English Turn Golf & Country Club: Water on Seventeen, and a House That Looks Like a House

Citywide Spotlight awards English Turn the first Outdoor Diamond because it is the championship day a visitor can actually book and still feel as if he has been received at a club. Jack Nicklaus signed the routing in 1988 for the New Orleans PGA Tour stop, then left water on seventeen of eighteen holes, waste bunkers that read like beaches, and an island-green fifteenth that decides a match before the eighteenth can finish it. The plantation-style clubhouse sits at the center of two nines. Lakes separate the fairways from the houses. Live oaks and palms hold the edges. The land is nearly level, as river-delta land is, yet Nicklaus sculpted enough mound and hollow that the eye never grows tired. From the back tees the course stretches past seven thousand yards with a slope that asks for nerve. From the middle markers it remains a gentleman’s test: carry the water or play short, trust the tiered greens or three-putt in public.

The name is older than the club. At the end of the seventeenth century, Bienville met an English ship on this bend of the Mississippi and turned it back with a story. The bend kept the name. The course opened on that same geography, hosted the Tour from 1989 through 2004 and again in 2006 after the storm, and now lives as a semi-private house that still sells a tee time to a traveler who calls the shop. Troon manages the operation. The dirt and the story remain here.

What to book is a morning eighteen with a cart and a caddie or forecaddie if the shop can spare one. Take a lesson on the range if the swing has traveled poorly. Stay for lunch in the mixed grill or the dining room. Collared shirts belong on this property. The best months are November through April, when the air is dry enough to think and the Bermuda has settled. Summer golf here is possible and often handsome at first light, then becomes a test of heat more than of golf. Hurricane season asks you to watch the Gulf before you pay a deposit.

The difficulty is honest water and honest wind. A ball that leaks left or right finds a lake more often than a friendly rough. The eighteenth has been ranked among the hardest closing holes on Tour. The fourth tempts a hero. The fifteenth island is the photograph and the penalty. Choose the tee that matches the week you are having, not the tee that matches your pride.

Inside, the clubhouse is a Southern house in the old sense: high ceilings, dining rooms that can hold a wedding or a quiet two-top, a golf shop that still sells balls and shirts rather than souvenirs, locker rooms, a fitness room, and tennis courts beyond. It is kept. It is comfortable for a couple or a small professional group that wants the day to remain civil.

Choosing English Turn over a municipal loop or a branded Tour club elsewhere is a choice for setting and scale. You gain lakes that frame every hole, a clubhouse that looks as if it belongs on the river, and staff accustomed to guests who came to play. You do not gain a hotel attached to the eighteenth green. The graceful limits are real. Monday is often dark. Visitor times can tighten around member play. The West Bank drive from the city center is about twenty to twenty-five minutes across the Crescent City Connection, longer if the bridge is in a mood. After the round, Algiers Point’s ferry and old streets sit close; downtown dinner is still an easy return.

English Turn is the Golf Diamond because the land, the water, and the house agree with one another. It is a day for adults who still believe a golf course can be beautiful without becoming a theme. Come early. Play the tees you can finish with dignity. Sit a while when the round is done.