My friend’s work schedule for Monday was a bit last minute, so we weren’t able to plan any golf in advance for Monday. Ultimately, he was able to play but as you can imagine on a holiday weekend, tee times were hard to find on short notice. Thankfully we got lucky and were able to find a 9:00am time at Southern Oaks Country Club.

Southern Oaks is in Abbeville, which is about 25 minutes south of Lafayette (where we were staying). While it isn’t the most convenient course to Lafayette, it should be worth the drive as long as you don’t mind playing a shorter course. My friend played here once before and spoke well of it.

I looked at the course on the satellite before playing and honestly, I wasn’t expecting much. However, after golfing here, I was impressed! Really, the only knock against Southern Oaks will be its lack of distance. From the tips, the course tops out at only 6,100 yards. I play so many different golf courses that the lack of distance doesn’t bother me, but I know that is a problem to some golfers. So, steer clear if you don’t like short courses.

Southern Oaks has a lot of history and the new owners have a lot to be proud about. For most of its life (all the way back to the 1920’s) the course was named Vermilion Country Club. In 2017 the course closed and then re-opened in 2019 as Southern Oaks. I’m sure the layout was originally just nine holes, but now it is a full eighteen with a longer front nine and shorter back nine. The front is a par-37 at 3,300 yards while the back is a par-35 at 2,800 yards.

Given the age of the course (old) and its location (in the South), Southern Oaks has plenty of charm to make up for its lack of distance. You’ll find many small, back-to-front sloping greens which make it very difficult to give yourself a birdie putt. The course is out in the Louisiana farmland and one of the state’s many bayous cuts through the middle of the property. Plus, beautiful mature oak trees dot the property.

I’m not sure the course’s rating and slope because oddly, they aren’t listed anywhere on the scorecard. Though, I wouldn’t guess the course is all that difficult based on what I saw. Most of the par-4’s are quite short and the five par-5’s are reachable even for a modest length hitter. Besides the small greens, the one other thing that adds some difficulty are all the pesky ponds that guard the greens! After a quick count I’d say water is in play on over half the holes. For an “easier” course, there is a lot of trouble potentially in play.

My favorite holes at Southern Oaks were the river/bayou holes. The 6th is a fun par-5 that doglegs left and hugs the bayou. The bayou snakes its way up to the green and if you go left then you’ll be hoping the ball stays dry. The 11th is a clever par-3 that plays over another bend in the bayou. It is only 130 yards, but requires a precise short iron. The green complex slopes sharply into the bayou and if you miss long then you’ll face a nearly impossible downhill chip.

I paid $30 to walk on a holiday weekend and the conditions were much better than I anticipated, although I didn’t anticipate much. Like most of the area, Southern Oaks had taken on a lot of water recently. There was standing water all over, but we made the best of it. The fairways were full, but the ball would have sat down if we weren’t playing preferred lies. The greens were great, no spots of trouble and they rolled smooth – just slow with all the rain.

I enjoyed Southern Oaks and would recommend it to the Lafayette golfer. It has a good story, is fun to play and is a nice walk if you are into that part of the game. You can tell that a lot of work has been put into Southern Oaks.

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