As traveling golfers, we’re lucky to experience a variety of fantastic options when it comes to great destinations. Some offer pure golf experiences and receive accolades and well-deserved exposure across multiple platforms. Others include golf but offer more of a varied vacation experience —...
Essential Alabama Golf Travel
Thinking about heading down South to Alabama for your next golf getaway? We’re with you. Golf Trip Experts’ travel journalists have spent many days from the Gulf Shores to Muscle Shoals and everywhere in between — Birmingham, Montgomery, Mobile, the Robert Trent Jones Golf Trail, Pursell Farms and more — exploring the best places to stay, play, eat and relax. Dive into our Essential Alabama Golf Travel page and start researching your next vacation.
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My editor asked me to abbreviate my anthology of Alabama love into an article “of reasonable length.” Reasonable length ... hmmmmm. I’ve been covering the leisure life in Alabama extensively since my first visit seven years ago and have written more than 80 stories — some 140,000 words...
Golf. Beer. For many people who enjoy our game, the two often go together, whether it’s a couple of cold ones at the turn or post-rounder at the 19th hole. No one has a better understanding of that connection than beer-golf-travel writer Tom Bedell, who’s spent years and traveled thousands of...
When you have a chance to spend some time with the force behind a 100-plus-year-old family business like Pursell Farms in Sylacauga, Alabama, which includes a golf course like FarmLinks (rated “No. 1 All Access Course in Alabama” from 2013-2019 by Golfweek) and a growing resort with...
I’ve gone by the moniker “Mobile Golfer” for eight years now, and at least once a year someone asks if I’m from Alabama. Because I’m always talking about Alabama golf? Nope. Maybe it’s because of my obsession with Alabama barbecue? Not that either. Most times it’s simply because I...
The least talented of artists could draw a near-perfect “interstate rectangle” on a map from Birmingham to Montgomery to Atlanta to Chattanooga and back to Birmingham and find an awful lot of great golf in that easy-access rectangle. Whether you’re driving in from one of those cities or...
You’ve heard all about Alabama’s Robert Trent Jones Golf Trail — the massive collection of golf courses, all in one state, with a seemingly endless supply of golf holes. You’d love to check out The Trail for yourself but probably don’t have a month you can take off to cover all 11 sites...
Birmingham is a Boom Town for golf in Alabama, and the Gulf Shores could very well be renamed “The Golf Shores.” But while Northern Alabama might not have the bleach-white sandy beaches or quantity of playgrounds the central-state metros have, it certainly is no slouch in the “Quality Golf...
Alabama’s Robert Trent Jones Golf Trail has 11 sites that are each well worth their own visit. But there’s so much more to explore from such architects as Earl Stone, Jerry Pate, Michael Hurdzan and Dana Fry, and many others. With that in mind, here are 11 other sites that reaffirm the...
It is possible to cover all 11 sites of Alabama’s Robert Trent Jones Golf Trail in one trip. My son, Dylan, and I did when he was 11 years old, playing 22 of 27 courses (and eating at 22 Sonic restaurants) in 12 incredible June days. Take the golf portion as a challenge if you’d like. Or take a...
It was the late 1990s, and John Cannon was living the good life on Hilton Head Island, South Carolina. And that’s when he got the call to check out a golf project a few states away. So he made the trip to Prattville, Alabama, a little town of about 19,000 people a few miles away from the state...
We don’t talk enough about Spas here at Golf Trip Experts. But given how more and more golfers now rely on health and wellness practices to fortify their bodies and extend prime golfing years, we probably should. After all, top golf resorts nationwide are getting into the game when it comes to...
You’ve heard the story a thousand times. Or maybe you haven’t. But surely you’ve heard of the Robert Trent Jones Golf Trail, right? The single biggest enterprise in the history of golf — the original golf trail, an 11-facility course network spread across all of Alabama.
Admittedly, the...
We head down South in Episode 137 of the “Talking GolfGetaways” podcast — about as far South as you can go in these United States — to explore Gulf Shores, Alabama, with Chad Leonard, regional manager for Honours Golf overseeing the courses at Peninsula Golf & Racquet Club, Rock Creek...
Most golfers can’t take two weeks off for a getaway. Even seven days can be a crunch on the vacation schedule. So what if you have just a handful of days for your next trip — what can you pack into four nights’ lodging and five days on the road? Well, it turns out, you can still plan a pretty...
You’ve probably heard the phrase Play Nine, but we’d like to introduce the concept of Stay Nine. Getaways are as much about the Stays — the lodging and dining — as they are about the Plays — amenities and activities. But golf stay-and-play vacations are even a little more specific...
I’ve never seen a list like this. And, trust me, I’ve searched, looking for anything and everything from miniature golf to Bandon Preserve and everything in between. In short, I love “short” courses (anything under 4,444 yards).
Sure, you’ll find clickbait posts about the 10, 20 or 25...
Birmingham, Alabama is just the 50th busiest travel hub in the United States, but it’s Top 5 among America’s most popular golf-travel destinations. So our Metro Guide series heads to the heart of the South — home to famously friendly hospitality, mouthwatering barbecue, Lambert’s “Throwed...
Welcome to Alabama. In Episode 82 of the “Talking GolfGetaways” podcast, co-hosts Mitch Laurance and Darin Bunch head down south to talk historic travel, tastebud-tempting food and water-wonderland golf from the mind of architecture stalwart Robert Trent Jones.
LISTEN to the show on...