RTJ Golf Trail: Silver Lakes Golf Course

RTJ Golf Trail - Silver Lakes Golf Course: Three nines - the Backbreaker, Heartbreaker and Mindbreaker - make up this very impressive layout on the Robert Trent Jones Golf Trail. Occupying tightly folding, splendidly undulating terrain, and carved out of what is predominantly pine forest, Silver Lakes comprises a superb collection of golf holes in a very natural setting - as good as anything on the Trail.

The opening holes on each nine create a wonderful and vivid first impression, but many holes thereafter are also show-stealers. You'll enjoy many fabulously elevated tee boxes that provide clear views of the demands ahead, with most holes invitingly laid out before you.

Water is not as much of a threat as the Silver Lakes name might imply, but when it does appear, on 2 or 3 holes on each nine, it does so with full force. The Heartbreaker, for example, contains eight potentially heart-warming holes, beautifully laid out in the undulating woodland; however, the heartbreak may well arrive at the par-4 9th, where water is in range off the tee and on three sides of the green - heartbreaker and cardwrecker all in one.

The Backbreaker course, marginally the longest, has a fabulous array of uphill par-4s played to wonderfully elevated greens that seem to tower in the air. The Mindbreaker's tightish and constantly undulating fairways are, as on the other nines, generally lined with a wide-ish band of clinging semi-rough, as well as an impressive array of excellent bunkering.

Throughout, the greens are on the large side, and invariably elevated. The Backbreaker and Mindbreaker nines are perhaps the best, with no real estate to disturb the naturalness of the surroundings. On all three nines you'll enjoy great golf and catch glimpses of the Tallageda National Forest and Appalachian foothills in the background.