Alfred “Tup” Holmes is an 18-hole City of Atlanta golf course in Southwest Atlanta offering visitors an affordable public round with something most golf courses can't give you: a direct connection to Atlanta's Black golf and Civil Rights history. If you brought your clubs to Atlanta, this is where we're sending you first. Not because Tup Holmes is Atlanta's fanciest golf course. It isn't. This is a city course in Southwest Atlanta. You're coming here to play golf, not spend the afternoon pretending you're at Augusta. And that's part of why we like it.

The course gives travelers a real 18-hole round with rolling terrain, three sets of tees and enough challenge to make bringing the clubs worthwhile. The City operates it from dawn to sunset seven days a week, and public tee times can be booked without joining a private club. But then there's the name on the clubhouse. Alfred “Tup” Holmes. Holmes was an accomplished Black amateur golfer who won multiple championships but returned home to an Atlanta where Black taxpayers were still prohibited from playing the city's white public golf courses.

In 1951, Holmes, his father Dr. Hamilton Holmes, his brother Oliver and Charles Bell attempted to play Bobby Jones Golf Course. Atlanta turned them away because they were Black. They fought. The case eventually reached the U.S. Supreme Court, which in 1955 ordered Atlanta to desegregate its municipal golf courses. On Christmas Eve that year, Tup Holmes, Oliver Holmes and Charles Bell teed off at North Fulton Golf Course. In 1983, Atlanta renamed the former Adams Park Golf Course in Tup Holmes' honor. So now we're sending you there to do something extraordinarily ordinary: Play 18 holes.

Book your tee time. Grab a cart. Complain about the shot you should've made. Talk trash to whoever you came with. Because the fact that a Black traveler can simply decide, “I want to play golf while I'm in Atlanta,” book a public tee time and go play is connected to the fight of the man whose name is on this course. You brought your clubs. Use them.