Visiting McLemore: Cloudland and The Keep
At Lookout Mountain, GA
By John Retzer
On my return to Michigan from Augusta, The Masters, and the annual meeting of the Golf Writers Association of America in April 2025, I stopped in at Lookout Mountain to visit McLemore, Cloudland and The Keep.
McLemore is a golf resort and community perched atop Lookout Mountain, Georgia. It is a spectacular setting and just might be the next great golf destination resort.
The resort currently has two 18-hole courses, a short course, and a large putting green course. There is a Hilton Curio hotel – Cloudland — and multiple cottages available to groups. A network of hiking trails is being upgraded. Non-golf activities in the area include fishing, rock climbing, caving, mountain biking, road biking and more.
While at McLemore, I played The Keep, the resort’s second course, which had its first full season in 2025. When I played The Keep it was still growing in, but its potential was undeniable, with links-like holes clinging to the top and cliffs of Lookout Mountain.
A Bill Bergin/Rees Jones design, The Keep defies categorization. It is tempting to call the open, mostly treeless holes "links-like," but the combination of elevation changes, cliffside holes, mountain streams, ravines and rock outcroppings are unique.
Still, on the day I played, with the wind blowing, the ball running fast and the wild grasses off the fairways, one could be excused for thinking "links."
Five of the holes – including the starting and finishing on each nine – are on the cliff's edge. They are quite the sight, and in some places a bit giddying. The entire left side of the ninth is cliffside, reminding me of the 12th at Arcadia Bluffs, the 4th at Torrey Pines South, and several holes at Pacific Dunes.
Every hole at The Keep, however, has views of distant mountains, valleys and cliffs that can easily distract a player from the game at hand. The Keep has to be amazing when the leaves turn colors.
Lookout Mountain’s gray rock outcroppings are deftly incorporated into The Keep’s design, giving it a distinct and memorable character. The look is perhaps most dramatic on the short par four seventeenth. Measuring just 358 yards from the tips, the seventeenth runs slightly uphill between two rock faces, finishing on a green brilliantly surrounded by craggy gray walls.
Michigan golfers might be reminded of the similarly rugged setting of Greywalls, in Marquette, although the Mike DeVries design is more heavily wooded. In particular, the seventeenth green at The Keep is set similarly to the 4th at Greywalls.
As a whole, I thought The Keep was great fun. The design’s clever use of the topography offers plenty to think about from tee to green. I loved the open, windswept, links-like play. The Keep rewards good shot making, but a bad shot usually isn't fatal.
Unless you send one over the cliff. That ball is dead.
McLemore’s other course — and its original — is The Highlands, which has a bit of a meandering past. Built in 2000, it originally was known as Canyon Ridge. Like many courses, it suffered greatly though the 2008 recession, going into receivership. In 2015, however, a group of new investors took hold. The property was rebranded as McLemore and the course was reworked by Rees Jones.
I didn’t get a chance to play The Highlands, but the holes I saw on a tour were just begging to be played.
The new Cloudland at McLemore hotel, like everything else on the property, takes full advantage of the spectacular views from atop Lookout Mountain. The hotel is part of the Curio by Hilton collection, and is absolutely first rate.
One of the things I liked most about Cloudland is that it has so many spaces available for gathering. Unlike so many hotels, it invites you to leave your room and seek out other human beings.
There’s a sunny cafe and balcony, a lounge that opens up to a patio with a gas fire pit, an open-air lounge and bar overhanging the side of the mountain, two more bars inside the hotel, two restaurants and — get this — a large library with a fireplace. All of the spaces are welcoming and ideal for chatting with friends or just diving into a good book.
I thought the food at Cloudland was excellent. Their cocktails were even better. Arriving after a long drive on Thursday, I was not particularly hungry, so I just had a bowl of mac and cheese at Cloudland’s Croft restaurant. Perfect.
The next morning, before my round at The Keep, I had a delicious and filling french toast breakfast in the sunroom of Croft. After the round, I sat at the bar at the Auld Alliance restaurant, enjoying cocktails, a pork chop and rumbledethumps, a side dish of potato, cabbage, cheese and onion.
In a rapidly growing destination golf market, McLemore stands out for its dramatic setting. I certainly have not played anything like it. I'd love to return to play its sister course, The Highlands, and to replay The Keep once it is fully grown in. If (when?) they add another course or two, it’ll be another one of those must-visit golf destinations.
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