Some of the same principles apply to the game of golf. The irresistible lure of breathing in the great outdoors, to see what today has to offer. Something's going to happen, and you can't wait to find out what it is.
Therefore, when one can combine a highway adventure with golf, and sprinkle in a good friend or two, it can end up being a real trip. In these here parts, we're fortunate enough to have one of them golf trails nearby - like, next door, in Louisiana. The Audubon Golf Trail consists of 11 courses, including five in what could be considered the northern part of the state. The southern half of the trail recently added Atchafalaya at Idlewild, a Robert von Hagge design in Patterson.
Tackling the entire trail in one automotive sprint could be more of an adventure than some golfers are willing to put up with. It's over 350 miles between Haughton's Olde Oaks Golf Club, just east of the Shreveport/Bossier metroplex, and the TPC of Louisiana and Audubon Park Golf Course in New Orleans. It's manageable, but requires planning and more importantly, about two weeks with nothing to do but chase the white lines in the road and the white ball on the course.
The A trail may be best consumed in chunks, and its natural layout created two convenient ones, one in the north and one south. The southern section consists of Gray Plantation (Lake Charles), The Island Golf and Country Club (Plaquemine), Carter Plantation (Springfield), and the aforementioned Audubon Park and TPC of Louisiana, and lays out well for those starting off in Southeast Texas.
For North Texas, the trail offers five courses within 400 miles of Dallas-Fort Worth, including Olde Oaks, Calvert Crossing Country Club (West Monroe), Tamahka Trails (Marksville), Oak Wing (Alexandria), and Cypress Bend (Many). I can say from experience that clicking off this segment of the trail can be accomplished in less than three days without amphetamine use, but a nice place to stay and a love of the open American road helps.
Now, some hear the words “Golf Trail” and a little switch inside them turns off, a switch very near the one that started turning off around 1999 every time you heard about a golf course with the word “Quarry” in the title. It smacks of a marketing tool, one borrowed from another state with what might be the country's original golf trail. However, aside from the fact that the Quarry and the tool were both successful, and that's why others have been created, Louisiana's trail has a built-in unique quality, and its marketers were smart enough to incorporate it in the title.
The Audubon Trail is so named because John James Audubon spent two years in Louisiana, and it quickly became one of his favorite places on the planet because of its wide variety of natural beauty. That, according to Audubon Golf Trail Director Eric Kaspar, is one of the main reasons the state decided on the Audubon name when assembling its trail.
“His name is synonymous with nature and beauty,” said Kaspar. “We even have the John J. Audubon Museum in St. Francisville. So it was a natural that we would use his name for our trail.”
The courses are currently working towards becoming members of Audubon International, which is a major step in becoming certified Audubon golf course sanctuaries. The technicalities of qualifying for such status are just one positive aspect of carrying the Audubon badge. When golfers hear the word, they anticipate isolated venues trimmed with wetlands and shadowed by a wide variety of hardwoods, the kind of land you imagine when someone says “natural habitat.” This is achieved at all of the Audubon courses, but to varying degrees, keeping the memories and personality of each course separate and distinct in the players' mind.
Beauty is what these courses are all about, and between the courses lays the road, the backroads of Louisiana, where the natives gather in lawn chairs at dusk along idyllic and dark state and U.S. Highways. The first highway, however, is one many north Texans are familiar with - a sub-four hour sprint down I-20 to Shreveport/ Bossier, where Olde Oaks lies just beyond in Haughton.
With design consultant Hal Sutton helping to pull the architectural levers, Olds Oaks presents three different nines with three different challenges. The Oaks, Cypress, and Meadows nines offer similar architectural features within different settings. As the geography would indicate, with the facility being so close to Texas, Olde Oaks plays more like a course that Texans will be familiar with, as native hardwoods are spiced with well-placed water hazards, and holes are designed around existing creeks and streams.
The Meadows plays into an open pasture laced with existing wetlands, and only occasionally brushes with trees. As their names suggest, the Cypress and Oaks nines are strewn with their namesake trees along with a fair representation of their cousins.
Those tree-covered gentle slopes make up courses that are initially more challenging than either 18-hole configuration including the Meadows, but repeated plays will reveal preferred hitting areas that will help lower scores.
If you get to Haughton early enough, climb back in the car and roll down I-20 to Calvert Crossing. With fine facilities and a first-rate staff, the Calvert Crossing experience starts before taking the tee at No. 1, which immediately reveals the character and personality of the course. It's a traditional parkland-style layout, again utilizing the native trees and water features to maximize beauty and strategy.
While the trees seem “thinner” than at Olde Oaks, they encroach on the fairway in a way that makes most of Olde Oaks holes seem wide in comparison. And water comes into play on 10 holes, demanding accuracy. If you've got the connections, the time, and primarily the energy after your round at Calvert, you can always try to gain access to Squire Creek, a brilliant Tom Fazio-design in the woods just north of I-20 and west of Calvert.
However you finish, you'll pile back in the car, just happy to sit down, and ball that jack through the Louisiana night to the Paragon Resort and Casino in Marksville. There, you can try your luck at cards before hitting the rack, and try your luck at the Tamahka Trails Golf Club the next morning. Designed by “New School” architect Steve Smyers, the course makes the most of natural water features and sprawling stands of hardwoods. But Smyers has upped the ante with his massive and creatively-designed bunker complexes, which are beautiful to behold but punitive to encounter. With 230 acres to work with, Smyers had plenty of opportunity to maximize the beauty of his routing.
Grab a sandwich inside the casino - oh, what the heck, play a couple of hands - then get back in the ride and set the cruise for Alexandria in the center of the state. On the west side of town you'll find Oak Wing Golf Club. Designed by Jim Lipe, Oak Wing has all the staples of the Audubon Trail, with native creeks and wetlands, whistling stands of hardwoods, and well-designed lakes and bunkers. Oak Wing, however, provides a unique stretch of holes on the back nine that serves as Lipe's tip of the cap to his Scottish influences. Trees and water serve only as a backdrop on all but one shot on holes 13-16, allowing for shot-shaping and even the occasional bump-and-run.
With as many as five rounds under your belt inside of 48 hours, you head to your car after the round and peel off your shoes as sweet fatigue invades every joint. But you are driven on, by the road and the knowledge that your next stop, Cypress Bend Resort and Conference Center in Many, may be the icing on the cake. Not just because the conference center has all the amenities of the big boys on the conference center circuit, but because the course may be the most beautiful on the trail if not the most playable. First, get a good night's sleep in the center's well-appointed guest rooms.
With its dramatic elevation changes, the invasive presence of the Toledo Bend Reservoir, and the native pines of West Louisiana-East Texas, this beautiful course may never host a PGA section championship as Olde Oaks has, but it will thrill and delight even the most experienced conference goer, weekend golf warrior, or novice cart spectator. Those managing to get a grip on the layout and put their ball where it needs to be to succeed at -Cypress Bend will still have difficulty when they reach the undulating putting surfaces, where new adventures await them each and every round.
Beaten, stiff, and dirty from the knees down, you struggled to your vehicle after the Cypress challenge on the third morning of your quest. But you can't help but wonder - where is the next round? You actually have some choices depending on what route you take back to your hometown from Many. Or maybe just one more good stretch of road will satisfy you - for now.
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