Oxmoor Valley, Alabama

Oxmoor Valley is golf on steroids.

Two courses in one day. Both of them great. No loudspeakers. No drama. Just golf. After some of the experiences we'd had earlier on the RTJ Trail, Oxmoor Valley felt like a reward.

It sits just south of Birmingham on old U.S. Steel mining land, about two miles from Ross Bridge. Same part of town, completely different feel. Ross Bridge is the resort experience with the big hotel and the waterfall and the tournament pedigree. Oxmoor Valley is the workhorse. Two full 18-hole championship courses called the Ridge and the Valley, plus a short course called the Back Yard. No hotel attached. No spa. Just a clubhouse and 36 holes of serious golf carved out of Appalachian forest.

We played Ridge in the morning and Valley in the afternoon. That's the right order. Trust me on this.

The Ridge hits you from the first tee. You stand up there looking down at the fairway maybe 150 feet below you and realize this is going to be a very different kind of golf course. The elevation changes on the Ridge are some of the most dramatic we encountered on the entire Trail. Roller coaster is the word that keeps coming up in every review and it's the right word. Fairways tilt and drop and rise and tilt again. You spend the entire round hitting from uneven lies. Ball above your feet, ball below your feet, uphill, downhill, sidehill. It never stops. If you struggle with uneven lies this course will expose that within three holes.

The first hole is a downhill par 4 that sets the tone perfectly. Then you get back-to-back par 5s on holes 2 and 3 which is an unusual routing choice but it works because they play so differently. The 3rd has its green tucked into a shelf of exposed shale rock which is a nod to the mining history of the land. It looks incredible. Like the mountain just opened up and someone put a green in there. The par-3 8th plays dramatically downhill and the whole front nine feels like a ride through the ridgeline with views through the pines in every direction.

The back nine settles down slightly but not much. The tree cover is heavy throughout and there's barely a house or road in sight anywhere on the course. For a facility this close to downtown Birmingham that's remarkable. It feels wild and isolated in a way that some of the other Trail courses don't manage. The greens are big and undulating, classic RTJ, and every single one seemed to be elevated above the fairway. Club selection on approaches is critical. Short is dead.

We grabbed lunch at the clubhouse between rounds. Same menu as every other RTJ clubhouse. Same burgers, same wraps. I've complained about this already in my Shoals review and I won't go on about it again but it's worth repeating that when you're playing a different RTJ course every day the food monotony is real. Anyway. We ate, we rested, we went back out.

The Valley course was renovated in 2021 and it shows. New tees, new bunkers, TifEagle greens. It's a totally different animal from the Ridge. Where the Ridge is all about elevation and drama, the Valley runs through the lower part of the property along creeks and through more shaded forest. It's flatter. Not flat, but compared to what we'd just done on the Ridge it felt almost gentle. The fairways are a bit wider, the lies a bit more predictable, the whole thing a bit more traditional.

That's not a criticism. After 18 holes of the Ridge roller coaster, playing the Valley felt like switching from espresso to a good filter coffee. Still strong, still quality, just calmer. The water comes more into play on the Valley with creeks crossing fairways and ponds guarding greens. Some of the holes along the creek are really pretty in a quiet understated way. No waterfalls, no shale cliffs, just nice golf through the trees with water glinting through the gaps.

If I had to pick one I'd play the Ridge. It's the more memorable course, the more dramatic course, the course you talk about afterwards. But playing both in a day gives you such a good contrast that it makes each one better. The Ridge on its own might feel exhausting. The Valley on its own might feel a little plain. Together they complement each other perfectly and the fact that you can do 36 holes at the same facility without it feeling repetitive says a lot about how different the two routings are.

Here's the thing about Oxmoor Valley that elevated it to one of the best stops on the trip. It was quiet. We had space. Nobody was blasting music. Nobody was holding us up. The pace was good, the courses were in excellent shape, and we just played golf. After Silver Lakes with the JBL tailgate party and Ross Bridge with the guys who didn't understand the concept of quiet, having a clean day of uninterrupted golf felt almost exotic. Maybe the bar had been lowered by that point. But walking off the Valley course in the late afternoon with 36 holes done and nothing to complain about was genuinely one of the best feelings of the entire trip.

We were staying at the Ross Bridge resort which is maybe a five-minute drive away. So the logistics were perfect. Play Oxmoor during the day, sleep at the nice hotel at night, play Ross Bridge the next morning. If you're building a Birmingham leg of your RTJ trip that's exactly how I'd structure it. Three rounds over two days, two completely different properties, one hotel. It's the most convenient pairing on the whole Trail.

Price-wise Oxmoor Valley is cheaper than Ross Bridge. Somewhere around $95 per round with a cart. For two rounds on two courses of this quality that's outstanding value. Even among the RTJ Trail which is already cheap by any international standard, Oxmoor Valley stands out as a place where you get more than you pay for.

The Ridge is a top-three course on the Trail for me along with Ross Bridge and Silver Lakes. The Valley is probably middle of the pack on its own but as part of a 36-hole day at Oxmoor it punches above its weight. Play both. Do the Ridge first while your legs are fresh and your head can handle the elevation. Save the Valley for the afternoon when you want something slightly more civilised. And enjoy the silence.

Oxmoor Valley

Oxmoor Valley

Oxmoor Valley