Merry Christmas Guys! I’m going to be out of pocket the rest of the week. Hope you all have a great week/holiday and enjoy time with family. May God bless you all with joy unspeakable!
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Folks… While I’m not from the fine state of Alabama, I have an exciting opportunity for y’all! This past summer, The High Cotton Classic was founded as a handicapped match play event with a field of 16 here in TN. After expanding to 32 in the fall, we’re eyeing another expansion in April to 64 in TN, 16 in KY, and 16 in your fantastic state. Semifinalists from Alabama would automatically qualify to represent the state in The High Cotton Cup, a Ryder Cup style event between the states. We’ll be rolling out some “final” details in the next few days, but I’ve included a couple cliff notes below. To sign up, just send your GHIN or WHS# to highcottoncattle@gmail.com… I look forward to getting many of y’all involved and hopefully playing with some of y’all when I’m in the area.
-handicapped match play at 75% of Handicap Index (rounded to nearest whole number)
-competitors have 16 days to schedule and play their match at an agreed upon location from the Approved Courses List
-competitors get a swag bag with several high quality items
-Calcutta/Bracket Reveal party
-substantial cash prizes in Yeti cups for 1st, 2nd, and 3rd
-fun environment to meet and play with like-minded folks
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Taking our family trip down to Gulf Shores again and finally talked my dad into going out and playing Kiva Dunes! Cannot wait to finally get out there!
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I live in Troy. I coach football there at Troy University. Need some good valued courses around. Played Dothan National a few weeks back. It was a really fun course. Anybody got any suggestions?
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Just booking a flight down to Birmingham for MLK weekend, and hoping weather isn’t too chilly.
If anyone is interested in setting up a home and home hosting me and a couple buddies, I can return the favor either in southern CT (RTJ) or Western PA (Raynor). Otherwise, we will probably do Pursell, Oxmoor, and try to fit one more in. Any recs are greatly appreciated!
I would take you up on this offer but I’ll be out of town that weekend.
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Looking forward to the next get together since I’ve missed the last couple. Things on the home front are settling and I’m ready for some golf.
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Lagoon Park Golf Course is a great public course in Montgomery. Less than an hour from Troy. Of course, the RTJ in Prattville has 3 1st class public courses which is an hour from Troy. The Bridges at Tartan Pines in Enterprise is also an excellent public course within an hour of Troy.
Check 'em out. If you need a playing partner in Montgomery or Prattvile, let me know. I’ll meet up for a quick 18 sometime.
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i’m interested in this and may know a few more. I’ll email you if it’s not too late. I haven’t been on here the last week.
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Not too late at all, I’ll be posting some details for the Alabama bracket very soon!
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Grew up in Cullman, moving to Huntsville this month (Jan ‘22) after being away for a bit, late 20s aerospace engineer, love to play so happy to host or join in with anyone when I can.
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Kicking around joining a club in the greater bham area. Trying to decide between Pine Tree, Hoover, Riverchase and Inverness. Any thoughts or comments on the course and overall experience would be helpful.
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There are a few members of Pinetree on here who can give better info on the club than me, but here are a few things that come to mind.
Pro’s
- The course is challenging but fair. They are spending money to improve course conditions (recent tree removal to improve turf conditions).
- Conditions are already good but not Shoal Creek great.
- They renovated the inside dining areas and mens locker room a couple of years ago which are nice touches.
- They are talking about possibly adding a halfway house behind hole 9 and have other plans in the works to upgrade the club house.
- The fitness facility they have is decent and has what you need for the most part.
- Younger membership is growing.
- Pool for the kids to play.
- Good Youth Golf Program
- Good Tennis program and courts as well.
- I believe it’s less expensive than Hoover and there is not a waitlist.
Cons
- They don’t have a legitimate dinner menu where you could go out and have a nice dinner.
- The menu is geared towards bar food (burgers, sandwiches, wings), which is good, but I would like to have the option to go there and it feel like an upscale dinner from an entree perspective.
- Tough to get tee times on weekend mornings unless you are willing to get online right at 7:30AM the week prior. The tee sheet fills up very fast. It’s probably like this at most clubs though.
- Social scene seems to be lacking a bit from an events standpoint.
- Club Closes at 6 PM during a few months in the winter.
I’ve played golf at Hoover but I prefer the layout at Pinetree over Hoover. Hoover may be better from an amenities stand point though (food, pool, events, etc).
I have not played Inverness or Riverchase.
Hope this helps and I’d love to host once the weather warms up.
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Somewhere in my posting history, I did a kind of breakdown of this before and I’ll see if I can find it and paste a link. Of the four clubs you’ve listed, I’ve only played at Pine Tree and Inverness, but I did go tour Hoover once.
Basically, if you’re in this purely for the golf experience, I think most golfers in the area would tell you to look at Hoover or Pine Tree. I don’t know how the two compare golf-wise because I haven’t played Hoover but I know it has some very good golfers among its membership and many people think it’s one of the more underrated courses in the area. It’s not especially close to Pine Tree, so if you live much closer to one than the other you’d have to factor that in.
I am a member at Pine Tree now but was a member at Inverness for a little while also. I wish I could move Inverness’s clubhouse and food service team over to Pine Tree; you’d have the perfect place. My family loved the Friday night dinners and events at Inverness. They have a beautiful clubhouse and a really wonderful friendly staff there. The food at Inverness is excellent - far better than I was expecting for a country club. There’s even on-site child care included with the Friday night dinner. The spots are limited but I never had any problem getting a reservation for our kids. The cons at Inverness for me were that the golf course runs through a residential neighborhood. The houses aren’t really close enough to the course to feel in play or make the course feel tight, but it very much feels like a neighborhood club. People ride their golf carts to/from the clubhouse using the cart paths so it was frequent to have people driving up the cart path the wrong way while you’re trying to tee off, kids jumping on trampolines, playing, making noise, etc. near the holes. Stuff like that. The course is okay. The back nine gets very hilly with lots of long walks from green to tee so if you prefer to walk, you’re probably going to feel limited to walking the front nine. I also found that it got too backed up and play could get really slow on weekends and holidays. Inverness also sits not far off Hwy. 280, which can make it a traffic nightmare to get to if you’re trying to squeeze in nine holes after work.
Pine Tree is kind of the opposite of all of that. The course is great - it’s a really solid layout nowhere near any houses or other buildings. They’re in the middle of a tree removal project that is only going to help. It’s hosted US Open qualifier tournaments and the bigger state amateur tournaments, so it’s a well-regarded course. The clubhouse is fine and getting some much-needed renovations but it still won’t be anything super fancy. The locker room is spacious and nice. The food is decent but nothing great; the stuff on the basic grill menu (burgers, fries, chicken wings, etc) is very good. There aren’t regular dinners there, but the Sunday brunch bar is okay and the fish fries we went to during the summer were quite good and our kids love the pool. They’ve really struggled with slow service at brunch the times we’ve eaten there, which is why I think they’ve gone to a buffet every week. There’s a monthly food minimum at Pine Tree and there wasn’t one at Inverness, which I think tells you all you need to know about that; the place that basically has to force you to eat there isn’t as good. The walks from green to tee are short so the course is fairly walkable if you’re in decent shape - the back nine can get a little hilly (especially by hole 14).
Both places are very laid back and have a friendly membership; not a hint of pretentiousness or highbrow stuff at either spot.
I don’t know a thing about Riverchase. It’s not very close to where I live now and will be even farther away if we move as planned when our kids finish elementary school, so I’ve never considered it.
If all you care about is golf, then your list is probably 1) Pine Tree, 1A) Hoover, 3) Riverchase, 4) Inverness. If you care more about really nice clubhouse, Friday night dinners, and meals that are on par with a nice restaurant, and you want to have a good golf course too, then Inverness should move up the list. I don’t know how Riverchase slots into that mix. In terms of distance, you should consider your drive to a club and how much that’s going to affect your ability/willingness to play and practice there once the new wears off.
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This is a great review, thanks so much. I grew up playing Pinetree and have always loved the course but new the club house was meh, at least back in the early 2000s.
Another member at Pine Tree here. Everything posted so far is pretty spot on regarding the more affordable clubs in the B’ham area. I don’t think you can go wrong with either Pine Tree or Hoover. We looked at both back before we joined Pine Tree a few years ago.
I will say that the membership has exploded at Pine Tree over the past 18 months or so. It is pretty difficult to get a tee time on weekends right now, but weekdays aren’t too bad. The price to join has also gone up considerably from what I’ve heard. It is still going to be way more affordable that any of the more prestigious clubs around (CCoB, Shoal, MBCC, Vestavia, Greystone). I’m sure the general membership boom has inflated prices everywhere.
I’ll also add that there is a good MGA group at Pine Tree with regular Thursday evening games. I haven’t been able to go much recently due to my schedule, but its a good way to get to know the membership quickly. Highly recommend it if you do decide to join out there.
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Just joined up - North Alabama guy out of Decatur. Always up for a trip over to Sweetens or anywhere else up this way.
WDE
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Even in the rain?
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Where do play? I’m out at burningtree.
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