Grand National (Robert Trent Jones Golf Trail)

Grand National is the fourth site on the Robert Trent Jones Golf Trail, opened in August 1992 on 1,300 wooded acres around 600-acre Lake Saugahatchee near Auburn University and I-85. Developed by the Retirement Systems of Alabama and operated by SunBelt Golf, it offers 54 holes across three Robert Trent Jones Sr.-designed courses — the Lake Course and Links Course (both championship 18s) and the par-3 Short Course — plus a 35,000-square-foot clubhouse and a 15-acre practice range. The site has hosted the Nike Tour Championship, an LPGA Tournament of Champions, an NCAA Division I Championship, and the PGA Tour's Barbasol Championship (2015-2017), giving it real competitive pedigree within the Trail.

What separates Grand National from most other RTJ Trail sites for a golf-oriented homebuyer is National Village: a 700-acre, roughly 1,400-home community built directly onto the golf property across five neighborhoods (The Yards, The Links, Stone Lake, Quail Ridge, and Eagle Place), with homes priced from roughly $300K into the $1M+ range and immediate-delivery homes commonly marketed from the $400s. Every National Village home purchase includes a Property Owners Association membership to the Auburn Marriott Opelika Resort & Spa at Grand National, which the community's own marketing describes as including unlimited range balls and free golf on the Short Course, with discounted (not free) rates on the full Lake and Links Courses, plus resort amenities — pools, a fitness room, saunas, 8 clay tennis courts and 4 pickleball courts, and access to 8-10 miles of hiking trails and four stocked fishing lakes.