Audubon Golf Trail 
Various cities across Louisiana, AL 

www.audubongolf.com

Reviewed: 2009
Louisiana Audubon Golf Trail
By Charley Booth

It is said “imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.”
The success of the Robert Trent Jones Golf Trail throughout Alabama is an example of how it should be done. Louisiana has taken this concept and established the Louisiana Audubon Golf Trail (AGT).
The AGT consists of 12 courses throughout Louisiana. The coordination between the courses and centralized booking for golf trips make the AGT a must for serious golfers. You can expect excellent and interesting courses to play; authentic Cajun/Creole cuisine; a variety of other activities and Louisiana hospitality at its best.
The AGT was named for naturalist/artist John James Audubon, the preeminent wildlife artist. Audubon painted a number of his famous pieces along the Mississippi River and in Louisiana. All courses on the trail are members of the Audubon Cooperative Sanctuary for Golf Courses, a program dedicated to protecting the environment and preserving the natural heritage of the game of golf.
Established in 2001, the 12 courses on the AGT met an established criteria to be part of the AGT. An evaluation was performed of each course relative to the criteria via a points system. The criteria used were course conditioning, customer service, aesthetics, condition of facilities, course design, challenge and playability, quality of food service, and overall experience.
The courses on the AGT have received numerous accolades from national publications, including Golfweek, Golf Digest, and Golf Magazine. Examples include: Best new public course in 2007 (Golf Digest ) for the Black Bear course; Five of the top five courses in Louisiana are on the AGT according Golfweek; the David Toms designed Carter Plantation was named Top 10 You Can Play by Golf Magazine in 2004; and the TPC Louisiana was rated the #4 newcomer in the nation after opening in 2004 by Golf Digest.
The AGT offers a variety of courses, each with their own unique features and shared common features. The most obvious feature is the relatively flat land of the Louisiana coastal plains and deltas. Any significant changes in elevation is manmade. A sampling of the courses on the AGT follows.

Audubon Park Golf Course
History and tradition is the theme of this course. Golf has been played on the course since 1898, more than 110 years. The live oak trees draped in Spanish moss have been around longer than golf has been played there. The course is located across the street from the world renowned Audubon Zoo in the Uptown/Garden District of New Orleans. Located near Tulane University and Loyola University the towering spires on the Loyola campus watch your every shot.
The Audubon Park Golf Course is a “Championship Executive Course.” It is a par 62 and measures 4,220 yards from the back tees. The course has two par fives and 12 par threes. The pars fours are drivable by the long hitters with a little wind and significant accuracy. Bunkers and lagoons come into play on practically every hole. The shortness of the par fives and par fours are more than offset by the length of the par threes. Four of them measure 190 yards or more and two of those are 200 plus yards from the back tees.
The course is perfect for walking and can easily be played in three hours or less. Making it suitable for a quick round if your trip to play the AGT begins in New Orleans and you arrive before mid afternoon. You also could end your trip with a morning round before a late afternoon flight returning home.

TPC Louisiana
The TPC is the current home of the Zurich Classic of New Orleans on the PGA Tour, first hosted in 2005. As a TPC course, it is owned and operated by the PGA Tour. The TPC Louisiana is a Pete Dye design.
The course is open for public play, meaning you can play the course the pros play. The course has five sets of tees, with the PGA Tour tees measuring 7,520 yards. Unless you bring plenty of balls with you it is not recommended that you play from these tees, no matter how much you would like to experience what it is like to be a tour player.
The course meanders through wetland areas with native grasses, stands of old growth cypress and oak trees, and alligators. The fairways offer plenty of room for not so straight drives, but waste areas, the native grasses and the alligators will await you if your ball falls outside the fairways. The fairways have undulations and the relatively large greens can be deceptive.

Carter Plantation
Carter Plantation in Springfield is the first course designed by Louisiana native David Toms. The facilities at Carter Plantation are most suitable for group golf outings and corporate retreats.
The course meanders through upland pine forests with cypress wetlands scattered throughout. There are some 68 bunkers on the course and water comes into play on 11 holes.
While the entire course is beautiful, one of the most inviting and picturesque holes is the par 3 third hole. Measuring 179 yards from the back tees, the tee shot crosses over a swampy wetland filled with native plants and grasses and pine forests lining the fairway.
There are nine golf villas on site that can be divided into 63 separate rooms. Many of the suites contain full kitchens and high speed internet access. The majority of the suites feature a balcony, with views of the ninth fairway through scenic wetlands.
The Pavilion is a unique structure containing the pro shop, restaurant, meeting rooms and banquet facilities. When the weather and meeting schedules permit, golfers can drive their cart through bay doors on each side of the banquet facilities to and from the parking lot passing through the banquet area.

The Island
The Island is just that, a course carved out of sugar cane fields resembling an island. From an aerial view the course resembles an island with bayous running along both sides. Their trademark is water and out of bounds. There is water on 17 of the 18 holes and white out of bound stakes in practically every direction. The course is located in Plaquemine, near Baton Rouge.
Holes of note at the Island are the par 4 No. 11 and par 5 No. 12. No. 11 is lined by water on the right and out of bounds on the left. A nasty bunker awaits tee shots on the left side of the fairway and a pot bunker in the fairway between that bunker and the green, all sloping towards the water. The green slopes towards the water but bunkers will stop your ball from rolling in. The twelfth is a reachable-in-two par five with a small green, bunkers and large stands of grass awaiting errant shots.

Tamahka Trails
The Tamahka Trails course is located in Marksville at the Paragon Casino and Resort owned by the Tunica-Biloxi Tribe of Louisiana. The signature of the course and resort is the hospitality. The staff refers to it as “Cajun Hospitality” and it is as noticeable as the live alligators in the resort atrium.
The course has more elevation changes than the courses listed above and more variation from hole to hole in the design. The excellent condition of the fairways and greens can be attributed to “Tex.” That is correct, the course superintendent is named “Tex” and he knows what he is doing.
A hole on the course that you will not soon forget is the seventh, a fine par four. This signature hole doglegs right and measures 433 yards from the tips. Problems abound in the cluster of bunkers along the right side of the fairway of all shapes, sizes, and depths and the forest on the left. The layout requires a well placed tee shot. If you stay out of the bunkers and forest, your approach shot from the fairway is downhill to a green guarded by a stream in front and wetlands to the sides and a few strategically placed trees.

These courses and the others on the AGT not only offer great golf but include the unique experience that can only be found in Louisiana. For additional information about the Audubon Golf Trail, visit www.audubongolf.com or call 866-AGT-IN-LA (248-4652).