Fighting Joe

Few public courses in the American South carry a name with as much swagger as Fighting Joe — and the course backs it up. Part of the Robert Trent Jones Golf Trail, Fighting Joe is one of 2 courses at the Shoals complex and widely regarded among the most demanding and dramatic on the entire 11-site, 26-course trail. RTJ Sr. designed it to take full advantage of the landscape along the Tennessee River, and the result is a course that asks serious questions from the very first hole.

The Muscle Shoals area has a character all its own — a stretch of northwest Alabama made famous by its music studios and the distinctive sound that drew artists from Aretha Franklin to the Rolling Stones. The golf here shares something of that reputation: rooted in a real place, unpretentious in setting, but quietly capable of stopping you in your tracks.

Fighting Joe plays long and exposed, with the river coming into view on multiple holes and the wind a constant factor. It rewards patience and punishes carelessness — a public-access course that genuinely plays like a destination test.