Hampton Cove, Alamaba

I'm going to be straight with you. I don't remember much about Hampton Cove.

We played the Highlands course as part of our RTJ Trail trip and it was fine. Good golf, decent shape, nothing wrong with it. But when I sit down to write this a few weeks later there is no single hole or moment that jumps out and grabs me. And I think that says something. Not everything on a golf trip has to be a highlight. Sometimes a course is just a course.

Hampton Cove is the northern gateway to the RTJ Trail, located in Huntsville. It's a 54-hole facility with three separate courses. The Highlands, the River, and a Short Course. We only had time for the Highlands which is apparently what most visitors play first. Robert Trent Jones Sr. and Roger Rulewich designed it back in 1992.

The Highlands has a bit of a split personality. Some holes feel like Scottish links with open terrain and long waving fescue grasses framing the fairways. Others are tree-lined and more traditionally American parkland. The terrain rolls throughout and there are some elevation changes but nothing as dramatic as what we'd already played at Silver Lakes. After the Appalachian foothills at Silver Lakes, the hills at Hampton Cove felt gentler. Less demanding on the legs. Less demanding overall, if I'm honest.

Water comes into play on about 13 of the 18 holes which on paper sounds terrifying but in practice most of it is avoidable if you're thinking clearly off the tee. The greens are big and they were in reasonable condition when we played. Not the lightning-fast Ultradwarf surfaces we had at Silver Lakes but decent. Every green has at least one bunker guarding it so your approach shots need to be somewhat precise. The fairways were wide enough that driver felt comfortable on most holes.

There is an old mule barn next to the 5th fairway that is apparently one of the most recognizable landmarks on the entire Trail. I remember seeing it. I remember thinking it looked nice. That's about it. If a barn is the most talked-about feature of your golf course, that might tell you where the course sits in the pecking order.

The closing stretch on the Highlands is where the course shows some teeth. Holes 16 and 17 bring water into serious play on the approach shots. The 17th especially plays longer than it looks and the wind tends to be in your face which makes club selection tricky. Those last few holes are the part of the round where you feel like you're actually being tested rather than just enjoying a pleasant walk with a golf club.

The clubhouse is standard RTJ Trail. Functional, clean, big pro shop, restaurant and bar inside. The staff were friendly. The GPS on the carts was useful and had detailed green maps which helped with reading putts on a course we'd never seen before. No complaints about the operation. Everything worked the way it should.

Here is where I have to be fair. We played Hampton Cove after Silver Lakes. And Silver Lakes had set the bar extremely high. The greens at Silver Lakes were the best we'd encounter on the whole trip. The routing through those Appalachian forests was wild and memorable. The Heartbreaker and Backbreaker nines had holes that I can still picture clearly weeks later. Coming from that to Hampton Cove's Highlands was always going to feel like a step down regardless of how good the course actually is. Context matters. If we had played Hampton Cove first it might have blown us away. But we didn't and it didn't.

We also didn't play the River course which I slightly regret now that I've read more about it. It's the only Robert Trent Jones design in the world that has no bunkers at all. Not one. Instead it uses water on nearly every hole and massive old oak trees to defend par. That sounds genuinely unique and different enough from everything else on the Trail that it might have changed my impression of the whole stop. The Short Course is also supposed to be strong with water on 11 of its holes. If you're going to Hampton Cove I'd say plan for at least two rounds so you can experience both the Highlands and the River. One course alone probably doesn't justify the detour unless you're already in Huntsville.

Speaking of which. Huntsville is actually a real city with proper hotels and restaurants, which after the Fairfield Inn disaster near Silver Lakes was a welcome change. You can stay somewhere decent and not feel like you're roughing it. That's a practical advantage Hampton Cove has over some of the more remote Trail stops.

The value is good. Greens fees are in the same range as Silver Lakes, well under $100, which for 18 holes on a Robert Trent Jones design is a bargain by any standard. The RTJ Trail in general offers insane value compared to what you'd pay for equivalent courses in Europe or on the American coasts and Hampton Cove is no exception.

Would I go back? Honestly I'd want to play the River course before making that call. The Highlands on its own didn't leave a strong enough impression to pull me back. It's solid golf in a pleasant setting and there's nothing wrong with that. But on a Trail that includes Silver Lakes and Ross Bridge and the courses we played further south, solid is not quite enough to stand out. If you're doing the full Trail, play it. If you're cherry-picking your stops and only have time for a few, Hampton Cove might be the one you skip. Unless you're curious about a bunkerless Robert Trent Jones course, in which case the River might be the most interesting round on the whole trip. I just wouldn't know because I didn't play it.