Contraband Bayou Golf Club

Overview: Contraband Bayou Golf Club in Lake Charles is a Tom Fazio design that makes Louisiana’s marsh and lowland environment the central architectural feature. The resort course measures 7,077 yards and plays to par 71, with a mixture of long and short par fours, water-influenced approaches and par threes that demand controlled distance rather than brute force alone. Fazio’s routing uses the flat coastal site to create width, angles and favourable or awkward bounces, while the marsh edges give the holes a strong regional identity. The course is a strategic resort layout, but it has enough variety and tournament scale to reward careful course management.

History: Contraband Bayou was completed in 2005 as part of the golf offering at L’Auberge Casino Resort in Lake Charles. It is notable as Tom Fazio’s only public course in Louisiana, and contemporary coverage described the design as a 7,077-yard, par-71 track shaped by the area’s natural marshes and lowlands. The course later became part of the wider Lake Charles golf and resort landscape, where it sits close to other Audubon Trail courses. Its history is consequently tied both to Fazio’s design work and to the growth of the city’s casino-resort district.

Did You Know? The 10th hole was described in early course coverage as a 611-yard par five under the original configuration. It demonstrates the scale of the layout, while the shorter par threes show that the course’s challenge is not built only around length.