General Burnside Island

General Burnside Island Golf Course is one of the jewels in the crown of Kentucky’s state park golf system, available to visitors of the region’s popular Lake Cumberland. The layout comes from Brian Ault, who completed several other entries in the state’s collection of courses, including Dale Hollow.

Although “island” may sound frightening to golfers, the course is quite playable and comes nowhere near the lake. The only realistic water hazard occurs at No. 16, a par three with a pond set right of the green. The course is also short, both because the landlocked island would only allow so much yardage, but also to emphasize the user-friendly nature of the course.

Scratch players may want to leave the driver at home, as General Burnside plays to a maximum of 6,400 yards. That said, many of the par fours here will be awfully tempting for the big hitter (only one crosses the 400-yard threshold), but none are realistically reachable.

Although water is the main attraction at Lake Cumberland, golfers on General Burnside will also come into contact with a collection of large boulders, which dot the terrain.