 RTJ TRAIL NOTEBOOK
Things you thought you knew, need to know and wish you never found outBy Derek Duncan, ATLANTA (Oct. 1, 2003) -- The Robert Trent Jones Golf Trail in Alabama, a unified system of golf courses spanning eight cities comprised of 378 holes (with more on the way), is even more daunting to summarize concisely than it is to play. The following are random notes, facts, and figures that may lead to a better, and possibly more confused, understanding of this remarkable golf destination. In case you hadn't heard, the Trail courses are difficult. They're also long. Lead architect Roger Rulewich, an associate of the late Robert Trent Jones for 34 years, worked alongside project manager Bobby Vaughan for three years to bring the courses to life. Difficulty and length were mandates from the beginning.
---Four sites have hosted professional tour events (Capitol Hill, Grand National, Highland Oaks, and Magnolia Grove) including NIKE TOUR and BUY.COM TOUR Championships and the LPGA Tournament of Champions. The Judge at Capitol Hill will host the Nationwide Tour Championship in late October 2003. ---The longest course on the Trail is The Judge at Capitol Hill measuring 7,779 yards, followed by The Senator at the same site (7,726), the Highlands/Marshwood combination at Highland Oaks (7,704), and the Heartbreaker/Backbreaker course at Silver Lakes (7,674). ---The shortest championship yardage is The Ridge Course at Oxmoor Valley at 7,055 yards. It's also the most vertical course on the Trail.
As a collection the Silver Lakes greens are the most highly contoured in a system of courses renowned for exaggerated putting surfaces. Some of the best (most severe): Mindbreaker's double plateau first, Heartbreaker'ss wavy first and second, and Backbreaker's stair-cased third and melted cheese fourth. ---Other unforgettable greens throughout the Trail: the stepped seventh at Links (Grand National); the double green ninths at Cambrian Ridge; Loblolly's tilted fourth at Cambrian Ridge; The Fall's 10th at Magnolia Grove; the roller-coaster sixth at The Judge; two, three, 10, 11, and 14 at the Ridge, and the Valley's humped ninth and 11th at Oxmoor Valley; Highland's fifth, sixth, and four-tiered 12th, and the River's slippery eighth and ninth.
---The Judge boasts both the highest rating (77.8) and slope (144) of any course on the Trail. ---These are wildly entertaining courses from an architectural standpoint. In addition to the massive, frequently nausea-inducing greens that offer a sinister assortment of tucked pin possibilities, there are several other themes consistent throughout much of the trail. The bunkers are large and irregularly cut, coming straight from the George Thomas school of shaping (or would that be the old Robert Trent Jones school?). Their edges are often left rough giving them a splendid raw and intimidating look.
Bunker placement also is worthy of study. Many of the Trail's uphill holes feature smallish bunkers in excessively wide fairways, as well as bunker complexes set short of and well below the greens. These arrangements distort scale and create the illusion of length -- standing on the tee the player swears a 375-yard par-4 is really 450 yards, or that a par four must be a long par-5. Other notable architectural features include the repetition of grassy knobs set just in front of the greens to obscure the putting surface, slopes and ramps in the fairway to give turbo boosts to well-struck drives, greens with lower hidden rear sections, greens that are deep and narrow or wide and shallow, and the use of four-tiered "stair step" putting surfaces. ---Strategically the Trail courses are some of the most thought provoking in the South. Rulewich is not averse to placing bunkers directly in the line of charm or protruding into play at angles or at the corners of doglegs, forcing the decision to go over or around them.
Green orientations are also strategically clinical. Almost always the long and deep greens are cocked to the line of play making angle of attack and pin position both crucial and variable day-to-day. The design also tips its hat to the classics. Mindbreaker's seventh at Silver Lakes is a variation of C.B. MacDonald's "Bottle" hole, and the fifth hole at the Sherling nine at Cambrian Ridge is a very good "Cape" hole. The tee shot at the par-3 16th at The Judge (256 yards, elevated over water) is as close as most of us will get to Cypress Point's 16th. ---Fun features on the Trail: a Mule Barn at Hampton Cove; a green and subsequent tee atop shale outcroppings at Oxmoor Valley; hunting blinds surrounding Cambrian Ridge; an old Civil War dam at Oxmoor Valley; a tee box built on a dock in a swamp at The Judge.
The secret killer at each site is the deep bermuda rough surrounding the greens. Balls routinely settle at the bottom of the grass rendering chip and pitch shots unpredictable at best. ---Though general connections can be made there is no straight line between the Trail designs and what might be considered a Robert Trent Jones style. So do they typify a Rulewich style -- instead? "I don't think you can separate [the two] because I worked with Jones for 34 years," he says. "What I did here (on the Trail) probably was an outgrowth of all the things I'd been doing for Jones for so long. So the style, if it's Jones' style it was my style, it was the one I had learned and worked with and modified and changed with Jones over the years. "I don't think you can say his style stayed the same. I think there were many changes to things as we continued to work together." ---As grandiose a project as building the Trail courses was, the process was far from a highly planned technical march. Much of the design work was done in the field, on the fly. "We had layouts and routings for [the courses] and really in some cases we were into construction merely by taking that plan and having the center-line staked out and then Bobby and I would go down and start walking out the clearing," Rulewich says. "It was a great way to build golf courses." ---Two new complexes, one in Hoover and one near Muscle Shoals, are tentatively slated to open in late 2004. Early word is one site is being designed with a PGA TOUR event in mind and the other is located on bluffs overlooking Lake Wilson on the Tennessee River. For more information and reservation information on the Robert Trent Jones Golf Trail, dial 1-800-949-4444, or visit rtjgolf.com. Any opinions expressed above are those of the writer and do not necessarily represent the views of the management. The information in this story was accurate at the time of publication. All contact information, directions and prices should be confirmed directly with the golf course or resort before making reservations and/or travel plans. |
---An
informal ranking of the Trail's most difficult venues would begin
with Silver Lakes. Why? It's not length (each course has four sets of
flexible tees so there's always a comfortable set-up to chose from) but
rather that so many approach shots play uphill to blind putting surfaces.
Often all that can be seen is the top of the flagstick waving over a field
of rough and bunkers.
---After
Silver Lakes, the most severe tests are, in no particular order,
The Judge, Lake at Grand National, and the Sherling/Canyon course at Cambrian
Ridge.
There
are very few level lies anywhere on the Trail. Travelgolf.com will give
you a dollar for every level stance you find at Oxmoor Valley or Cambrian
Ridge.
Silver
Lakes, Grand National, and the Highlands Course at Hampton Cove offer
the best opportunities for strategic, option rich driving.
---Missing
greens on the 
