Audubon Park Golf Course

Signature Setup

Audubon Park Golf Course is not a championship card, and pretending otherwise would be dishonest. It is a par-62, 18-hole walking course folded into Audubon Park in Uptown New Orleans, between St. Charles Avenue and the Mississippi River levee. Golf has been played on this ground since 1898, which makes it one of the oldest sites in the South, but the layout you play today is the Denis Griffiths redesign that reopened in 2002. The character is live oaks, Spanish moss, lagoons, and a routing built for a brisk morning walk rather than a four-hour grind. Mostly par-3s with a handful of short par-4s — the kind of course where your wedge game and your nerve over water decide the round, not your driver.

Hole-by-Hole Wind & Playing Lines

The defense here is not length; it is the lagoons and the river breeze. New Orleans sits in a S/SE flow off the Gulf most mornings, and on this open parkland that wind is a real factor on the short par-4s and the longer par-3s.

• The longest par-3 (around 160–165y over a lagoon edge): into a S/SE breeze it stretches to a 180-yard feel. I would rather be long and dry than short and wet — take an extra club and aim at the back-center.
• The short par-4s: these are scoring holes only if you respect the water. Downwind they tempt you to chase the green; into the breeze, lay back to a full wedge number instead of forcing a half-shot off a tight lie.
• Tree-lined par-3s under the oaks: the canopy kills the wind at ground level but not above it. Trust the flag, not the leaves — the ball gets back into the breeze once it climbs.

Green & Fairway Characteristics

Everything here is Bermuda — fairways and greens both — which behaves very differently depending on humidity. On a heavy, wet New Orleans morning the greens are soft and slow, and approach shots stop fast; by a dry, breezy afternoon the same surfaces firm up and release. The greens are modest in size and contour for an executive course, with slope rating in the low-110s, so this is a course you score on with control, not power. Fairways are flat parkland — the hazard is lateral (lagoons, oaks), not elevation. Read the Bermuda grain on the greens; it follows the drainage toward the lagoons more than it follows any slope you can see.

Seasonal Weather Pattern

This is where a par-62 in New Orleans is more interesting than its yardage suggests. The climate is humid subtropical — and brutal in summer. June through September, highs sit near 90–93°F with dew points in the mid-70s, and afternoon thunderstorms are almost a daily event; lightning, not score, ends rounds here. October through April is the real golf season: mild, drier, daytime highs in the 60s and 70s, with the occasional cold front dropping mornings into the 40s. Spring brings the steadiest S/SE breeze; fall, after the first front, gives the firmest, cleanest playing conditions of the year. If you only play here once, make it a November or March morning.

Local Play Tips

Two things the booking page will not tell you. First, this is a genuine walking course in a public park, so you are sharing the ground with joggers and the streetcar hum from St. Charles — it plays best as an early, quiet round, not a midday outing. Second, the lagoons hold water year-round and the Bermuda surrounds stay damp; a ball that trickles toward the edge is gone, so favor the fat side of every green even when the pin tempts you. Bring more wedges than woods. I have not played this course in the dead of a July afternoon, and I would not advise anyone to — the heat index does more damage to a scorecard than any bunker on the property.

Pre-Round Weather Workflow

Use the 7-day G-Score the way I do for any Gulf-coast course: do not just read the high, read the timing. Check the morning window first — a tee time before 9 a.m. in summer can be 10–15°F cooler and storm-free while the same course at 2 p.m. is unplayable. Watch the windExposure rating for S/SE flow; on this open parkland a moderate breeze adds a club to every shot over 150 yards. In the cooler months, scan for an incoming cold front: the day after a front passes is your firmest, clearest, lowest-wind round of the week. And in June through September, treat the afternoon thunderstorm probability as a hard stop, not a maybe — plan to be on the 18th green before noon.