Robert Craft sold the 36-hole facility bearing his family name, Craft Farms, in December of 2008, partly because four months earlier he had been elected mayor of Gulf Shores, Alabama. Running a town of some 17,000 residents is tricky work, particularly when the town is a year-round magnet for golf, fishing and beach-loving travelers—up to eight million a year.
The Mayor kept his hand in at Craft Turf Farms for a few more years but finally sold his interest there as well. It may have been more nostalgic to let that interest go, since it was the turf operation that, in its way, led to the golf operation.
The Mayor—and he’s still the mayor, some 16 years later—now urges visitors to play at all the Gulf Shores golf courses, which includes some beauties like Kiva Dunes and the Peninsula Golf & Racquet Club. The latter, like Craft Farms, is now owned and operated by Thistle Hill, a division of The United Company, which operates a number of southern golf courses.
And, according to Thistle Hill regional manager Chad Leonard, “We operate Coastal Alabama Golf out of Craft Farms, selling packages for all the golf courses in the area, outsourcing accommodations to our lodging partners—condos, hotels, private homes on the beach, whatever anyone is looking for.”
The Mayor’s father, the late R.C. Craft, was a Georgia native who relocated to Fort Myers, Florida where he was part of the once-thriving business of growing gladioli—Fort Myers in the decades following World War II was known as the gladiolus capital of the world. Craft moved the business to Foley, Alabama, just north of Gulf Shores, but the market began to wilt due to overseas competition.
So, R.C. bought some land and started a sod-farming operation. With thoughts that the Gulf Shores area could become a major tourist area, R.C. and his son, Robert, started thinking golf could be a prime attraction. But to acquire the backing and infrastructure needed for such a project, they needed a name architect.
Robert Craft, who grew up in Foley, was excited to get involved in a project with his father who, he said, was a self-made man: “He never had a degree. Served in Japan in the post-war period. Had done well in the gladiolus business, and he had a vision that the tourism growth in Fort Myers could happen here. He was loaded with common sense, determination and grit. He would see something through.
“He took up golf late but became a club champion for years. Which tells you why he and Arnold Palmer got along. They had the same hitch-up-your-pants determination. My dad would say, ‘I may not have a pretty swing but I’m going to get that ball in the hole before you do. Don’t believe me? Then bet me.’
“At the time we were thinking about course designers it seemed clear that we just weren’t a kind of Jack Nicklaus community. Arnold was the guy. That self-made man. It seemed like the way to go. So I said to my father, ‘Do you mind if I try?’ He said, ‘No, wear yourself out.’
“So I managed to get in touch, went up to [what was then] the Bay Hill Classic, and played in a pro-am with Palmer and his design partner Ed Seay and Palmer’s agent, Mark McCormick. I pitched the idea.”
It was enough to get Palmer to visit the property and the rest is history. When Palmer showed up with his team, with a local press scrum there to meet him, he and R.C. hopped in a cart to go look at the proposed golf site. But the two took a detour to the sod farm, and when the rest of the party caught up to them, there was Arnold Palmer stacking sod while R.C. talked his ears off.
“That started the relationship between the two men,” said Robert. “And before Palmer left he said to his team, ‘Get together with these guys and figure it out.’ And to us he said, ‘We’ll be back.’
“We went back to the local Utility Board and said, ‘If you’ll build a sewer out here we’ll bring in Arnold Palmer to build a golf course and we’ll change the way the world thinks about golf in Gulf Shores forever.’ The then-mayor raised his hand and said, ‘Do you think I could meet Mr. Palmer?’”
The Cotton Creek course opened in 1987, the Cypress Bend course in 1993. Both are unsurprisingly characterized by lush conditioning—419 Bermuda grass in the fairways and rough, a Craft proprietary hybrid Bermuda on the greens. There are no great changes in elevation, but there’s plenty of movement through both courses and both have ample water to negotiate.
Ryan Mello, the director of golf and club manager, said, “I favor Cotton Creek, for the reason that you have to methodically plan your way around the course. You can’t lay on the driver all day; depending upon the tee that you choose, you have to use a lot of different shots to keep it in play with the amount of water and OB present.
“My favorite hole is number six, a dogleg right with water in front of the green, and a little overpass bridge you use to get up to the green. Looking back from the green is a cool backdrop for pictures, which is why it’s one of the holes where we do wedding photos.
“The toughest hole is 14, because nothing is harder than when you have a straight hole with trouble left and OB right. You have to hit the perfect drive to keep it in play and it’s a long hole. Your approach, anywhere from a five or six iron, is into a kind of narrow long green with water short right. So it requires a pretty good second shot, too. And depending on the Gulf winds, it can be even harder.”
Cypress Bend is more of a resort style course, with larger greens and wider fairways, and hence gets more play. “On some holes you still have to play it smart here, but it’s a course where you can get into your driver more and if you have an errant shot you can save it. Cypress is just as pretty, and for the average golfer, 15 handicap or more, Cypress seems to be more popular. When players come back they’ll say, ‘Ah, Cotton was a little hard for me, I want to play Cypress.’”
Mello thinks the best hole on Cypress is 18, the par-5 finisher: “It’s got water on the right, a road on the left, and if you have an errant shot you can go OB. But it is wide enough to take your driver and hit it as hard as you can. It can be reached in two, but it’s a risk-reward shot since you have water short, to an elevated green. So you have to go over the water, but there is a bailout area right of green, though that leaves you with a harder pitch to the elevated green, where it can run away with you.”
When the courses were re-rated about a year and half ago members asked, “Are you sure that’s right?” because while the course ratings are higher on Cotton than Cypress, the slope ratings are lower. Go figure. The middle (white) tees on Cotton are 69.7/118 for 6,080 yards; on Cypress 68.7/124 from 5,975 yards. The foolhardy could stretch the Cotton course to 7,127 yards and then work with 74.2/129 ratings.
Craft Farms has about 150 golf members, 90 social members, with 20% of the rounds coming from the membership, the rest from resort traffic. Most are from drive-in markets from Louisiana, Kentucky, Tennessee and Texas, although during snowbird season golfers from Michigan, Wisconsin and the Midwest start showing up. Rates fluctuate according to season and time of day, with a low of $69 and a high of $120.
The courses remain as Palmer designed them, save for the removal of some bunkers after Hurricane Sally tore through in 2020. Sally also wrecked one of two clubhouses then on site. So a new clubhouse has been installed, and the former golf shop has been gutted for a planned lodge that, according to Leonard, “Will include eight guest rooms, room for about 12 golfers to come down and enjoy a stay and play right here, with your golf cart right outside your door.”
The lodge should be open toward the end of next year. No doubt the hitch-up-your-pants guys would approve.