DESTINATION GOLF 2024
Louisiana is more than just a destination . The birthplace of jazz , Cajun and zydeco music , it ’ s an exotic , mesmerising and captivating state that embodies America ’ s Deep South and , as the state tourist office succinctly puts it in its official tagline , feeds your soul .
It also lives up to its “ Sportsman ’ s Paradise ” nickname , offering year-round golf besides other outdoor adventures .
You can explore the state ’ s golf courses on a series of themed trails , featuring itineraries combining rounds on the fairways with rounds of beers of spirits on craft breweries and distilleries trails as well as music , culinary , fishing and other combinations .
I sample a selection of themed golf combos on my most recent trip to the Pelican State , one of many I have taken there over the years , playing eight courses across southern Louisiana , from New Orleans to Lake Charles .
Seven of them form part of the Audubon Golf Trail , a collection of 18 courses throughout the entire state that include designs by Arnold Palmer , Pete Dye and Robert Trent Jones Sr .
The trail was created in 2001 and was named for naturalist and artist John James Audubon who painted many of his famous bird studies in Louisiana . All courses on the trail are members of the Audubon Cooperative Sanctuary for Golf Courses , a programme by not-forprofit organisation Audubon International dedicated to protecting the environment and reducing water and chemical usage .
GOLF COURSES Where else would you begin a golfing trip to Louisiana but the Big Easy , New Orleans ?
The city has two golf facilities . Its historic City Park features the city ’ s only 36-hole golf complex , Bayou Oaks , with the North and South courses both rebuilt in the years following Hurricane Katrina in 2005 .
My group and I head instead to Audubon Park Golf Course , located just minutes from downtown New Orleans .
It is my second time playing the course , a short par-62 layout set amidst magnificent hundred-year-old live oak trees festooned with Spanish moss . Audubon Park opened in 1898 on the site of the 1884 World ’ s Fair , and holes four to nine of the course cover what was the event ’ s main building .
Four lakes add spice to the 2001-redesigned layout , although water deluging from the heavens was the issue on my first round there partnering a couple of locals . We gamely ignored the distant lightning as the rain steadily got heavier , but eventually called it quits when mini lakes began appearing in the fairways .
After lunch , my new friends suggested taking a streetcar back downtown and gave me a lift to the nearest stop . If waiting in the middle of a street with my golf clubs was surreal , sitting in the front of the streetcar in sopping wet golf clothes while holding my clubs seemed even more bizarre . Yet my fellow passengers were more interested in my English accent . And when a group of revellers en route to a party stepped aboard resplendent in blue wigs and colourful costumes , the whole streetcar became one big , happy family . Even walking down Canal Street to my hotel with my clubs barely raised an eyebrow .
Next on my golf trails trip is TPC Louisiana , a Pete Dye design 15 miles outside New Orleans that spans more than 250 acres of Mississippi River Delta wetlands and is home to the PGA Tour ’ s Zurich Classic tournament .
Again , it is my second time playing it . It ’ s a beauty with bite , and not just for the 100-plus bunkers punctuating the manicured fairways . This place is alligator central , underlined by a giant statue of a gator with a golf ball in its jaws outside the clubhouse .
This year ’ s Zurich Classic was interrupted by a gator crossing a
Bayou Terrebonne Distillers Largemouth bass fishing
Maison Bourbon jazz club
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