Burningtree Country Club

Burningtree Country Club is a private 18-hole course set on rolling terrain in the Tennessee Valley near Decatur. Designed by George Cobb in 1966, the layout features Champion Bermuda greens and Tifway 419 Bermuda fairways, with five inventively named tee sets — Inferno through Embers — that cater to a wide range of skill levels. The course is known throughout North Alabama for its conditioning and member-focused atmosphere.

Burningtree Country Club in Decatur, Alabama, represents among the accomplished private courses in northern Alabama — a George Cobb design that emerged from the peak years of that prolific architect's career in the postwar American South. The club was established in the mid-1960s as Decatur's established residential neighborhoods sought a private golf and social facility equal to their aspirations. The course opened in 1966, designed by George W. Cobb of Greenville, South Carolina, who by that point had built more than 100 original designs across the Southeast and had earned a reputation as the dominant golf architect of the region during the postwar golf boom. George Cobb's portfolio stretches across the Southern states with unusual density, reflecting the explosion of private club formation in growing mid-century Southern cities. His name is perhaps best known nationally through his 1959 collaboration with Bobby Jones and Clifford Roberts on the par-3 course at Augusta National — a project that cemented his credibility with the most demanding clients in American golf. His Alabama work includes commissions in Birmingham, Huntsville, and Hoover, and Burningtree represents the northern tier of his Alabama practice, designed for a community that sits at the bend of the Tennessee River where Decatur bridges the river's broad channel.Cobb's routing uses the rolling terrain northeast of Decatur to create a course with varied elevation and directional changes that prevent any sense of repetition across 18 holes. The fairways are carpeted in 419 Bermuda grass, while Champions Bermuda grass greens provide the consistent, moderately fast putting surfaces that Cobb favored in his Southern work. His bunker complexes tend toward the strategic rather than the penal, positioned to reward the preferred line of approach without making the alternative catastrophic for the average member. The club has hosted Alabama PGA Section events and regional amateur competitions throughout its existence, serving as a testing ground for northern Alabama's competitive players. Decatur, as a manufacturing center anchored by chemical and aerospace industries, provided Burningtree with a membership drawn from the city's engineering and professional community — a demographic that historically expects substance in its recreational facilities. Course maintenance and infrastructure improvements have been undertaken periodically through Burningtree's six decades of operation, ensuring that the playing surfaces and course conditions meet the expectations of a membership accustomed to quality. The fundamental Cobb routing and design character have been preserved through these intervals of work, maintaining the architectural integrity that gives the club its identity. Today, Burningtree Country Club remains Decatur's primary private golf facility, its George Cobb course providing a test of genuine championship length and strategic variety. The club's history reflects northern Alabama's mid-century growth and the ambitions of a community that wanted a course worthy of the talent its members would develop on its fairways.