Country Club of Mobile

US East South Central Division Best in State Rankings 2016 Another four States in our South Region are updated in the fourth of nine US divisional revisions We embarked on a mission to establish Best in State rankings for the United States of America in 2012. This year, we’re involved in the second biennial update of those inaugural listings. Last time around, we carried out this exercise in four separate geographical groupings – West, South, Midwest and North East. On this occasion, we’re subdividing the reappraisal process into nine district divisions and this re-ranking announcement, the fourth of our 2016 US reviews, covers the four East South Central States of Alabama, Kentucky, Mississippi and Tennessee. We’re also increasing the number of featured courses in almost every American State across the country. For example, in our four-state East South Central division, we now have a Top 20 for each of the states so our coverage of courses in this revision leaps up from 55 to 80, an expansion of almost 50%. Alabama An additional five courses have been added to the Cotton State of Alabama, where the number 1 layout is still Shoal Creek, an early solo design from Jack Nicklaus. Host venue for the USPGA Championship in 1984 and 1990, the course was succinctly summed up by a reviewer in the following terms last month: “most fairways are wide and half of them have enough hazards to require some thinking off the tee. Greens are nicely contoured and slick.” Rising three places to number 3, the Michael Hurdzan/Dana Fry co-design at FarmLinks is described on the club’s website as “gently sculpted out of scenic farmland that’s been in the Purcell Family for three generations… the course features a mix of dramatic elevation changes, pristine fairways and immaculate greens.” It’s certainly a course that has made a big impact within the state in a relatively short space of time. The highest new entry at number 9 is the Country Club of Mobile. The club operates within a massive 300-acre property, offering members the use of fourteen tennis courts and an Olympic-size swimming pool in addition to a golf course that was originally laid out by Donald Ross in 1928. The layout’s been modified a number of times down the years and the most radical of these alterations occurred recently when Ron Forse was tasked with completely redesigning and reconstructing the course. Rank/ Click this link to see full details of our 2016 Alabama Best in State rankings. Kentucky We’ve also added five courses to our chart for the Bluegrass State of Kentucky, where the top three tracks remain in the same position as last time. That means another Nicklaus design, Valhalla, retains its place at the top of the standings. The site of three recent USPGA Championships, as well as host venue for the Ryder Cup in 2008, the course offers golfers an archetypal “game of two halves” with a fairly flat, open front nine followed by a tree-lined back nine. The highest climber on our new state listings is Triple Crown, which rises six spots to number 9. It’s a Gene Bates design that opened in 1990 and its hefty slope rating of 142 marks it out as one of the tougher tracks in the Greater Cincinnati area. With narrow, tree-lined fairways and lakes in play at ten of the holes, you can understand why this was the ideal place to test the course management capabilities of the nation’s elite golfing elders when the US Senior Amateur was held here in 1994. The highest new entry comes in at number 15 and it’s Traditions Golf Club, which serves as the home course for the University of Cincinnati golf teams. Set amongst the woodlands of Boone County’s western rolling hills, this Ken Heil and Mike Macke co-design from 1992 is a thrilling test of golf that presents a variety of challenges. There’s no peripheral housing to distract, neither is there a swimming pool or tennis courts to divert attention away from the only thing that matters at this club – the game of golf. Click this link to see full details of our 2016 Kentucky Best in State rankings. Mississippi We’ve doubled the size of our Magnolia State chart, where we now feature a Top 20. Fallen Oak retains the number 1 position in the new state rankings and this 2006 Tom Fazio design – home to the Mississippi Gulf Resort Classic on the Champions Tour – is available exclusively to guests of the Beau Rivage Resort and Casino in Biloxi. The course closed temporarily a couple of years ago when a bunker renovation was carried out and a number of trees were replanted but it reopened stronger than ever once the strategic improvements had been implemented. A couple of courses take small, one position steps in the right direction in our new Mississippi listings. The first of these is Annandale (at number two), an early Jack Nicklaus design from 1981 which hosted twenty editions of what’s now known as the Sanderson Farms Championship on the PGA Tour, starting in 1994. The other course to make a modest upward move is The Preserve (at number 8), where Jerry Pate set out the fairways adjacent to a huge nature reserve, routing the holes around a diverse landscape of Southern cypress swamps, marshy wetlands and pitcher plant bogs. The highest newcomer in our newly extended state Top 20 crashes into the chart at number 4. Laurel Country Club was designed by Seymour Dunn back in 1919, two years after the club was founded, and the course is a shot maker’s paradise, with challenging downhill or side hill lies as the norm for many of the approach shots. It’s been described rather appropriately by one commentator as “a course that has not outlived its relevance” and this near 100-year old track is certainly one to savour. Click this link to see full details of our 2016 Mississippi Best in State rankings. Tennessee The Volunteer State listings have been extended to a Top 20, which means we’ve added an extra five courses in this revision. The top four courses all retain the same position as last time so, by default, the Honors Course is still the state number 1. It’s also comfortably positioned within our USA Top 100 chart, rising two places to number 51 when we last updated the national ranking six months ago. The course has been described as “a well-preserved example of Pete Dye’s death-or-glory architecture” which sums it up rather well. The 1991 US Amateur, 1994 Curtis Cup and 2011 Senior Women’s Amateur are just a few of the prestigious championships that have been held here since the course debuted in 1983. The highest new entry at number 11 on the new state chart is the course at Sweetens Cove, which Rob Collins and Tad King rebuilt on the site of the old Sequatchie Valley layout. Volume 2 of The Confidential Guide calls it “one of the most audacious designs we’ve seen” with the authors giving particular credit to “one of the most diverse and entertaining set of green complexes found anywhere”. Other commentators have also been generous with their praise, touting it as one of the best 9-hole layouts in all of America. Click this link to see full details of our 2016 Tennessee Best in State rankings We always like to know what you think about our re-rankings so please feel free to share your opinion of our four newly updated US Best in State charts. Which course should have made the cut or maybe there’s one listed that really doesn’t deserve to be there? Whatever your thoughts are, please click the “Respond to this article” link at the top or at the bottom of this page to let us know your point of view. Jim McCann Editor Top 100 Golf Courses

‘Build It And They Will Come’ Robert Trent Jones Golf Trail Celebrates 25 Years of Perfection By Dave Finn Kevin Costner’s iconic 1989 movie Field of Dreams may not have won an Oscar, but it sparked a winner. Let me take you behind the scenes, and tell you about another man’s vision. A golfer’s dream may be to have 18 of their favorite holes, featured on a single course. Dr. David Bronner, the CEO of Retirement Systems of Alabama, had a dream to invest his organization’s pension funds and build 26 world-class golf courses that would challenge people enough that “they will want to come back and try again.” Bronner may not have heard the voices Ray Kinsella heard but he listened to the call and tapped into his creativity and courage to do what no one could imagine. Once he lured the legendary Robert Trent Jones Sr. out of semi-retirement, there was no looking back. With Jones as his co-director, the result is an extraordinary golf trail that meanders across Alabama, from the Appalachians in the north all the way to the Gulf of Mexico. Golf Digest declared the RJT Trail as “the number one value in the country for golf!” “The very best courses are those where nature provides the canvas,” Jones said and, ”my job is to discover her secrets and reveal them.” Bronner was also convinced that the trail would attract tourism and industry to Alabama. He was right. A golfer gets a feeling for a course based on what makes it a great experience. Here is what left a memorable impression on me after visiting the RTJ Trail during its 25th anniversary. Scenery The Judge course at Capitol Hill has one of the most incredible opening holes in golf. As you stare down a 200-foot bluff to a sliver of a fairway with a well-protected peninsula green that juts out into the Alabama River, it will take your breath away. The layout traverses 200 acres of river backwaters with 14 holes that feature water hazards, making accuracy more important than distance. Here, you can also play the Legislator, a more traditional parkland course framed by tall pines and built along a large bluff, or the Senator, a Scottish links-style design with more than 150 sod-faced pot bunkers and mounds that stretch 40 feet towards the sky. Challenge Ross Bridge in Hooveris the fourth longest golf course in the world. From the very back tees, it plays all of 8,191 yards. Surrounded by the foothills, it features lots of elevation changes and forced carries that provide drama and danger. Ten holes play along the shoreline, and the waterfall that spills into the central lake is best viewed from the 9th and 18th tee blocks. Linger until dusk to hear the soulful sounds of a bagpiper as he makes his way to the putting green. You’ll be transported ‘across the pond’ at this challenging course that once played host to the Regions Charity Classic on the Champions Tour. Personality Grand National near Auburn/Opelika offers three 18-hole layouts. The Lake Course is the home of the PGA Tour’s Barbasol Championship that runs the same week as the British Open. Built around 600-acre Lake Saugahatchee, twelve holes nudge the shoreline and will test your skills against the pros. The Links Course reportedly has the strongest finishing hole on the Trail, but the Short Course was my favorite. With a good combination of short and long holes, some uphill, some downhill and more than half touching the lake, every hole is unique and what I’d consider a signature hole anywhere else. Design Personally, I’m a big fan of huge elevation changes, and in this category, I’m torn between two contenders. Oxmoor Valley near Birminghamliterally rocks. The Ridge, built on the site of a former mine once owned by U.S. Steel takes full advantage of the peaks and valleys of the Appalachian mountain range. It showcases towering shale formations, more than 150 feet in height and rich, dense forests. Cambrian Ridgeboasts three nine-hole layouts. The Canyon was carved out of a former hunting ground, and the first hole will both inspire and intimidate you, a par-5 that drops 200 feet from the tee to the fairway. And that’s only the beginning of the adventure. With 11 sites, 26 courses and 468 holes of golf, the Robert Trent Jones Trail is varied, fun, challenging and affordable. Often imitated but never replicated, it’s no wonder the New York Times has declared the RJT Trail, “the best public golf on earth.” Dave Finn is our Canadian Correspondent. To read more about golf in Alabama visit his website at: http://golftravelandleisure.com/category/united-states/alabama-united-states/

USA Best In State Golf Course Rankings Launched Top 100 Golf Courses extends its rankings to “Best In State” The independent website, Top 100 Golf Courses, is excited to announce that it is extending its golf course rankings to focus on the USA’s “Best In State” golf courses. Top 100 Golf Courses features thousands of golf courses in more than 150 different countries in numerous ranking categories. After having extended our rankings for British & Irish counties and regions in 2011, we have progressed naturally to the USA. The Best In State process has started and will hopefully complete by June 2012. Numerous golf magazines have published Best In State rankings for some years, so our process is not unique. However, we have decided, in the case of a number of US states, to increase the number of ranked courses. This means that we will provide not only a more comprehensive list, but also far more information that will be permanently and freely available online to browsers. We’ve focused our attention initially on eight US states; Alabama, Arizona, California, Florida, New Hampshire, New York, North Carolina and South Carolina. The process included gathering all historical golf course ranking/rating data and polling professional and amateur golfers and golf journalists. Development of this new Best in State initiative is at an early stage, but we’ll keep you updated via periodic announcements across the Top 100 News Channel on the website and via Twitter. So, if you are not following us already, we hope you will now! To find out more about our Best in State rankings please navigate to our dedicated US state pages by clicking on the following links: Alabama Best In State Golf Courses (Top 10) Arizona Best In State Golf Courses (Top 30) California Best In State Golf Courses (Top 50) Florida Best In State Golf Courses (Top 50) New Hampshire Best In State Golf Courses (Top 10) New York Best In State Golf Courses (Top 40) North Carolina Best In State Golf Courses (Top 30) South Carolina Best In State Golf Courses (Top 30) The Top 100 Team If you are passionate about your home state’s golf courses and would like to help us further develop this initiative, then please send an email to info@top100golfcourses.com. We’d love to hear from you.