Our last stop on the trail was at Hampton Cove where our morning round was scheduled on the River Course. We got out a few minutes early and hacked our way around in four hours, seeing just two other groups!

When I say “hacked” that is exactly what I mean! I’m just finishing this review (about a month after playing) and feel like I should still be out on the course dropping balls, after hitting it in the water! The River Course is difficult, up there with the Judge in that regards.

The thing that makes the course so difficult is that there is a lot of water in play. That wasn’t exactly what I was expecting since Hampton Cove is in a mountainous area on the southeast side of Huntsville. Actually, the course has a wetlands feel to it, without any elevation change.

The Flint River borders a couple holes, but it shouldn’t come into play. However, there have to be a dozen or more water hazards on the course. I basically cleaned out all the crappy golf balls from my bag, ha. So, there is your warning – bring a lot of golf balls! For reference, we played the orange tees which are 6764/72.8/134.

As mentioned, the water is going to be the biggest difficulty. However, the fairways are wide for the most part and there are some bail out areas. If you know the angles and wide points of the fairways you can play to those and limit mistakes.

The greens themselves aren’t small when it comes to square footage, but they are typically raised ever so slightly above the level of the fairway and have water that zig-zags around the edges of them.

I don’t know that there is a signature hole on the River Course, but the stretch from the 11th to the 14th was the most memorable for me. It features three mid-length par-4’s with two of them requiring pin-point approaches and another one needing a great tee shot. The last hole in that stretch is a long par-3 over water.

The signature design feature is probably that there aren’t any bunkers on the course! That’s unique and I don’t recall the last time I played a course without sand.

The conditions on the River Course were fine. The fairways had some different grasses and were shaggy in spots, but nothing that a mow couldn’t fix. There were a couple sanded sections on the greens and they rolled slower than they looked – that seemed to be a common theme on the trail courses though. The greens rolled smooth.

If I’m honest, the River Course kind of got under my skin. It isn’t a terrible place, but it wasn’t a “fun” course to play on vacation. I much preferred the Highlands Course! As always though, I suggest that you make up your own mind.

Course Pictures (click any picture to scroll through the gallery):