Audubon Park - Louisiana - USA

The municipal golf course at Audubon Park sits on the site of the 1884 World’s Fair in New Orleans and it opened for play fourteen years after the fair took place. Just over a hundred years later, the course closed for a $6 million renovation, reopening in November 2002.

There are only eighty one acres to play with on this inner city site so architect Dennis Griffiths decided to lay out a 4,220-yard par 62 track, featuring a dozen par threes (in four batches of back-to-back short holes) and a par five to round off both nines.

Tom Doak was mightily impressed with the course when he saw it; so much so it’s featured as one of eighteen “Gourmet Choice” courses in Volume 2 of his Confidential Guide book, published in 2015.

Tom wrote: “I was stunned to turn into Audubon Park to find a beautifully-maintained golf course teeming with community life, not only on the fairways but all around the edges of the course… whatever your score, you’re likely to leave Audubon Park with a better feel for the landscape and people of New Orleans, and a smile on your face.”