A short course in the Bay's action on the greens. The Country Club of Mobile introduced golf into the region in 1899, two years before Pinehurst opened in North Carolina. The course, near Monroe Park in the south part of the city, was part of a recreational area along the Bay that also included a horseracing track. Later, the country club hired famous course designer Donald Ross to build a new course in Spring Hill, where today's championship course sits. It is one of only three Ross courses in Alabama. Oak Hills was the first public golf course in Mobile. It was a nine-hole course on property where Mobile Infirmary is now located. Oak Hills was a scenic course, and legendary golfers, such as Gene Sarazen, Byron Nelson and legendary female athlete Babe Zaharias played exhibitions there. Not long after a fire at Country Club of Mobile killed several people, including Scottish golf pro James "Bill" Campbell and wife Mary Jane, in December 1925, Spring Hill College began work on a nine-hole golf course. The Spring Hill links opened in May of 1930. The second nine holes were built in 1945. It has undergone some renovations but now holds the title of Mobile's oldest public course. Lakewood Golf Club brought golf to Baldwin County in 1946, with an 18-hole course. The course, originally designed by Perry Maxwell, was located across from Point Clear's historic Grand Hotel. Maxwell's courses were noted for greens with bold dramatic contours. The greens are still intriguing. Since 2003, both of Lakewood's 18-hole courses, Dogwood and Azalea, have undergone multimillion-dollar renovations, while retaining their Southern mystique. Legacy oaks dot the grounds, and near the 18th tee on Azalea resides Confederate Rest Cemetery. How many clubs can claim that distinction? THE SWINGING '60s The '60s was the decade when golf in the Port City first gained international fame. This evaluation comes from Joe Teague, a man whose tremendous personal efforts to promote the sport are legendary, even though his real hobby is fishing. Teague, and a host of friends, launched the Sertoma Open in 1959 and brought the PGA Tour to Mobile's Municipal Golf Course, known today as Azalea City. Sertoma Open's first champion was Billy Casper. But, it was Arnold Palmer whose victory in November1960 put Mobile in the international links spotlight. "This tournament made him the top money winner for the year and that was headlines all over," Teague says. "By the time he played here, he had already won the Masters and five other tournaments, but even at that, he still hadn't broken the $100,000 mark for money. He needed $1,250, official money, to break the all-time record." Teague launches into a play-by-play. "On Sunday, at the end of nine holes, he was four shots back. And he wound up winning by one shot. He birdied 17 and 18 at Azalea City. Now, that's tough." The win paid Palmer $2,000. "Now, players win a million," Teague smiles. But, "that put him into the spotlight all over Europe and America as "the King". And it was in Mobile that he laid claim to the throne. Gay Brewer won the Sertoma Open in 1961 and "Champagne" Tony Lema took honors in the closing 1962 year. During its four-year run, the tournament hosted some fine golfers. Many up-and-coming champs began their walk to fame on a hill overlooking today's Langan Municipal Park. Among them were Payne Stewart, Curtis Strange, Scott Simpson, Jerry Pate, Fuzzy Zoeller and Fred Couples. Many others went on to win PGA, Champions and Nationwide tours - such players as Bruce Lietzke, Jim Dent, Gary McCord and Lee Elder. Several mini-tours played in Mobile after the Sertoma Open ceased. In 1998, the 72-hole PGA Tour-sanctioned Nike Tour came to Magnolia Grove's Crossings course in West Mobile. ARNOLD PALMER RETURNS Three decades after Palmer's win, in the 1980s, R.C. and Robert Craft enlisted him to transform their flat sod farm into a rolling resort course. In 1987, Craft Farms Resort opened Cotton Creek. When Cotton Creek opened, Rick Gehr, the director of golf there, called it the "championship 18." It is the longer of the Cotton Creek courses. From the back tees it is about 7,100 yards of gently rolling fairways with its share of creeks and small lakes. During the next decade, almost a dozen new courses changed the area, for all time, into a beach resort-golf vacation destination. Craft Farms added Cypress Bend, the sister to Cotton Creek. Peninsula Golf Club is on an 820-acre layout, surrounded by Bon Secour Wildlife Preserve. In April of 1988, Quail Creek opened in Fairhope. On the heels of these, during the early and mid1990s, came TimberCreek in Daphne and Rock Creek in Fairhope. Kiva Dunes opened in 1995, a Jerry Pate and Jim Edgemon project. Lost Key, on Perdido Key, was redesigned by Palmer's group in 2006 and is the first golf course in Florida, and the world, to be certified as an Audubon International Silver Signature Sanctuary. MAGNOLIA GROVE AND LPGA STRENGTHEN AREA GOLF Palmer's exploits in the early '60s focused an international spotlight on Mobile golf. But, nothing in recent history has done more to fire up the limelight than the Ladie' Professional Golf Association tournaments, which star a cast of international players from Japan, Australia, Europe, South Korea and Mexico. The Bell Micro LPGA Classic brings the top women golfers to the Crossings Course at Magnolia Grove, in West Mobile, each fall. Arriving in 1999, the tournament was called the AFLAC Champions Presented by Southern Living. It remained a tournament of champions until 2008, when the event became a full-field event, according to Jim Johnson, director of the Bell Micro LPGA Classic. To play a tournament of champions, golfers are required to be winners of a tournament within the past three years to qualify. It is called a winners-only format. This, according to Johnson, limits competition qualifiers to about 40. With a full-field format, the director says, the tournament has more than 130 competitors vying to make the cut in the high 70s and ties. These will go on to play the weekend. And, what a weekend it usually is. Although it took the LPGA, founded in 1950, almost 50 years to meet Magnolia Grove, the relationship has been a vibrant one. It has brought even more international focus to the city - and the Robert Trent Jones Golf Trail. Last year, Johnson says, "The economic impact was close to $9 million, considering the number of players in town, caddies and folks here with Bell Micro." The Golf Channel televised the tournament for the entire weekend, "which means it had an audience of 110 million world-wide." Then, there was a mention of Mobile, LPGA and Magnolia Grove in every newspaper story or publication that carries golf scores. "And, there were highlights," he adds, "on the sports channels." Se Ri Pak, of South Korea has won the tournament here twice, in 2001 and 2002. Other winners include such notables as Paula Creamer (2007), Lorena Ochoa (2006), Christina Kim (2005), Heather Daly-Donofrio (2004), Dorothy Delasin (2003) and Karrie Webb, in 2000. The Bell Micro LPGA Classic, through 2010, is scheduled to be televised nationally and internationally. When the tournament change was first announced, Dr. David G. Bronner, CEO of the Retirement Systems of Alabama, which developed the Robert Trent Jones Golf Trail, said, "We are pleased that Bell Microproducts, a leading technology company globally, has Alabama connections and will bring this prestigious tournament to one of the world-class courses on the Robert Trent Jones Golf Trail." The 2009 tournament, with a $1.5 million purse, will be help October 8-11. IMAGE INFORMATION Main: A pencil-skirted golfer practices at Lakewood Golf Club, March 3, 1953. Left: Posting scores at a ladies' golf tournament, Country Club of Mobile, October 15, 1953. Center: Observing play at Mobile Country Club, October 15, 1953.