Amazing course and hospitality for the 2024 Tour Championship. The Centennial Suites on the 7th…read moreGreen were fabulous.

The Tour Championship is held every year at East Lake Golf Club in East Atlanta. It marks the end…read moreof the PGA Tour's regular season and is where the FedEx Cup champion is crowned. Apart from being the season finale, the Tour Championship is unlike any other tournament on the PGA Tour because its field is very limited -- only the top 30 players in the FedEx Cup Standings qualify for the tournament field. And because the field is so small, players go off in two-somes and there is no Saturday cut. Atlanta is lucky to have a golf tournament of this caliber in the PGA Tour's rotation. Due to the smaller field, tee times start late morning (11:30am-ish) and end early afternoon (2:00pm-ish). Since players go off in pairs, the first two rounds go by especially fast when compared to a standard-sized tournament. I have attended two Tour Championships at East Lake and had a great time at both. It has a smaller, more intimate, and laid back feel when compared to a major (e.g. Masters, PGA Championship) or one of the bigger tournaments on Tour. It also feels a bit less crowded and the players seem more accessible. Like any PGA Tour tournament, there are tons of tents and special booths set up by various sponsors. This year, GE had a tent where you could compare your swing to either Jim Furyk or Webb Simpson. They also had a four-point biometric system that could give you a breakdown of your weight (muscle, skeletal, water, etc.), percent body fat, balance, resting metabolic state, etc. Other tents had putting games and other swing analysis systems, and tons of giveaways. The course itself at East Lake is always in pristine condition. I'll touch more on the course in my review for the club itself. In general, it's a compact course that is easily walkable for spectators, particularly the back nine. The stands are well positioned and the staff is generally nice. I wish the golf shop was bigger, but I guess this isn't a major. Refreshments consist of hamburgers, hot dogs, and turkey sandwiches/wraps and plenty of Coke (title sponsor). Some stands on the back nine have things like BBQ and catfish, so they're not all the same. Parking is a breeze since you can park for free at Turner Field and be shuttled to the course. The shuttle system is efficient, so you won't be waiting around for a bus or inside a bus for long. This applies to both arriving and departing the grounds. While people like to go to actual tournament rounds (Thursday through Sunday), I think the Wednesday practice round is just as fun, if not, more fun. This is because you are allowed to bring cameras onto the course and the players are a lot more engaging with the fans. They sign autographs and take pictures in between holes and before and after rounds. On practice round days, it feels like you're just hanging out with golfers on the course. It's just so happens that these golfers are some of the very best in the world. It's pretty wild. Overall, I give the Tour Championship 5 stars. It's a fantastic event and one that every Atlantan should experience at least once in their lifetime.

Up until last weekend, my experience with golf involved some scintillating rounds of minigolf…read moreand...that's it. I don't think I've ever even been to a driving range. So if you're reading over this and thinking to yourself, "Boy, she doesn't know ANYTHING about real golf," you're right. I accidentally won a putting contest at work that secured me a corporate suite on the 15th hole for the Tour Championship, which apparently is an important event on the golf calendar. I bought some golf clothes on Amazon so they wouldn't kick me out and spent about five minutes looking over the roster (probably not the right word) before wandering down here to take it all in. My perspective is obviously skewed for multiple reasons, but a big one is that most of the attendees I encountered weren't in a suite (though there were quite a few of those temporary structures that I spied on my walk around the course). I think I basically knew this just from seeing coverage on Sportscenter in the past but I didn't realize how many people go to an event like this and just...follow specific golfers around. I just wrote up a review of Truist Park in which I complained about the lack of actual seating available and having to stand for long periods of time, and yet it seems like quite a few golf fans do that quite willingly. That must be very tiring. Anyway. For what it's worth, I thought the grounds were gorgeous. Very lush greenery, and the optics were greatly assisted by the weather - unseasonably cool for the ATL (probably 80ish) and partly sunny. I noticed toward the end of the day that some of the pathways on the grass were starting to get pretty muddy/worn down, but I imagine that's par for the course (pun not intended). The 15th hole where I spent the majority of my time had an interesting water feature; the green sort of juts out like a peninsula so if it's windy it's not unusual for the ball to fall into the water; since the weather was nice, we saw minimal drama at this hole, though Scottie Scheffler's repeat bid was probably officially thwarted right around here. I imagine a lot of places like this are only as good as their staff; everyone I interacted with at the Club was very professional and personable, from the employees overseeing the security area at the entrance (very easy process, which was probably aided by my decision a day earlier to remove the Swiss Army Knife from my keychain) to the myriad of people in and around the suite, who were always available for a quick chat and no judgment at my obvious lack of awareness. Top marks all the way around. I also have no idea how much work goes into this, but everyone involved in temporarily cordoning off pathways for the golfers to get from hole to hole without getting mauled by the fans? Impressive work. I can't imagine when I'll be back unless I miraculous win another random contest, but this was super cool. I'm more of a fan of the mainstream sports (baseball, football, etc.) - this was a nice change of pace.

I wrote my first review for East Lake Golf Club from my perspective as a spectator. I'm writing…read morethis second review (an update) from my experience as a player. I got to play this course recently and it was a real treat; truly a magical round of golf. Not to toot my own horn, but I've been fortunate enough to play some great courses like Pebble Beach, Kapalua, Doral, etc. To date, East Lake has been the only course to give me the same fantastical sensations that I experienced when I played the Old Course at St. Andrews (https://goo.gl/Fudnf6). There was something dream-like about our round. I think there are a few factors that contributed to why I felt this way: 1. Like St. Andrews, East Lake is a walking-only course with caddies. (This was a big part of it.) 2. East Lake is steeped in golf history. Of course, not as much as St. Andrews, but the club is quite historic. More on that below. 3. I've walked this course many times as a spectator, starting with my first Tour Championship in 2002. Since then, I've learned to appreciate the course and have wondered if I'd ever get the opportunity to play it. 4. This course is private and exclusive. You either have to know a member or be invited by a member to get on (or play in a special event or tournament hosted by East Lake). As I understand it, East Lake's members are primarily companies. I've heard there are individual members like Arthur Blank and Matt Ryan, but don't quote me on that. One of my coworkers used to be an individual member, but I believe individual memberships were done away with in the 90s when Atlanta real estate developer Tom Cousins purchased the club. I was able to get on thanks to one of my childhood friends who works for a company that has a corporate membership. East Lake is unlike most other private golf clubs and country clubs. All profits from the club go to the East Lake Foundation which was created to revitalize the immediate surrounding inner-city neighborhood. East Lake is the home course of Bobby Jones. He grew up playing here. The clubhouse is like a golf museum and a tribute to Jones. You can spend a lot of time just looking at all of the trophies, paintings, pictures, etc. It has everything from the 1963 Ryder Cup (which was held at East Lake) to the Calamity Jane, the "trophy" given to the winner of the Tour Championship (most recently, Tiger Woods in 2018). We got A+ service from the moment we pulled up to the gate. Our car was valeted and our clubs were taken down to the caddies near the practice area. We each got lockers for the day. I was assigned the Hideki Matsuyama/CSX Transportation locker. The locker room has ginger snaps, an East Lake tradition. The locker room attendant had our non-golf shoes laid out for us when we returned from our round. He also thoroughly cleaned our golf shoes. A bit of trivia: East Lake's beautiful and maze-like clubhouse was designed by Philip Shutze, a Georgia Tech grad who also designed the Swan House in Buckhead (which is where I'm getting married). We had a delicious breakfast in the grill room before heading out to warm up. We started with the practice putting green followed by the practice chipping/bunker area and then the driving range. The practice putting green is definitely one of the nicest practice putting greens I've practiced on. It was perfect and also scenically-located in between the clubhouse and the lake. The caddies sized us up at the range. I have to admit that was a bit intimidating, especially since our caddie was a former PGA Tour pro caddie. His name was Jeremy "Jerry" Rodger. I noticed his Scottish accent right away. He told me he was from St. Andrews. I told him when I played at St. Andrews, my caddie was American; now at East Lake, my caddie was Scottish. He then told me he knew an American caddie at St. Andrews by the name of Oliver "Ollie" Horovitz. Coincidentally, Ollie was my caddie at St. Andrews. That blew my mind. Jerry told me there are less than six degrees of separation in golf. I believe it. Our foursome was assigned two caddies. Each caddie carried two bags. If a caddie doesn't like your bag for whatever reason, they'll move your clubs, balls, etc. into an East Lake bag for the round. Jerry didn't like the way my bag sat on his shoulder so he swapped bags for me. Ransom was our other caddie. As for the course itself, it played just as I imagined. It was immaculate from tee to green. I loved walking on the soft, spongy zoysia fairways. The greens were hard and super fast. Jerry and Ransom knew how to read them like the back of their hands. Their green-reading skills were impeccable. I parred the two par-3s on the back nine, Nos. 11 and 15 (the island green); I'm very proud of that. I ended up in way more bunkers than I'm used to. Walking towards the 18th green, I could only think of the gallery swarming Tiger before his comeback win. I enjoyed every minute of my experience at East Lake and it's a round I'll remember for the rest of my life.

I can't blame the course for how poorly I played! It's a beautiful and challenging course that I…read moreusually warm up to and play pretty well. Not this day! We played 36 holes and I had, perhaps, 5 good tee shots. It's a good thing the greens were in great shape and I putted pretty well!

FYI, first a public course as well. Played last Saturday and got behind a five-some of women who…read moretook their sweet time including many mulligans and dropping at 150 mark etc... I am writing this mainly because I was considering joining and contacted (by email) my concerns about general rules etc.. No one bothered to respond. My understanding is they need members. Guess we know why now....

The official name of this course is The Creek Golf Course at Hard Labor Creek State Park. Thanks to…read moremy Yelp friend and golf buddy Robin S for introducing me to this course and opening my eyes to the world of Georgia State Park Golf Courses (http://gastateparks.org/Golfing). There are eight of these state-owned courses and The Creek at Hard Labor is the closest one to Atlanta. It's a solid one-hour drive from my home in Midtown to Hard Labor (more with traffic). The drive is worth it if you have time to spare. This is a good course with an interesting layout and a friendly staff. When we played, the course was in good condition with the greens, in particular, in spectacular shape. And the tee times are a bargain. When I booked for our foursome, I found the best deal by booking online on The Creek's website at www.hardlaborcreekgc.com. We paid $41.73 (after tax) per golfer for our Sunday morning round. I saw tee times on GolfNow, but after convenience fees, booking through GolfNow was more expensive than booking through the course directly. I did not see any tee times on TeeOff.com. The Creek is located on the western portion of Hard Labor Creek State Park. During certain times of the year, the park will be closed to everyone but deer hunters for a deer quota hunt. I remember seeing a bunch of deer grazing at the driving range during our visit. Speaking of wildlife, we also ran into a raccoon that wasn't afraid of humans near one of the greens on the back nine. So, you're way out in nature out here. Fortunately, cell service is still strong on the course in case you need to use any GPS or golf apps. The Creek has an old, but relatively spacious clubhouse with a surprisingly well-stocked golf shop with reasonable prices and good deals on apparel, shoes, clubs, balls, accessories, etc. There's a small kitchen/grill area, a TV/lounge area, a covered back patio with a water cooler and cooler full of ice, and even lockers in the men's room (though I'm not sure who can use them except for perhaps members). The driving range, located across the street from the clubhouse, is nice and big. The practice putting green, located on the back side of the clubhouse next to the 9th green and 10th tee, had five pins and was in great condition. There course has five sets of tees with the blue tees being the tips at only 6,612 yards (71.4/129 rating/slope). We played from the next set of tees in, the whites, where the course measures 6,166 yards with a 69.4/125 rating/slope. I would say this course is about average in difficulty (maybe a tad above average) and is fine for most skill levels. Each hole marker has a helpful color layout and the top of each scorecard has a pin sheet so be sure to take note of the pin position for the day. The scorecard even shows green contours which is useful. The golf carts are Yamaha fuel-injected (if I recall correctly) golf carts. They were in OK shape when we played. I've played at a lot of golf courses over my lifetime and this is the first one I've played at that does not allow golf carts to be driven beyond the tree line. Why that is, I'm not sure, but every cart windshield has a sign to remind you. The course itself is fun. Generally, there is a nice mixture of holes. The signature hole is No. 5. It's a long par-3 (175 yards from the blues, 170 from the whites). This is where you'll find the actual water wheel that is featured on The Creek's logo. No. 6 is pretty cool too as you have to walk across a bridge over a waterfall (Rocky Creek) to get to the tee boxes. You tee off parallel to a large creek. On this par-4 hole, you'll play your approach shot next to an idyllic-looking fountain, so holes 5 and 6 are fairly scenic. The 9th hole is a beauty, a dogleg-left par-5 that plays downhill off the tee, but uphill towards the clubhouse. It's a grind and one of the more memorable holes here to me. The back nine starts with a dramatic downhill tee shot towards a pond and only a couple holes later (No. 12) you're contending with another pond off the tee; this time on a medium-length par-3 (152/139 yards, blue/white) with a fairly significant drop. On club selection, you should consider dropping two clubs. While the first two-thirds of the back nine wind and weave their way through the forest of the park, the home stretch (Nos. 16-18) consists of somewhat straightforward holes that zig-zag along tree-lined fairways back to the clubhouse. Watch out for the tricky dome-shaped green on 17. All greens are Champion Dwarf Bermudagrass.

The Creek at Hard Labor is a fine, 18-hole, par 72 course on the grounds of Hard Labor Creek State…read morePark. It's one of several (I believe six) state park golf courses in Georgia and is the closest to Atlanta, being about an hour away on I-20 to the east, just past the town of Social Circle. As with all Georgia SP courses, tee times are available online and prices are quite reasonable, especially since this is a pretty decent course. I paid about $32 for a weekday round with cart and a small bucket of range balls. Range: Located across the street; balls are dispensed at the range with a token purchased at the clubhouse. The range itself is merely adequate. There are no signs indicating yards to the various flags, the chipping 'green' is basically a flat spot with long grass and I saw no practice bunker. It's good for warming up, not so much for practice. Practice green: located right next to the clubhouse. Decent, and the green seems to mimic what's on the course to an adequate degree. Carts: electric, no frills. My cart had really grabby brakes. Note that you're not allowed to drive the cart into the parking lot for some reason. So use the bag drop-off. Clubhouse: more substantial and better equipped than a lot of non-state courses. Lots of good stuff to buy and there's a small snack area. Restroom is clean and spacious and includes a locker area. The guy running the shop is very pleasant, and he has a squirrel that he feeds outside in the back. Rocky the squirrel mascot. One thing you'll find in the clubhouse is an excellent brochure with detailed hole descriptions of the course. In fact, that brochure (which slipped out of my cart somewhere on the course unfortunately) provides the best course layout and playing information of any course I've played. $3, but I got mine for free with the green fee. Note that they recently swapped the front and back nines, so #1 in the brochure is actually #10 on the course now. Course: I really like this course. There are lots of challenges while still being playable for average golfers, the holes are interesting and even visually spectacular (the waterwheel course, in particular), the fairways are decent, the greens are mostly in good shape if a bit bumpy (only one I noticed with a large blighted area). I can't really speak to the bunkers - I avoided them because of the recent rain (like a half hour before my round) so I knew the sand would be unyielding. But they look nice. I saw the marshal/ranger a couple of times while playing so it looks like they monitor pace of play. No beverage cart, so stock up on what you need. Recommended.

This club and course is widely admired and is an oasis in Atlanta. Fine layout and the best grass…read moreyou'll ever see! However, my purpose here is to highlight a man who is a Georgia gem, an encyclopedia of golf knowledge, whose historical knowledge of the club's membership is a treasure and so impressive, and who is a consumate gentleman - Johnny Byrd. His 60 YEARS working at this exclusive institution combined with his down to earth manner only enhance the prestige of Peachtree Golf Club. He is a rare and integral part of this community. Play on, Mr. Byrd!

Shot 10 over today great place to learn! its crazy how much power comes from turning your core. I…read moredon't even turn shoulders and golf is so much easier already

If you're reading this it means you want help playing better golf and I can guarantee you that you…read morewon't find a better place to do that than at Swing Pro's. Tim was my instructor and was an absolute pleasure to work with. I told him about my game and then he built a specific system around me. The before and after shots of my swing in just an hour are almost unbelievable. The technology used to record and analyze my swing were top of the line and incredibly detailed. At the end of my swing analysis, they created a video of my before/after swings and emailed it to me with a verbal breakdown of my lesson. After your swing analysis, you get to choose the best lesson package for you and your schedule. Swing Pro's is very accommodating and will work with you to find a time to work on your game. Make sure to buy the Yelp coupon of $50 for $100 because it makes your lesson package even cheaper. It's free money! Stop wasting money at the range trying to figure out your swing. These guys will do it for you and make you look good in the process!

I have been going here for a couple months now. The space is well thought out and new. All of the…read morediagnostic equipment is very helpful. Tim, the owner/instructor is excellent. I would highly recommend.

It's a great place to learn! My instructor Tommy is very patient and has so many ways to help you!…read moreI have never played before and I am terrible, but he is very encouraging. He makes it fun!!

we officially have tennis-center envy…read more our ALTA team plays out of Dekalb Tennis Center and (no offense to them) Druid Hills makes our home courts look like a sad community park. not only was our opposing team super-friendly but they had a gorgeous spread of food presented in silver servers, including: double cheeseburgers, salad, cookies, brownies and lots of other stuff that I think I'm still digesting weeks later. facility is gorgeous and, even though courts are mostly clay, it's well worth a visit if you're big in to tennis. also, life hack! getting booked at Druid Hills through ALTA scheduling is a great way to enjoy the club without paying what I'm assuming is a ginormagantuan entrance fee.

Went here for lunch on a gloomy Thursday. Quite classy and nice deco. The club has been more than…read more100 years and was renovated a couple decades ago. One of my friends got married here as well. The food was decent and reasonably priced. Service was good as well. Apparently most customers in the restaurant are regulars.