughout the state. It was probably the largest single undertaking in the history of golf course architecture, and I am sure, that is what lured Senior, well into his 80’s, out of retirement.
and Rees Jones, both accomplished architects in their own right. The Trail was the final project for Robert Trent Jones Sr., one of America’s most renowned golf course architects and father of Robert Trent Jones Jr. PRATTVILLE, Alabama – It seems every state has some sort of golf trail, but the granddaddy and the very best in the USA is the Robert Trent Jones Golf Trail in Alabama, a collection of 26 jaw-dropping beautiful courses at 11 different sites from Muscle Shoals in the north to the Gulf Coast in the south.
0 kommentar(er)
