Playing Golf on a Mountaintop

There is a golf course outside of Chattanooga called the Montlake Country Club. It is an interesting course, because it wraps around one of the nicest places to boulder in the Southeast, Stone Fort (AKA LRC, or Little Rock City). We've climbed there several times, and Jackson has always wanted to play golf on the course itself, so onto the list it went!

Spring Break provided the perfect opportunity for us - a group of families from the climbing gym, led by my friend and fellow coach Ike Eisenstadt, headed up to Foster Falls, west of Chattanooga, for a camping and climbing trip. We would be within an hour of Stone Fort and Montlake.


The camping was a disaster. We got there on Thursday, set up our tents, went into the Foster Falls area to climb a bit, and the skies opened. By the time we got back to the tent, it was flooded and all our clothes and sleeping bags were soaked. Rain was a theme for the weekend. After a night in a hotel, we went to Dayton, where the walls were overhanging enough that we could climb in the rain if necessary.

Finally, Saturday morning, Jackson, his friend Dylan and his dad Wes and I headed out to Montlake Country Club for a round of golf. The course and boulder area sits on top of a mountain in Soddy Daisy, north of Chattanooga. We rented clubs and headed out on the course, the boys driving the golf carts, of course. The day was mostly cloudy, but we had some sunshine on the first few holes. By the fifth hole, though, it was on and off again rain the rest of the way. But who cares? We were having a blast!

Dylan and Wes only lasted 9 holes, and they went to climb. Jackson wanted to play the whole course - 18 holes was on the list, and 18 holes was what we were going to play. The course had some really fun holes. Number 5 was basically hitting off a short cliff onto the green. Several holes had boulders in the middle of the fairway, and many had them along the sides. (A boulder, by the way, isn't just a big rock - these were 8-15 feet tall and sometimes 20 feet or more across.)

How high does a golf ball bounce when your iron shot hits a boulder? Pretty darn high! 

Just ask Jackson.

I am so thankful for this experience. We have talked about this since the first time we went there, and we got to play the course. Rented clubs, rain, aerated fairways and greens and all, we had fun. On top of it all, I shot my best front 9 holes ever. The back 9? Well, the weather was getting kind of rough and we were kind of tired and...

Jackson's thoughts on this one are coming.