The Shoals

The RTJ Trail's northernmost outpost proves that Alabama golf extends far beyond the state's celebrated sand belt, delivering championship-caliber conditions on rolling terrain carved from cotton fields along the Tennessee River. Robert Trent Jones Sr. sculpted dramatic elevation changes rare for the region, with the par-3 17th playing downhill to a peninsula green that demands precise club selection in swirling valley winds. Public golf rarely gets this good in the Tennessee Valley, where pristine Bermuda fairways and lightning-fast greens rival any private club south of Nashville.