Golfing on the Gulf Coast
October 16, 2009

From the article “Golfing on the Gulf Coast” by Dan Vukelich in the Chicago Sun Times:
Bill Kurtz can’t go more than a few months without wriggling his toes into white sugar-sand beaches. Long before the first frost, he’ll map out the 15-hour drive from west suburban Oak Park to Gulf Shores, Ala.“We’ve been going down there for 40 years and I can tell you the beaches of L.A. and Hawaii don’t hold a candle to the beaches down there,” Kurtz says. Atlantic beaches are closer; the Carolinas are two-thirds of the driving distance. But for Kurtz, there’s only one place that can guarantee warm water and white sand: the Gulf Coast. And in recent years, more visitors have been packing their golf clubs along with their bathing suits and sunscreen. Just west of the Florida Panhandle, Alabama’s 32 miles of shoreline on the Gulf of Mexico is a magnet for sun-starved Midwest families who make up a whopping 20 percent of the area’s 255,000 annual visitors, according to the Alabama Gulf Coast Convention & Visitors Bureau.

The “Redneck Riviera,” an out-of-date pejorative, started as a downscale collection of beach cottages for southern vacationers. Some ramshackle wooden beachfront homes on stilts remain, but ever fewer survive each passing hurricane season. Replacing them are 10- and 12-story concrete condo towers and swanky beach houses. Over the years, Gulf Shores and Orange Beach, Ala., developed a reputation for summer and winter charter-boat fishing and water sports. In the mid 1990s, the area began developing as a shoulder-season golf destination, too. The Gulf Shores Golf Association now boasts a diverse collection of 10 first-rate golf courses. Availability of some 22,000 condos and beach-house units can cut lodging costs drastically for road-tripping golf buddies. Each player can pay as little as $65 a night for foursomes or larger, says Duncan Millar, executive director of the association. Once you’ve driven 900 miles to get there, it’s not likely you’ll want to spend much time in the car. The Gulf Coast’s courses are tightly clustered. None is more than a 40-minute drive from the other; most are about 15 minutes apart. Best times to visit are March and April and September and October, when daytime highs are in the 70s. Gulf Shores’ annual National Shrimp Festival wrapped up this weekend. The nearby town of Fairhope, on the eastern shore of Mobile Bay, attracts 300,000 for its arts and crafts festival in March. Playing conditions along the Gulf compare favorably to those at other Southern golf destinations, and the variety of golf-course terrain will surprise players used to the ironing-board flatness of Florida.

Greens fees average $70 a round at designs by Arnold Palmer, Jay Morrish, Jerry Pate, Bruce Devlin, Earl Stone and Robert Van Hagge. Choose from an easily walked track winding through an Audubon-certified marshland (Lost Key Golf Club), or courses that rise and fall over massive natural dunes (Kiva Dunes, Glenlakes Golf Club), or play through Loblolly-pine and magnolia forests evocative of Augusta or Pinehurst (The Golf Club at the Warf, Rock Creek, Peninsula, Timber Creek, Craft Farms). If you gravitate to top-shelf golf, Craft Farms’ two 18-hole courses, Cypress Bend and Cotton Creek, and Kiva Dunes deliver superb conditions at peak rates of just $89. Kiva Dunes just reopened after re-grassing its greens with a new Bermuda-grass variant that is less grainy. If you’ve come to view Bermuda as squirrely to putt on, you’re in for a pleasant surprise. Putts on the new Champion Ultra-dwarf roll about as true as they do on bent-grass greens.

For the complete article see http://www.suntimes.com/lifestyles/travel/1816513,gulf-coast-alabama-golf-shore-101109.article#

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2009
 Later school start
  a boost to Alabama economy
 10 Great New Getaways
  in Alabama
 Helen Keller statute
 Golfing on the Gulf Coast
 Fall is perfect time for
  an Alabama adventure
 Beach reports strong
  July tourism numbers
 Lucy Buffett to emcee
  tourism awards banquet
 Gulf State Park announces
  Geocaching activities
 New Pier at
  Gulf State Park opens
 Grand opening
  and ribbon cutting of the new
  Gulf State Park Pier
 Lucy Buffett
  makes appearance
  on the “TODAY” show
 Gulf State Park pier
  opens July 23
 Accuweather.com predicts
  drop in Gulf hurricanes
  for 2009
 Alabama deep sea fishing
  has one of the 10 greatest
  fishing tournaments
 Gulfront condo reservations
 Alabama Gulf Coast trail
  named National Recreation
  Trail for 2009
 Lee Sentell interviewed on
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 Tips for planning
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 Vacation rentals vs. hotels:
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 Alabama beaches
  expecting strong summer
 Five things to do on vacation
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 Alabama's new
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 Governor Riley signs
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 Comparison in tourism growth
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 Alabama Tourism
  up 3 percent in 2008
 LuLu’s recognized
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 Price Guarantee available
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  coming to Orange Beach, Al
 Orange Beach & Gulf Shores
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 Alabama Governor
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  expected to open in May
 Feds: Gulf Shores
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 Miss Gulf Shores High School
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  Orange Beach & Gulf Shores
 The Wall Street Journal:
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  beach front condos available

2008
 Healthy vacation recipes
 Alabama Gulf Coast vacations
 Autumn on the
  Alabama Gulf Coast
 National Shrimp Festival
 Hurricane Gustav update
 Hurricane Gustav
 Gulf Shores Condos
 Tourism carries its weight
 Find cheap airfares online
 Construction begins
  on Gulf State Park pier
 Publix Super Market
  coming to Orange Beach
 Things to look for in
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 Pictures of Gulf Shores
 Gulf Shores
  computer repair
 Perdido Key
  attractions for everyone
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 Gulf Shores condos
 Sandy Key Perdido:
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  for the whole family