Les Vieux Chenes Golf Course

Les Vieux Chenes occupies a wooded site in Youngsville, a small city in south-central Louisiana's Acadiana region, roughly ten miles from Lafayette. Designed by Marvin Ferguson and opened in the early 1990s, the course takes its name—"The Old Oaks"—from the mature live oak trees that define much of the property. Ferguson, a regional architect active across Louisiana and neighboring states during that period, routed the layout through natural corridors of hardwoods and native vegetation typical of the area's low-lying terrain. The course plays across relatively flat land with modest elevation changes, characteristic of the coastal plain geography. Water features appear on several holes, reflecting the region's high water table and the design conventions of Gulf Coast golf. The tree-lined fairways require accuracy from the tee, and the layout emphasizes strategic positioning over length. The setting offers a distinctly Louisiana atmosphere, with Spanish moss and dense canopy providing shade and visual separation between holes. Les Vieux Chenes serves the Youngsville and greater Lafayette communities as an accessible daily-fee facility. The course reflects the practical, playable design approach common to many regional layouts from its era, offering a straightforward test of golf within a natural Louisiana landscape. It remains a local option for recreational play in an area where golf courses navigate the challenges of heat, humidity, and the particular maintenance demands of the region's climate and soil conditions.