Golf’s surprising string of pearls

SEVEN of us stood on the first tee, squinting into the distance as we tried to figure out just where the first hole was. It was an early June morning near this Southern college town, and we had been told we were about to play one of the most scenic and demanding golf courses in the region.

Only problem was we couldn’t see it. The fog was so dense, we could make out a few vague shapes a couple of yards away, but beyond that, there were only shades of gray. Charcoal gray straight ahead, battleship gray off to the right -- everything shrouded in steel wool.

This course was called the Links, like the seaside layouts in Scotland where the game was born. It seemed more like the Moors, a mysterious place where we would not only lose every golf ball hit into the nothingness, but also might drift away into the marshland ourselves, never to be seen again. We half-expected to see Holmes emerging from the mist in search of Watson ... or his wayward tee shot.

We had the first two tee times of the day, and the starter was eager to get things rolling. He pointed in a direction that we wouldn’t have guessed and said, “That’s your line. You’ll be OK if you hit it there.”

The first four players smacked their drives and drove off in their carts, vanishing about 25 yards from the tee. We followed 10 minutes later, heading uncertainly into the vapor.

Somehow, none of us lost a ball on that first hole. And before long, as the fog slowly lifted, the two traits most associated with this course -- and the others we would play on this weeklong trip -- came clearly into focus: The layouts were indeed beautiful, rolling and green amid towering pines and sprawling magnolias. And they were in some cases very, very difficult. The kinds of courses that, well, can turn your hair gray.

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Going for the green

WE had set out to play the Robert Trent Jones Golf Trail in Alabama, a series of singular courses that runs the length of this lush and rolling state. Our six-day trip stopped at three of the trail’s 10 sites -- in Birmingham, near Auburn and just north of Montgomery. This was a golf-centric trip: 36 holes a day, with barely enough time left over for a bite to eat and a few hours’ sleep.

In the end, the winner was the trail itself, a breathtaking collection of 432 holes. The trail still doesn’t have the nationwide recognition of such established golf meccas as Pinehurst, N.C.; Myrtle Beach, S.C.; and California’s Monterey Peninsula and desert resorts.

When I mention the trail to California golfers, most aren’t even aware it exists. And that’s a pity, because when it comes to value, quality of the layouts, friendliness of staff and sheer volume of extraordinary courses, the Robert Trent Jones Golf Trail ranks near the top of the nation’s great golf destinations.

David Bronner, chief executive of the state’s pension, came up with the idea for the trail in the late 1980s as a way to help fund Alabama’s pension system, increase tourism, attract retirees and improve the image of the state, which for many people outside the Deep South was still best known for the racial strife of the 1960s.

By 1990, he had launched the largest golf course construction project in history, simultaneously building seven golf complexes with clubhouses and two or three courses at each site.

Finding the right designer wasn’t easy. “I wrote to about five architects,” Bronner said. “One wrote, ‘You don’t know what you’re doing,’ ” implying that building as many as three courses simultaneously at the same location wasn’t possible.

“Another sent back a form letter. One didn’t even respond. The only guy who called me was Trent [Jones Sr.],” whom many consider America’s preeminent course architect.

“He said, ‘You’re serious, aren’t you?’ And when I assured him I was, he said, ‘Well, man, I’ve got to come take a look,’ ” Bonner recalled.

In 1992, Oxmoor Valley in Birmingham became the first facility to open, with two wildly different championship courses. In the next two years, six other sites would open, 324 holes spread among the seven. Each of those sites includes a challenging short-course layout as well. Courses from all along the trail appeared on national golf magazines’ lists of best new public facilities.

Three more sites have opened in the last six years. The most recent are Ross Bridge in Hoover near Birmingham and the Shoals in Florence in the northwest corner of the state, two high-end resorts designed to attract golfers who want their accommodations to be just as dramatic as the courses they’re playing.

Jones, who died in 2000, called the project the greatest achievement of his career.

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First stop: Oxmoor Valley

THREE of us began our trip to the trail a day ahead of the four others, just to get a warmup round at Oxmoor Valley before beginning the safari in earnest the next day at the Grand National resort about 100 miles southeast.

We played that opening round on the Ridge course, a spectacular hilly layout carved through the pines and oaks at the foot of the Appalachian Mountains.

But for the three of us who had played there on a visit 18 months earlier, our favorite layout at Oxmoor Valley was the tree- and-stream-lined Valley course, with an opening hole that drops precipitously from the clubhouse and a finishing hole that begins with an elevated tee, heads over a ravine, then climbs uphill 441 yards and God knows how many shots later to the final green. That hole is a little slice of agony nicknamed “the Assassin,” aptly describing the challenging nature of virtually all of the courses on the trail.

“Jones called me early on and said he was worried we were making the courses too difficult,” Bronner said. “I told him I had just been out to PGA West [in La Quinta, Calif.] and I saw tons of golfers persecuting themselves with $100 bills in their hands. I told Trent to keep making them just the way he was.”

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A postcard of a course

FROM Birmingham, three of us drove a couple of hours to meet the rest of our group at Grand National, a 54-hole complex near Auburn University that Jones said was his favorite of the sites. Three courses -- the Links, Lake and short course -- are built around 600-acre Lake Saugahatchee, with 32 of the 54 holes hugging the fingers of the lake. It’s a 1,200-acre fantasyland, a postcard come to life -- but with nasty twists everywhere.

My friend Doug, a six handicap, played the Links course from the far-back tees on his first round. He lost a dozen golf balls, which leads to this bit of advice: If you make this trip, leave your testosterone at home.

More advice: Do not skip the short courses at the seven original sites. They offer the same fun and scenery without the angst of the long courses.

We stayed at the Marriott at Grand National for three days. (Five of the 10 trail sites have lodging at or affiliated with the courses; each of the other sites has ample lodging nearby.) We repeatedly ran into other groups there on similar golfing missions. Robert Sullivan of Sunnyvale, Calif., was with three friends, playing from daybreak to dusk.

“I used to go to Hilton Head, Myrtle Beach, all those places, but now I won’t go anywhere else,” said Sullivan, a single-digit handicapper. “It’s magnificent.”

And comparatively inexpensive, particularly when traveling in the off-peak seasons of summer and winter. Consider this: For the $375 you might pay to play Pinehurst No. 2, site of last year’s U.S. Open, I had three nights’ lodging and six rounds of golf on the trail with enough left over for a couple of the massive sandwiches in the clubhouse snack bar.

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On to Montgomery

FROM Grand National, we made the 70-mile drive to Capitol Hill in Prattville, about 10 minutes north of Montgomery, for our final few days. Outside Montgomery, we were quickly reminded that we were in a part of the country that is reaching for its future with one hand while hanging onto the past with the other. In Alabama, Martin Luther King Day is known as Martin Luther King/Robert. E. Lee’s birthday. Jefferson Davis’ birthday and Confederate Memorial Day are state holidays.

Still, Alabama is a long way from what it was even two or three decades ago.

“Twenty years ago, when I was working the Alabama booth at travel shows, people would come up to me and say the only thing they knew about the state: ‘George Wallace,’ ” said Lee Sentell, Alabama tourism director.

“Now at those shows, almost invariably they mention the golf trail. It has brought in millions of people who wouldn’t have been here, and what they’ve found is that it’s not the backward state they remember from the ‘60s.”

We ventured into Montgomery for one evening, had a fine meal at the Montgomery Brewery Co. (the second pitcher of Goat Hill pale ale was as good as the first), then walked a couple of blocks to take in the final innings of a AA minor league game between the Tennessee Smokies and Montgomery Biscuits. Young families scurried around the mezzanine shops and restaurants. Some folks in the big crowd on fireworks night even watched the game, a 2-0 loss by the home team.

Capitol Hill, which opened in 1999, is the busiest of the trail’s sites, with three championship courses. The most difficult of the three is the Judge, with a first tee that drops 200 feet to a fairway that appears to be about the size of the hole in a Krispy Kreme doughnut, bracketed by the Alabama River and a teeming cypress swamp.

The smiling starter greeted us this way: “Gentlemen, I’d like to let you know that there are some critters that crawl and slither around down there that you really don’t want to tangle with. Enjoy your round.”

We didn’t run into any gators, though when I hooked my drive to within a foot of the cypress swamp, I didn’t take too much time setting up for my next shot.

The Senator is a links-style layout mostly without trees, a course that would seem at home next to the Firth of Forth in Scotland. But out of nowhere, the 17th hole appears, a par five that requires two carries over an impossibly deep, vine-covered ravine, more a vision of Mordor in “The Lord of the Rings” than an inviting links hole.

Then there is the Legislator, the favorite layout of several of the players on our trip and where we ran into Tropical Storm Arlene, the first storm of last year’s record season. Hurricane Katrina would hit the Gulf Coast later that summer. (The course was open again in a few weeks.)

The Legislator is a traditional layout, heavily treed on rolling terrain.

We had to leave the course after hitting our tee shots on the third hole as the rain and wind approached. We returned after the storm cell had passed, managed one hole before the next downpour, found cover on the course for a few minutes, then repeated that routine for two more holes after we determined lightning wouldn’t be a threat.

By that time, we were soaked, but because the sky was getting lighter, we trekked onward. The four of us who had stuck with that round wound up shooting among the lowest scores of our trip. Two of us broke 80.

Heading toward the clubhouse, we looked like four happy but disheveled wanderers who had been trapped under a waterfall then tossed around in a wind tunnel. The rain fell constantly the next day, ending our trip to Alabama. But by that time, we were already figuring out the timetable for our return.

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(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX)

Robert Trent Jones Golf Trail

*--* Course Contact Greens fee Holes

Cambrian Ridge (334) 382-9787, www.rtjgolf.com $40-$62 36

Capitol Hill (334) 285-1114, www.rtjgolf.com $40-$74 54

Grand National (334) 749-9042 www.rtjgolf.com $40-$62 54

Hampton Cove (256) 551-1818, www.rtjgolf.com $40-$55 54

Highland Oaks (334) 712-2820, www.rtjgolf.com $40-$50 36

Oxmoor Valley (205) 942-1177, www.rtjgolf.com $40-$62 54

Magnolia Grove (251) 645-0075, www.rtjgolf.com $40-$62 54

Ross Bridge (205) 916-7677, $75-$110 18 www.rossbridgeresort.com

The Shoals (256) 446-5111, www.rtjgolf.com $40-$55 36

Silver Lakes (256) 892-3268, www.rtjgolf.com $40-$55 36

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Trailblazing

GETTING THERE:

From LAX, Southwest offers direct flights (stop, no change of plane) to Birmingham. American, Continental, Delta, Northwest and Southwest offer connecting service (change of plane). Restricted round-trip fares begin at $238.

WHERE TO STAY:

Marriott Prattville at Capitol Hill, 2500 Legends Circle, Prattville, AL 36066; (800) 593-6429, www.marriott.com/default.mi. The lodge overlooks the 17th hole on the Senator course. Doubles from $149.

Auburn Marriott Opelika, at Grand National, 3700 Sunbelt Parkway, Opelika, AL 36801; (334) 741-9292, www.marriott.com/default.mi. A three-minute drive from the clubhouse. Workout area and a well-stocked pub. Doubles from $119.

La Quinta Inn, 60 State Farm Parkway, Birmingham, AL 35209; (205) 290-0150, www.lq.com/lq/index.jsp. Comfortable, convenient mid-level chain. Doubles from $101.

WHERE TO EAT:

Dreamland Bar-B-Que Ribs, 1427 14th Ave. S., Birmingham, AL 35205; (205) 933-2133. Terrific ribs, a half-slab for $10.95. Motto: “Ain’t nothing like ‘em ... nowhere.”

Montgomery Brewery Co., 12 W. Jefferson St., Montgomery, AL 36104; (334) 834-2739, montgomerybrewpub.com. About 15 minutes from Prattville. Lively atmosphere. Excellent microbrews and an expansive menu, including deep-fried gator tail. $6.95-$22.95.

Hamilton’s, 174 E. Magnolia, Auburn, AL 36830; (334) 887-8780. Our favorite restaurant on the trip. Try the fried green tomatoes with garlic shrimp appetizer. Entrees $16.50-$25.50. Reservations are recommended.

TO LEARN MORE:

All of the courses have lodging nearby, including the chains Comfort Inn, Hampton Inn, Ramada, Best Western and La Quinta Inn. Reservations can be made through the individual hotels or through the Robert Trent Jones Golf Trail reservation system; (800) 949-4444, www.rtjgolf.com.

-- Mike James