Lakewood Azalea Course

The verdict

The Azalea Course is the soul of golf at the Grand Hotel, the genteel old resort that has stood on Point Clear, on the eastern shore of Mobile Bay, since the nineteenth century. Golf arrived here in the 1940s, and Perry Maxwell, one of the great names of the golden age, laid out the Azalea among the live oaks in 1947. Later hands, including Ron Garl and Bobby Vaughan, have refined it, and the club now sits on the Robert Trent Jones Golf Trail, but the spirit is unchanged: a walk through ancient oaks dripping with Spanish moss, water glinting between the trunks, and a quiet Southern grace that the newer Trail courses cannot manufacture.

For the travelling golfer, the Azalea matters as the elegant, resort coast counterpoint to the muscular Trail courses inland. It is not long by modern standards, and it does not need to be: the test is in placing the ball among the trees, judging the approaches over water, and managing the subtle Maxwell greens. The setting is the draw, a stay at a historic Gulf resort with sunsets over the bay, fishing and a spa alongside the golf, the kind of trip that suits couples and relaxed buddies groups as much as serious players. As the coastal anchor of an Alabama golf trip, it is the round you take slowly and remember fondly.

The holes worth the trip

The Azalea is a course of corridors and angles rather than brute length. Perry Maxwell routed it through stands of live oak, so the trees do much of the defending: a drive pushed toward the easy side of a fairway often leaves the harder line in, blocked by a limb or angled away from the green. The fairways are inviting but the margins matter, and the player who shapes the ball and keeps it below the branches scores while the one who simply hits it hard finds the moss and the trunks. It is a thinking golfer's resort course, gentle on the eye and stern on the careless.

Water is the second defense, and it builds to the signature hole. The par 5 14th plays to a green set as an island in a four acre lake, an all or nothing approach that turns a routine birdie chance into a moment of real decision, and it is the hole every visitor talks about afterward. Several other holes flirt with water short and beside the greens, so distance control on the approach is the difference between a comfortable par and a wet, dropped shot. The greens are classic Maxwell, subtly contoured rather than severe, rewarding a confident, well read putt.

None of it overwhelms, and that is the appeal. The Azalea is a fair, walkable, beautiful round that a mid handicapper can enjoy and a good player still has to think his way around, all under a canopy of oaks beside Mobile Bay. Paired with its sister course at Lakewood and the wider Trail, it gives a golf trip to the Gulf coast a soft, historic heart, the kind of golf you play in the morning and talk about over a long lunch.

Where to stay nearby

The obvious base is the Grand Hotel at Point Clear itself, the historic resort beside the Lakewood courses, with the bay, a spa, pools and dining on site and the first tee a short walk away. A stay and play here is the natural way to enjoy the Azalea at a relaxed pace, and the eastern shore towns of Fairhope and Daphne are close by for restaurants and a change of scene.

Because Point Clear sits on the Gulf, the Azalea pairs naturally with the coastal golf of the wider region. Build a trip with Tom Fazio's acclaimed layout at Fallen Oak Golf Club just over the line on the Mississippi coast, then head inland for the Trail's grand resort flagship at Ross Bridge Golf Resort near Birmingham and the dramatic, big scale public golf of the Capitol Hill Judge Course at Prattville.

Looking for a base? See our recommended hotels and resorts at Point Clear and along the Gulf coast.