North/East at Athens Country Club

Our day at Athens Country Club began in the early afternoon when we ate a late lunch at the grill inside the historic clubhouse. The iconic building is beautiful inside and out and the delicious food was the perfect start to our time at ACC.
Once our host arrived we headed to our golf carts and made our way to the first tee. The moment I stepped on to the well manicured tee box, I knew it was going to be an enjoyable round. Every hole was pristine from tee to green, with towering pines and lush magnolias surrounding you on every side (The course had recently lost over 80 trees due to a storm only a week earlier, but the maintenance staff did an excellent job preserving all of the green space). The most impressive thing to me was how great of attention the maintenance staff gave to the little details of the course: the collars seamlessly blended into the greens, every cart path was edged to perfection, and I never saw any red clay erosion spots around trees and cart paths, every detail was well manicured. The greens had some tough undulations and false fronts, but they rolled true on every putt. When we finished the first 18 on the Ross Course, we planned to play an extra 9 on their North Course, however it was closed for maintenance. Instead we replayed the back 9 of the Ross Course to finish off our day.
All in all, our day at ACC was one of my favorite rounds of golf to date, and I certainly hope to have a chance at returning again soon.

ACC is the premier country club of the who's who in Athens, Georgia and it definitely lives up to expectations. As with most higher-end country clubs, the greens are VERY quick and definitely tough to read with the severe undulations. Find yourself on the wrong tier, especially above the hole and you may be facing a putt that is unable to stop anywhere near the pin, not to mention, roll off the front of the green back to the fairway. Donald Ross LOVES his false fronts and I can assure you, I don't!

The layout reminds me a bit of Augusta with the tall pines and pine straw underneath, which is nice because it becomes very difficult to lose a ball. The rough isn't too penal here but high approaches is most important with the difficulty of the greens. The practice facilities are on-par with some of the best in the area, well marked, flat driving range, tightly manicured chipping area with multiple pins, and 2 putting greens that run true to the course.

The clubhouse is impressive and has all the amenities of a true community country club lifestyle. With all of the old photos and paintings on the walls inside the clubhouse, you can really get a feel of the history that lives here.

The only small issue I had with this course was the lack of signs on each hole. The 1st and 10th tees have large metal signs marking the holes but no other hole, which I understand might be fine as this is a private course and the members know the course. But we got around fine otherwise.