Robert Trent Jones Golf Trail at the Shoals

The Shoals is a Robert Trent Jones Golf Trail destination in northwest Alabama, set high above Wilson Lake on the Tennessee River between the Wheeler and Wilson dams. It is home to two 18-hole championship courses. Fighting Joe opened first, in 2004, and made history as the Trail's first course to break 8,000 yards, stretching to 8,092 yards from the back tees; it is named for Confederate General Joseph 'Fighting Joe' Wheeler and was hailed as one of the top new courses of its year. The Schoolmaster followed in 2005, named for President Woodrow Wilson, whose advocacy built Wilson Dam. Where Fighting Joe is expansive and long, the tree-lined Schoolmaster plays as a tighter shotmaker's test with narrow fairways and well-guarded bentgrass greens, still measuring close to 8,000 yards. Both offer dramatic bluff-top views of the river.