The home facility for the University of South Alabama men’s golf program is the Magnolia Grove Golf Course, part of the Robert Trent Jones Trail in Alabama. It includes two championship 18-hole courses and an 18-hole par-3 course as well as a driving range, putting and chipping greens, and practice bunkers for the Jaguars to work on their game.
The property at Magnolia Grove includes creeks, marshland, and lakes, with each of the 54 holes carved from a thick forest of hardwood and pine. Magnolia Grove was recently voted into Golf World Magazine’s Reader’s Choice Top 50 Public Courses. The Falls and Crossings courses were also named by Golf Digest’s Places to Play as two of the nation’s Great Value courses, and both courses were listed in America’s Top 50 Affordable Courses. The Crossings course plays host to the Avnet LPGA Classic held each spring.
Mobile, a top 10 golf area according to Golf Digest, offers year-round golfing weather.
The Crossings course, which doubles across railroad tracks, is a shot maker’s layout. The course was renovated in 2009 with newly designed green complexes and extensive tree removal. Several holes were entirely redesigned with new water features, including the par-3 fourteenth hole.
The Falls course is characterized by large, liberally contoured greens and massive, cloverleaf bunkers. On the 10th, a 570-yard par five and possibly the best strategic hole on the course, a waterfall cascades just beneath a contoured green that falls eight feet from front to back.
For a tour of the course, scorecard information and other items of interest, visit the Magnolia Grove Golf Course on the web.
