A True Distillation
in a City That Knows
All About Distillations
Audubon Park Golf Course
New Orleans, Louisiana
Date: December 1, 2019
Greens fee: $26 (twilight walking 18 plus push cart)
Saying that you’ve “visited New Orleans” is a bit like saying that you spent the weekend in Europe; New Orleans is a collection of neighborhoods, each of them unique and irreplaceably woven into the fabric of America’s most remarkable city. Understanding New Orleans requires understanding its neighborhoods.
Your mileage may vary, but Uptown is my favorite. It’s a pleasant intersection of New Orleans’ eccentricities, but at arm’s length from the extremes: nowhere near as chaotic and touristy as the French Quarter, nor quite as polished and perfect as the Garden District. Uptown is New Orleans in a nutshell: a little dirty, a little quirky — and above all else, comfortable.
In New Orleans, refreshment is never far away.
Audubon Park Golf Course in southwest Uptown, perhaps a half-mile from the Mississippi River, is the neighborhood’s crown jewel and arguably the most important golf course in Louisiana. The course makes up most of the northern half of its namesake park, but just as New Orleans’ neighborhoods come together to form a unique whole, the golf course is not only in the park — it is part of the park. It offers beautiful views of nearby Loyola University; joggers and dog-walkers meander up and down the paths that run along the course’s edges. Audubon Park is perhaps the closest thing that America offers to golf in the Scottish tradition: a golf course that truly belongs to its community, not only because it is a public course, but because it is literally accessible to everyone — golfers and otherwise. If there is a golf course anywhere in America that is better integrated into an urban environment, then I have not seen it.
The late-afternoon sun peeks through the leaves of a greenside live oak on the back nine at Audubon Park Golf Course.
And like Scotland’s greatest courses, Audubon Park’s accessibility includes financial accessibility: even for non-residents, the greens fee never rises above $60, and walking 18 with a pull cart on a weekday afternoon costs just $26. To top it all off, Audubon Park’s patio is one of the great post-round hangouts in the South: tucked beneath a grove of moss-draped live oaks, with two tees boxes and the 18th green within shouting distance.
It’s a vibe that Audubon Park has been cultivating for more than 120 years. And by now, it’s just about perfect.
. . .
Golf has been played at Audubon Park for nearly as long as LSU has played football. Audubon Golf Club formed in 1901, but golf has been played in the park since at least 1898. And Audubon Park wasn’t just early to American golf — it was influential. It was where Joseph Bartholomew, the first renowned African-American golf course architect, caddied and learned to play the game (but because Audubon was segregated, he could not join as a member). Its members were instrumental in the early growth of Mississippi’s first golf club at Pass Christian, and Audubon Park was widely considered one of the top golf courses in the region.
Audubon Park’s small bunkers are avoidable, but the greens that they guard are so tiny that anything off the green is effectively short-sided.
In 2002, a $6 million redesign by Georgia architect Denis Griffiths wisely prioritized fun over chasing distance in an era of increasingly explosive technology. The result today is a superbly maintained par-62 course that tips out at less than 4,200 yards and can be played in under three hours.
But Audubon Park’s distance is deceptive: although it features its share of short holes, the course’s abbreviated yardage is mostly a product of its abundance of par-3s (of which Audubon Park has a dozen). And those par-3s run the gamut from the diminutive seventh hole (96 yards from the tips, 80 yards from the blue tees) to the brawny 17th (212 yards from the tips, 186 yards from the blue tees). Even on the par-4s and par-5s, though, greens are tiny and fairways are narrow, so accuracy must constantly be prioritized.
In that regard, Audubon Park’s first hole is perhaps the most pleasantly misleading (albeit comfortable) introduction possible: a tee shot into a broad fairway that steers gently leftward along a pond, and wedge into the largest green on the course (a double green shared with the 17th hole). I’ve parred No. 1 both times that I’ve played Audubon Park, and I’ve walked off both times certain that it was the first of several low numbers.
Even in a city famous for its excesses, Audubon Park’s rough is a bit much.
Both times, I’ve been wrong. The walk in this park is no walk in the park. The second hole introduces the course’s more common challenge: a par-3 of manageable length (148 yards from the back, 126 yards from the blue tees) but tenacious defense: tiny sand traps, greenside mounding, and water that always creeps up faster than you expect. Don’t let the yardage fool you: play your regular tees.
And there’s the issue of Audubon Park’s only shortcoming, a matter of setup more than architecture: the rough. It’s probably thick throughout the year, but during late autumn’s transition to dormancy, the rough is curly and gnarly, sucking up errant golf balls and pulling them underground. Tucked against such tiny greens, any approach that misses is effectively short-sided, which makes the only possible shot a flop — which, when you’re a 15 handicap, is a 50-50 proposition between a modicum of success and a drowned golf ball.
A center-line bunker forces a decision at Audubon Park’s drivable 14th hole.
Ironically for a course with a bevy of par-3s, Audubon Park’s best hole is a par-4: the truly drivable 14th (282 yards from the tips, 256 yards from the blue tees), where a center-line bunker and a narrow run-up to the green work together to force a player into a strategic gambit off the tee: lay up short of the bunker and leave a longer approach, carry the bunker with a mid-iron and leave a wedge in, or forget the bunker altogether and have a go at the green. None of the options is perfect, but none indulges much margin for error, either; whatever the choice, the player must commit.
But the golf itself is almost secondary at Audubon Park; more than anything else, the round is a stroll through Uptown. The front nine spends most of its time within view of Magazine Street and its foot traffic. The back nine offers glimpse of the rest of the park. Huge, century-old live oaks set the edges of corridors. And at every turn, the sight lines of play are framed by scenes of the city.
. . .
Audubon Park’s short, par-3 fourth hole.
When done right, municipal courses offer America’s best golf experience: easygoing, inexpensive, and a little eccentric. Like the city it calls home, Audubon Park is all those things. Audubon Park isn’t America’s greatest municipal golf course, but it might be the country’s best municipal golf experience. It would be impossible to showcase a setting better than Audubon Park does. In a city famous for distillations, Audubon Park is the rare urban golf course that fits perfectly into its landscape and captures its sense of place.
In a perfect world, every city would have an Audubon Park. But it’s easy to understand why there isn’t: there’s only one New Orleans.
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