Audubon Golf Course

Overview: Audubon Park Golf Course brings a compact, highly distinctive form of golf to the centre of New Orleans. Denis Griffiths’s redesign uses contoured Bermuda fairways, Tif-Eagle greens, four lagoons and a canopy of century-old live oaks to create a par-62 course that is short on the scorecard but rich in angles and hazards. The 18-hole layout measures about 4,220 yards and includes twelve par threes, four par fours and two par fives. Its appeal is the contrast between a city park setting and the precision required around the lagoons, tree lines and carefully maintained green complexes.

History: Golf has been part of the Audubon Park story for more than a century, on land associated with the former 1884 World’s Fair site. The park’s golf tradition dates to 1898, while Denis Griffiths’s modern redesign dates to 2001 and gave the historic setting a new routing and playing surfaces without losing its mature landscape. Audubon became the first property in Louisiana to achieve certification through the Audubon International Signature Program and was designated a Certified Silver Signature Sanctuary in 2004. The course therefore joins recreation, urban history and environmental stewardship in one compact property.

Did You Know? Audubon Park Golf Course has twelve par threes, four par fours and only two par fives. That unusual composition makes the 18-hole round a study in short-game precision and trajectory control rather than a conventional long-course test.