A Maxwell Stop on Alabama’s RTJ Trail

Lakewood Golf Club on the Robert Trent Jones Golf Trail

Tony Dear

Maxwell's Azaela Course on the Robert Trent Jones Golf Trail

There’s nothing quite so thrilling for a lifelong golfer who thought he had heard of just about every course on God’s green Earth than discovering an unheralded one that takes him precisely one round to fall for. In a world where marketing dollars, “strategic” advertising, and often shameless and misleading promotion paints a very distorted picture, it is always incredibly gratifying to play one that requires no disingenuous puffery.

The Azalea Course at Lakewood Golf Club in Point Clear, Ala., has its roots in a 1947 layout devised by the brilliant Perry Maxwell, who built two nines—Azalea and Dogwood—for Edward A. Roberts, the CEO of Waterman Steamship Company and owner of the Grand Hotel, which sits just across US-98 ALT from the golf course.

In the 1960s, as the hotel’s popularity grew and the golf club’s membership increased, Joe Lee was hired to construct nine more holes. And after Marriott purchased the hotel in 1982, adding 200 guest rooms, Ron Garl built holes 28 to 36.

Two new 18s emerged—yes, the Azalea and Dogwood. The Dogwood is made up of nine Maxwell holes and Lee’s nine, while the superior Azalea Course has Maxwell’s other holes (1-5 and 15-18) and Garl’s nine (6-14). Though the switch on Azalea from Post-Golden Age to Post-modern and back again isn’t exactly seamless, the sum of the three parts is still extremely good.

Given Maxwell’s work at Southern Hills in Tulsa, Prairie Dunes in Kansas, and Crystal Downs in Michigan (where he collaborated with Alister Mackenzie), it’s not at all surprising that his holes are more interesting and enjoyable. All nine would grace any course.

This doesn’t by any means disparage Garl’s holes. The 6^th is actually a very fine Par 5, as is the 11^th. And the 12^th is certainly one of the best Par 4s at Lakewood.

In 1999, Retirement Systems of Alabama (RSA), the organization headed by Dr. David Bronner who had several years earlier successfully invested a large chunk of the Alabama state employees’ pension funds into a building a cross-state “Trail” of multi-course facilities designed by Robert Trent Jones and his associates Roger Rulewich and Bobby Vaughan, purchased both the hotel and the golf courses.

Bronner spent $50 million renovating the hotel, and also bought Rulewich and Vaughan in to gussy up the courses. The new, shipshape Azalea re-opened as a 7,504-yard behemoth (be sure to find the most suitable tees for your game so you can enjoy it) in late 2005, 18 months after Dogwood had been extended to 7,063 yards.

Lakewood’s are the only two courses on the 26-course, 468-hole Robert Trent Jones Golf Trail not originally “designed” by Jones, and not built from scratch. Hotel guests and the general public have access to them alternately—Azalea one day, Dogwood the next.

Upon Googling Lakewood, I learned it was quite famous, especially in the Deep South, and that I might have been mistaken in thinking Dogwood and Azalea were shrinking violets.

I’d never heard of it, but I’m jolly glad I found it.

 

RELATED LINKS

RTJ Golf Trail Website

Mississippi's Magnolia Golf Trail

Golf in OZ

 

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