The Lakes at Laura S. Walker

The Lakes Golf Course at Laura S. Walker State Park near Waycross, Georgia, is one of the deep-south jewels on the Georgia State Parks Golf Trail. Steve Burnes designed the course and it opened in 1995 on coastal Georgia terrain just outside the Okefenokee Swamp. The designer incorporated the property's three large lakes into the routing and used local sand in the bunkers and waste areas to give the course an authentic Okefenokee-fringe character, a real sense of place rather than generic American parkland. Golf Digest voted The Lakes the Best Municipal Golf Course in Georgia in 2009, and two years later the U.S.-based 'Hook a Kid on Golf' program voted it the Best New Site of the Year in the U.S., unusual state and national recognition for a southeast-Georgia state-park course. The 71.9 rating and 122 slope give it legitimate playability across all handicap ranges. For the Georgia State Parks Golf Trail visitor, this is the southernmost stop worth the drive, complementing the mountain (Gold Creek) and coastal-plains (Brazell's Creek) stops further north.