Dateline May 27, 2012, Capitol Hill, Magnolia Grove, and the End of the Trail
On to Montgomery for the next stop, the Capitol Hill complex.
We stayed at Gunter Hill Park, a National Campground built by the Army Corps of Engineers as part of their work on the Alabama River around Montgomery. The campsites sit right on backwaters off the river. The fishing is supposed to be excellent. Many thanks to all our taxpaying friends, because the site was sixteen dollars a night, including power, water, and clean restrooms and showers.
First night in, Pete and Bunny had a propane leak in their Roadtrek. Fortunately it was venting outside. The first order of business in the morning was getting their RV in for repair.
We then headed over to Capitol Hill for our first round on The Legislator.
The Legislator is the more traditional of the three Capitol Hill courses, playing in and out of pines along a bluff. A wonderful layout. It was an interesting round because we got pulled off at the third hole for lightning. After an hour we returned, finished the seventh, and got pulled off again. With Pete and Bunny's Roadtrek pickup at 5:00, we took a rain check to finish the round later in the week. John and Bunny were leading Pete and Janice at the suspension.
In the morning, Bunny complained of another gas leak. Pete assured her it was just swamp gas and not to worry.
Day two at Capitol Hill, The Judge. You can have all the courtroom jokes you want, and we did. The starter sits on a bluff overlooking downtown Montgomery, and below the bluff is the course, with the Alabama River's backwaters glittering through it. The first tee sits two hundred feet above the fairway, with the layout that Robert Trent Jones designed to put the round in trouble before it had started. The fairway has a crown down the middle, so any ball that drifts left or right goes into the cypress swamp or into the water on the right. Welcome to The Judge.
The course has fourteen holes adjoining the water and a stunning bulkhead island green. It is long and it is hard, and it is the most fun of the three courses at Capitol Hill. The Judge is described as simply magnificent. It is, and it takes you to your knees. John and Bunny took the match over Pete and Janice.
After the round, a few beers and then we cooked catfish back at the campsite. Long day of golf ahead in the morning.
Day three at Capitol Hill we played The Senator first, then went back to finish the rained-out Legislator round. The Senator is a Scottish-links course with bent grass greens, more than 160 pot bunkers, and mounds twenty to forty feet high. Every hole feels tucked in by itself, as if you are the only foursome on the course. The Senator was set to host the Navistar LPGA Classic that September. Wilsons against Warenskis. The match ended in our first tie of the trip. Half a point to each player.
With the Senator finished, we went back to the eighth hole on The Legislator to complete the rained-out round. The eighth and ninth play along the Alabama River. Then the Sky Bridge takes you down to the back nine, over cypress swamps that line many of the fairways before the last few holes climb back up to the bluff and the clubhouse.
The Legislator turned out to be one of our favorite courses of the trip. We were beat after 29 holes of golf. Bunny and John held on to take the match.
Standings after Capitol Hill: Bunny 6.5, John 7.5, Pete 4.5, Janice 2.5.
A note before we leave Montgomery. The Warenskis have been an absolute pleasure to travel with. The golf has been a blast and the handicaps have made the competition genuinely fair, with one wrinkle: Janice has the lowest handicap of the four of us, which means she has been giving strokes to all of us, every round, all trip. That is the game.
From Montgomery we drove down to Mobile for the last two rounds on the Trail. Magnolia Grove.
The Magnolia Grove property includes creeks, marshland, and lakes, with all 54 holes carved out of thick hardwood and pine. It was recently voted onto Golf World Magazine's Reader Choice Top 50 Public Courses, and both the Falls and the Crossings made Golf Digest's Great Value list along with America's Top 50 Affordable Courses. The Crossings hosts the Mobile Bay LPGA Classic each April.
We played the Crossings first, as our last match between the Wilsons and the Warenskis. Pete and Bunny beat the heck out of us. We were three down with three to play. Then the Wilsons stole the 16th and the 17th to get to one down, and Pete and Bunny nailed the coffin closed on the 18th. Final, two up. The Crossings, which doubles across actual railroad tracks, is a shot-maker's course. It had been renovated in 2009 with new green complexes and extensive tree removal, including a complete redesign of the par-three fourteenth. A pleasure to play.
That left the final round on Saturday morning, the Falls Course, and we had decided in advance that the last day would be individual stroke play, with net scores, awarded as four points for first, three for second, two for third, and one for fourth. Coming in, Janice was the only one out of mathematical contention for the overall trip. With the strokes she had been giving away all trip, even her lowest-handicap couldn't quite catch up. But she could still win the Individual.
Off to the Falls. The Falls Course is characterized by large, contoured greens and massive cloverleaf bunkers.
On the tenth, a 570-yard par-five and possibly the strongest hole on the course, a waterfall cascades just below a green that drops eight feet from front to back.
The course was a pleasure to play. And Janice played it. She shot 78 from the men's white tees and won the Individual outright. Pete second, John beat Bunny by a single stroke for third. Final overall standings: John 9.5, Bunny 8.5, Pete 8.5, Janice 6.5. A great ending to thirteen rounds of golf over some magnificent courses, and the right person walked off the last green with the last win.
Our campsite in Mobile was Meaher Alabama State Park, 1,327 acres in the wetlands of Mobile Bay. Day-use picnicking and scenic park with modern campsite hookups and a bathhouse, a boat ramp and fishing pier, and two self-guided nature trails including a boardwalk out over the Mobile Delta. The wildlife was sensational. An alligator came to check the campers out one morning for breakfast.
A few evenings of sunset cocktails. On the last night we drove over to Felix's Fish Camp on Mobile Bay, a place both Yelp and the locals rated highly. They were right. As the sun set over Mobile, we said goodbye to the Robert Trent Jones Trail.
We had no idea how the trip would turn out when we started. We were excited to play the courses, and to use the Roadtrek as our hotel and our restaurant. The trip went beyond what we had hoped. A blast with Pete and Bunny, golf, the Trail, the bartenders, the state parks, the alligator. We are already thinking about doing this in another state, maybe Missouri, maybe Louisiana. It is always sad to end an adventure, but heading home for a few weeks was a good feeling, especially with a storm forming in the Atlantic that the news kept saying was headed straight for northern Florida.
We spent Sunday on the road and got back to Flagler Beach in time to watch the waves crashing into the pier. Once we were inside and turned on the TV, we saw the national news reports about the major storm hitting Flagler Beach, with pictures of our local pier looking very dramatic. The reality on the ground: a little rain and wind, never lost power. The weather shows are quite a thing.
Stay tuned for the summer. We are home for a few weeks, then up to Gettysburg for our son James's wedding to Mary Albin, and from there on to eastern Canada.
