MOBILE, Ala. — Golfers who know every dogleg, bunker and soggy fairway at Azalea City Golf Course will get a chance to tell a golf architect what they think. The City of Mobile will host a series of guided walkthrough sessions at the municipal course on Oct. 8 and 9 as part of a study that could lead to a renovation of the nearly 70-year-old layout.
Mayor Spiro Cheriogotis announced that the city has hired Richard Mandell Golf Architecture to prepare a renovation business plan and report for the course. The walkthroughs are built into that contract, giving city staff, golf groups and other stakeholders a chance to walk the property with Mandell and share feedback on playability, design and other concerns.
Azalea City Golf Course walkthroughs at a glance
- What: Walkthrough evaluation sessions with golf course architect Richard Mandell
- When: Three sessions spread across Thursday, Oct. 8, and Friday, Oct. 9
- Where: Azalea City Golf Course, in Langan Park in west Mobile
- Who can take part: Golfers, golf groups, city staff and other stakeholders who sign up
- Purpose: Gather feedback on playability, design and other aspects of the course
- How to join: Participants must sign up in advance for one of the three sessions; the City of Mobile and the course staff can provide registration details
What the architect will evaluate
The walkthroughs are only one piece of Mandell’s assignment. According to the city, he will also review all existing documents on the course and the upgrades that have been made over the years. He will observe how the course is maintained and examine drainage, environmental concerns and other conditions on the property.
At the end of the process, Mandell is to deliver a final plan and report. City officials say that document could become the road map for a potential renovation, though no construction project has been approved.
The city described the study as part of a broader effort to improve Mobile’s parks and public infrastructure.
When the contract was presented to city leaders, it was described as a hole-by-hole evaluation of the 18-hole course covering cart paths, drainage, maintenance, playability and design, with a master plan recommending improvements that could be carried out in phases. The consulting contract was listed at $60,000.
Why the city is taking a hard look
Money is a big part of the conversation. City officials have said the course loses roughly $300,000 a year to operate. Cheriogotis has said the goal should be a course that at least pays its own way.
“It should at least be breaking even,” Cheriogotis said of the course’s finances.
Alongside the architecture study, the city has also looked at technology to improve day-to-day operations. A separate three-year contract of about $68,000 with Tagmarshal, a company that provides GPS tracking for golf carts, was proposed to help the course monitor pace of play in real time and keep carts out of areas where they should not go.
The timing is notable. Mobile County has just opened Cypress Creek Golf Course, a new public 18-hole course on the former Linksman Golf Course site in west Mobile County. That course is operating on a limited, reservation-only schedule while its new turf matures, but it adds another public option for local golfers, and city leaders have pointed to the need for Azalea City to stay competitive in the local market.
A course with PGA Tour history
Azalea City Golf Course opened in 1957 as part of Langan Park, the roughly 720-acre city park in west Mobile’s Spring Hill area that is named for former Mobile Mayor Joseph N. Langan. The park is also home to the Mobile Museum of Art, the Mobile Botanical Gardens, the Mobile Tennis Center and Playhouse in the Park, making it one of the city’s busiest recreation hubs.
The course was designed by Robert Bruce Harris, a Chicago-based architect who built dozens of courses around the country in the mid-20th century. It plays as a traditional par-72 parkland layout and stretches to roughly 6,850 yards from the back tees, with multiple sets of tees for players of different abilities.
In its early years, the course was known as Mobile Municipal Golf Course, and it brought big-name professional golf to the Port City. From 1959 through 1962, it hosted the Mobile Sertoma Open Invitational, a PGA Tour event held each November. The winners’ list reads like a who’s who of the era:
- 1959: Billy Casper
- 1960: Arnold Palmer
- 1961: Gay Brewer
- 1962: Tony Lema, who set the tournament record at 15 under par
Today, Azalea City is known as one of the more affordable places to play in the Mobile area, and it has long been a home course for high school teams, senior leagues, weekend foursomes and players just learning the game.
Who is Richard Mandell?
Richard Mandell is a golf course architect based in Pinehurst, North Carolina, one of the most storied golf towns in the country. His firm has designed and renovated courses across the United States, and much of his work involves restoring and updating older layouts, including several originally designed by Donald Ross, the Scottish-born architect whose courses shaped American golf in the early 1900s.
Mandell has written about golf course design, including a history of Pinehurst, and has taught golf course architecture at North Carolina State University since 1997. His work frequently includes municipal and public courses, where renovation plans have to balance design goals with budgets, maintenance realities and the needs of everyday golfers.
How a renovation master plan usually works
For a city-owned course, a master plan is typically the first step before any shovels hit the ground. An architect studies the course’s original design and later changes, looks at how each hole plays, and identifies problems that affect both golfers and the bottom line.
Common issues on older Gulf Coast courses include:
- Drainage. Heavy rainfall can leave fairways and bunkers waterlogged, closing holes or forcing cart restrictions that cut into revenue.
- Cart paths. Aging or incomplete paths can crack, flood or push carts onto turf that then wears out.
- Bunkers and greens. Sand and putting surfaces lose their shape and consistency over decades of play and weather.
- Trees and turf. Overgrown trees can shade out grass and block air flow, making turf harder to maintain.
- Playability. Courses built decades ago may be too hard for beginners or too short for today’s longer hitters, depending on the tees.
A master plan generally ranks recommended improvements and estimates costs so elected officials can decide what to fund and when. Recommending work in phases allows a city to spread the cost over several budget years and keep the course open during construction.
Feedback from regular players is valuable in that process. Golfers who play the course every week often know which holes flood after a storm, where carts get stuck, which greens are in trouble and what would bring them back more often. The walkthroughs give Mandell a chance to hear that firsthand while standing on the ground in question.
What happens next
After the Oct. 8–9 sessions, Mandell will continue his review of course records, maintenance practices, drainage and environmental conditions before preparing his final plan and report. That report will go to city leaders, who will decide whether and how to move forward with any renovation.
Any major construction would require funding decisions by the Mobile City Council. The city has not released a projected cost or timeline for renovations, and it has not said whether the course would need to close for any work.
For now, the message to local golfers is simple: if you care about the future of Azalea City, sign up for a walkthrough and tell the architect what you think.
More on Mobile-area public golf
Azalea City is the City of Mobile’s municipal golf course. Mobile County’s new Cypress Creek Golf Course, designed by Jerry Pate on the old Linksman property, opened in September on a limited schedule with advance reservations required, and its driving range and tennis and pickleball courts are open daily. Together, the two public courses give Mobile-area golfers more choices than they have had in several years.