StillWaters Golf Club - The Highlands Course

Gabby and Mike did a great job in the clubhouse!! New management making great improvements on the course!! Had a blast !! Will surly play again.

Lots of elevation changes. Excellent winter condition. Many bunkers are needing work. Just agree to treat them as ground under repair. Staff is EXCELLENT!!!!!

Beautiful course located right along Lake Martin. Not a far drive from Auburn and the rates make the drive worth it. The fairways are lush Bermuda and the woodland hillsides alongside the course are full of wildlife. The staff and golf pro in the pro shop were extremely friendly and very welcoming to first timers to the course. Overall course layout was phenomenal. Steep fairways make lay up and approach shots playable to the average golfer. The bunkers along some of the greens need a little work but overall most of them were playable. Will for sure return to this course again.

The course is a challenging, but fun layout. Accurate tee shots are a must. Fairways and greens are in very good condition. Bunkers still need work. Great setting - lots of trees and wildlife. You will not find a friendlier staff. Superb value.

Super friendly staff. Course is in ok shape especially with the lack of rain this summer and early fall. Highly recommend a stop at the outdoor bar after your round.

Everything about this course is wonderful. A hole overview on the scorecard would be a nice addition especially for someone playing here for the first time.

Great layout, fast pace, friendly staff. Greens were in great shape. Tee boxes were very hard, but area has been in a drought. Bunkers need attention. Lots of wildlife. Peaceful setting.

I would not play full price to play here, just because the Tee boxes are hard as concrete, there is a lot of crab grass and other weeds throughout fairway and greens and the GPS nor the touch screen on the golf cart was not functional.

The Good: its a great and fun layout, challenging for all levels of players, the pace of play is really fast.

Very friendly staff, beautiful course and scenery-excellent bar and restaurant at course. Only negative was the traps needed some attention.

Welcomed by a warm handshake and extremely friendly staff members in the Pro Shop made the start into my golf day a perfect one.

Although the golf carts are not the newest ones and the GPS doesn‘t work properly the design and layout of the 18 holes of The Highlands excuses the negatives. Although not every green and for sure not every bunker is well maintained is the game exciting and diversified. The fairways are mostly good and wide open if you don‘t hit the ball always straight. Pace of play on a Saturday was excellent, no Marshall was seen.

Although left and right of the cart paths was a bit too much trash (beer cans, plastic bottles etc.) I definitely would recommend this course and will come back one day.

My first time on this course and it's probably one of my favorites! I will definitely be back!

I start by saying that the pro Rob could not have been more friendly. Great guy. All staff members were excellent. The problems were not in the clubhouse but instead on the course. The greens were almost 100% rolled mud with algae on top. I don't know if they over sprayed pre-emerge earlier this year and killed all their grass on accident or what, but they were in awful shape. Little to no grass on the greens and massive patches of Poa made rolling a true putt nearly impossible.. The course in general needs a large amount of money dumped into it. The bunkers were completely unplayable. Our group had to make the unanimous decision to play them as GUR. Many areas look overgrown and unkempt. The conditions honestly reminded me of your usual low budget municipal course. I cannot begin to imagine going back to pay the 59.00 to play this place. I know this course was once "THE" place to play, but father time has not been good to her. They desperately need to dump some serious cash into this place or drastically reduce what they charge. I don't mind paying medium prices for medium tier golf but this was far from that. Again, I loved every staff member I encountered, but someone needs to get off the check book and make some course improvements if they want repeat customers. They also need to update their online photographs. They were a gross misrepresentation of what the course currently looks like. I hate to be so critical, but I felt truly misled by the few photos I was able to find online.

Forums like these prompt the overuse of certain descriptions, like "hidden gem." I honestly don't know how else to describe Stillwaters.

This course has been around for 20 years, but receives very little buzz. In fact, today was my first round here. I left wondering what took me so long to discover it.

The first thing you notice about this place is that it lies in a gated community, so the amenities, much like the condition of the course, are better than most. The tremendous practice area is only slightly detached from the clubhouse and offers an expansive "Himalayas style" putting green that resembles those at Pinehurst, Bandon Dunes and Gamble Sands. You will think the cups are perched ridiculously amongst the exaggerated swales, but that is only to prepare you for what lies ahead in your round. More on those greens in a bit. There is a chipping and bunker practice green. The range is short, but wide with plenty of targets.

The clubhouse is Plantation style with a large back porch for dining al fresco. It overlooks a modest back lawn that separates the 18th green from the clubhouse with one of the neatest atmospheres I've ever encountered. One end of the lawn houses a platform stage for live music. On the other end is an outdoor bar, and I dont mean a few stools. It's at least 20 yards long, complete with neon signs and TVs. I can imagine this is a great place to decompress post-round on the weekends.

Now, to the course.

I have previously been unfamiliar with course designer Kurt Sandness' work, but I am now a big fan. I found it very similar to Donald Steel's Highland Course at Primland in Virginia.

This course is very visually intimidating throughout.

Stillwaters boasts extremely dramatic tee shots from elevated boxes. Rolling fairways dart and dive and many are canted, increasing the course's difficulty. Approach shots can spawn indecision with the multi-tiered greens that would make Donald Ross proud.

I am used to difficult green complexes, having played a dizzying number of rounds on the RTJ Trail, of which daunting greens are a hallmark. These are different though. You will find yourself in some difficult spots on the greens. The slopes are sharp and demand precision to avoid three-putts. Still, they will be inevitable. The Tif-eagle Bermuda greens are very soft, receptive and grainy. The green complexes allow for holes to play dramatically different day-to-day due to the varying pinnable locations, which can completely alter the way a hole is played. That is a good design element.

Chipping and pitching can be confounding around the greens. There is either thick, deep Bermuda rough, or closely-mown shaved areas - no in between. Combined with the severity of the putting surfaces, getting up and down can be a chore. There are no easy pars here.

The slope from the blue member's tees that are listed at 6,507 yards is a toothy 140, with a course rating of 71.3. I found that the course felt like it played shorter than the listed yardage due to the elevation change. The back tees play 6,906. Don't be fooled by the sub-7,000 tips though. This course has fangs.

I felt like the course's strength were the collection of par 5s. All provided excellent movement and each had unique challenges. The par 3s were no pushover either. Only the third hole played under 150 yards.

Carts are equipped with GPS. Course is not walkable because it has a massive footprint and has extremely long uphill climbs between several greens and subsequent tees. The $32 twilight rate with cart after 2:30 pm is one of the best values in the state when you compare it to other courses in the area.

Bottom line: If in the Birmingham or Montgomery areas, find a way to put Stillwaters on your itinerary. At two hours south of Birmingham, it lies midway between FarmLinks in Sylacauga and the RTJ Trail's Grand National site in Opelika. That is four tremendous rounds within an hour's drive.