The best golf courses in Alabama
For many golfers, Alabama golf is synonymous with the Robert Trent Jones Golf Trail, a network of branded golf that's grown to encompass well over 300 regulation-length holes (and many more par-3 courses) across 11 different sites throughout the state. It was groundbreaking when it was introduced in the early 1990s and continues to attract visitors to the state each year with some of the country's most adventurous, affordable golf. What makes the Trail so attractive (four different courses made the Alabama ranking this year) is the diversity of the sites.
That same diversity makes all of Alabama golf worth investigating, from the Appalachian foothills in the north where the holes at the No. 4-ranked Mike Hurzdan-Dana Fry-designed The Ledges seem to levitate on cliffs over valleys to the low beaches in the south where No. 13 Kiva Dunes zigzags back and forth under the intense Gulf of Mexico breezes. Throw in major championship sites like Shoal Creek (No. 1) outside Birmingham and the new Coore and Crenshaw-designed Wicker Point climbing the land around Lake Martin near Auburn (No. 2), and you've got one of the South's most interesting and varied backdrops for golf.
Below you'll find our 2025-'26 ranking of the Best Golf Courses in Alabama.
Scroll on for the complete list of the best courses in Alabama. Be sure to click through to each individual course page for bonus photography and reviews from our course panelists. We also encourage you to leave your own ratings … so you can make your case for (or against) any course that you've played.
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Previous rank: 12
Contrary to its name, the Links course at Grand National requires many forced carries over bunkers and marshes to often elevated, undulating greens. The layout features large greens with numerous tiers, placing a premium on precise iron play. Weaving through woodlands and playing along Sougahatchee Lake, the Links concludes with its signature par-4 18th, where both the tee and approach shots must carry water to reach an enormous green.
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Previous rank: 13
Situated between Birmingham and Montgomery, FarmLinks is a Michael Hurdzan/Dana Fry layout at Pursell Farms, a Golf Digest Editors’ Choice resort at the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains. The FarmLinks layout continually switches scenes, moving from meadows to woods to rugged foothills and back into the meadows. The course is also an agronomist laboratory with spacious fairways, tees and wavy greens planted with different strains and combinations of Zoysia and Bermudagrass, so visiting turf managers can study how they grow across the site's different microclimates. But the fun is in the design and the journey through the vast, serene property, highlighted by an eccentric variety of par 3s that include the memorable fifth with one of the steepest drops in the U.S., a picturesque swan dive of almost 175 feet from tee to green.
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Previous rank: 14
Though designed by Alabaman and 1976 U.S. Open winner Jerry Pate, Kiva Dunes looks like it came from the mind of an Australian Open champion. It occupies a tight, attractive property on a peninsula near Gulf Shores that's boxed in by the Gulf of Mexico to the south and Bon Secour Bay to the north. The east-west orientation of the holes means that the constant ocean winds gust across the fairways, often making it necessary to aim shots toward interior lagoons, canals and the low coastal border vegetation to trust they'll be guided back to safety. Pate's bunkering is Australian-inspired with sweeping edges and attractive capes, and when the turf is dry, shots can be chased onto and around the low putting surfaces. This longtime Q school host lost many trees in a storm a few years back, which has only enhanced its links qualities.
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Previous rank: 11
Towering pines and two large lakes frame many holes on this expansive layout just south of Birmingham. Significant elevation changes dictate a layout that plays up and down the banks that surround the two lakes, setting up several exciting cross-water risk-reward drives where players choose how much of the cove they want to cut off. With wide landing areas, large greens and sweeping vistas across the property Ross Bridge is the most majestic of the courses on the Robert Trent Jones Golf Trail. The layout tips out over 8,000 yards, but there are five sets of tees to accommodate all players.
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Previous rank: 8
The PGA Tour’s Barbasol Championship was played on Grand National’s Lake course from 2015 through '17. Strategically placed bunkers and large multi-tiered greens defend this eastern Alabama layout. The track hugs the shore of Sougahatchee Lake, which comes into play on 12 of the 18 holes, often around the greens. The four par 3s each offer a stern test with water in play, most notably on the signature island-green 15th.
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Previous rank: 9
Interestingly, Greystone’s Legacy course is three miles from its sibling layout, giving the Legacy a more secluded feel. The rolling Rees Jones design sits in the valley of Double Oak Mountain, and similar to the Founders Course, features meandering streams that can pester players and force thoughtful decision-making throughout the round.
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Previous rank: 10
Greystone’s Founders Course is the longtime host of the PGA Tour Champions’ Regions Tradition, one of the tour’s five major championships. This tree-lined Bob Cupp design opened in 1991 and winds through the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains. Meandering creeks lurk in many holes on this otherwise playable layout.
Previous rank: 7
Originally designed in the early 1950s, Vestavia recently underwent a complete redesign led by architect Lester George. George rerouted the layout and created all-new holes. The renovated course debuted as No. 4 on our 2018 list of Best New Private Courses. The new layout includes wider fairways with fewer trees, opening up beautiful views of the surrounding landscape. There are several classic template holes at Vestavia, including the Redan green at the 13th and the Biarritz green at the 15th.
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Previous rank: 6
Appropriately named for its location just outside Alabama’s state capital, the Judge course at Capitol Hill opens with one of the more memorable holes on the Trail. The par-4 first lunges off a cliff nearly 100 feet straight down hill to a slender fairway that sneaks toward a green perched along the backwaters of the Alabama River. The majority of the course wanders the isolated low country near the river, slipping between meadows, forest and marshy bogs with water in play on 14 of 18 holes. Ranked seventh on our Best in Alabama list, The Judge is a strict sentencer demanding your best ball-striking, most notably on the island-green par-3 sixth.
Previous rank: 4
Situated on a gently sloping hillside overlooking Wilson Lake in northwest Alabama, Turtle Point is a Robert Trent Jones Sr. design playing along the rolling tree-lined landscape. With very few fairway bunkers, the landing areas are narrowed by tall pines with exposed pine straw underneath, conjuring up images of Augusta National. The par-3 eighth roughly resembles the 12th at Augusta as it plays over water to a shallow green angled away from the player and guarded by several small bunkers. Turtle Point is currently ranked sixth on our Best in Alabama list.
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Previous rank: 5
This private Birmingham-area layout was designed by Tom Fazio and Jerry Pate and debuted as Golf Digest’s Best New Private Course of 1994. Visually narrow fairways play wider than they appear, given the undulations often feed the ball back toward the center. This rolling course with relatively small greens was recently renovated by Pate and Steve Dana. It currently ranks as the fifth-best course on our Best in Alabama list.
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Previous rank: 3
Perched on a 1,582-foot mountain peak—the highest point in Huntsville—The Ledges offers stunning vistas and dramatic dropoffs. This Michael Hurdzan/Dana Fry layout features narrow fairways that are closely guarded by imposing trees and several steep cliffs. The steep rock wall dropoff lurking just steps off the second fairway is both impressive and intimidating. The course offers beautiful views of the valley, downtown Huntsville and the U.S. Space and Rocket Center 12 miles to the west. The Ledges is currently ranked fourth on our Best in Alabama list.
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Previous rank: 2
Starting 40 years ago, the Country Club of Birmingham’s West Course, one of two Donald Ross designs at the club, was repeatedly ranked on Golf Digest’s 100 Greatest. Then it fell off in 1984. Pete Dye convinced the club that he could restore the Ross glory to its West Course, but sent his younger son, P.B., to the course. P.B. proceeded to turn the turfgrass black with grass-killing chemicals, then stirred up clouds of red dust gouging his bulldozer into every tee, fairway and green. When he was finished, the West had become a P.B. Dye design, and some members were so unhappy, they didn’t talk to Pete for years. Two and a half decades later, Pete finally talked his way back into the club’s good graces and promised “to fix things.” He brought in a new crew, toned done some of the more outrageous features of P.B., and made it more playable. Today, Birmingham West is still not back to being a Donald Ross design, but it sure is an authentic Pete Dye design.
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The sister course to nearby Willow Point and operated by developer Russell Lands, Wicker Point rides up and down the forested hills of Lake Martin in east-central Alabama, climbing into the highlands before dipping down to the water where five different greens kiss the shore. Architects Bill Coore and Ben Crenshaw used the sometimes abrupt topography to create strategic slide slopes, speed slots and the occasional hit-and-hope blind shot to keep players alert and thinking. When Wicker Point’s show-stopping cross-cove par 3s at 12 and 17 were being constructed, Coore and Crenshaw were simultaneously building stunning seaside par 3 holes at Te Arai in New Zealand (the 17th hole at the South Course) and along the rocky Atlantic bluffs at Cabot Saint Lucia (particularly the 16th and 17th). Coore joked to his respective shapers of each hole that it was going to be a competition to see which turned out the best. Most golfers will agree there are no losers in this scenario.
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Previous rank: 1
Asked if a course could be built in a Birmingham forest, Jack Nicklaus scouted the site from lumber haul roads and said of the mountainous terrain, “Well, there are a lot of par 3s out there, that’s for sure.” But then he discovered a gentle valley in which to put par 4s and 5s, so he took the job. It became one of his great early designs. But as it neared 40 years of existence, Shoal Creek needed some reconditioning, so Nicklaus and his former senior designer Jim Lipe (now operating his own firm in Louisiana) literally ripped up every hole and rethought strategies and options. The result was not a restoration but an updating. Gone are huge fairway bunkers, replaced by smaller clusters of traps. Greens have been recontoured, with one, the 12th, actually flowing front to back, unheard of back in the late 1970s when the course was first built. Shoal Creek has twice hosted the PGA Championship and the remodeled layout hosted the 2018 U.S. Women’s Open, won by Ariya Jutanugarn in a four-hole playoff over Hoo-joo Kim.
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