Lakewood Golf Course

Lakewood Golf Course sits in Phenix City, Alabama, directly across the Chattahoochee River from Columbus, Georgia. The course was designed by Ron Garl with John LaFoy, a collaboration that brought together Garl's Florida-based design experience with local knowledge of the regional landscape. The layout reflects the rolling terrain common to this part of the Piedmont region, where the course occupies land that transitions between wooded areas and more open ground. The design takes advantage of natural elevation changes and incorporates water features that come into play on several holes. Garl, who worked extensively throughout the Southeast during his career, typically emphasized strategic variety and playability across different skill levels, characteristics that appear in the routing here. The course serves both daily-fee players and a local membership base, functioning as a community amenity in the Phenix City area. Lakewood operates within the context of the Columbus-Phenix City metropolitan area, where golf facilities serve a population that includes both civilian residents and military personnel from nearby Fort Moore (formerly Fort Benning). The course provides a straightforward test of golf without the elaborate conditioning or tournament pedigree of higher-profile venues, but it represents the kind of accessible public facility that anchors recreational golf in smaller Southern cities. The setting along the Alabama-Georgia border gives players views of the surrounding pine and hardwood forests typical of the region.