Point Clear sits on the eastern shore of Mobile Bay, one of the quieter, more graceful corners of coastal Alabama — Spanish moss, longleaf pine, and the kind of heavy summer air that makes a morning round feel like an achievement. The Dogwood course at the Grand Hotel Golf Club has been part of this resort community for decades, woven into a property whose history on the bay stretches back to the antebellum era. Playing here carries that unhurried, old-South resort feel that the Gulf Coast does better than almost anywhere.
Without resorting to the scorecard for its story, Dogwood plays through terrain that is characteristically flat coastal plain, which means the design leans on water, bunkering, and strategic shaping to generate interest rather than dramatic elevation. Accuracy tends to matter more than raw power on layouts like this one, and the warm-season grasses hold shots differently than courses to the north.
For visitors to the Marriott's Grand Hotel, the course is an extension of a broader retreat — the kind of place where the round itself is almost secondary to simply being on the bay.
