Walk It With Us: Inside the WalkingGolfer.com Meetup & Skins Game at Corica Park South

ALAMEDA, Calif. — On Monday, Oct. 26, 2026, a group of golfers will do something that used to be unremarkable and is now, somehow, a statement: they will play 18 holes of tournament golf on foot.

The WalkingGolfer.com Meetup & Skins Game is a one-day, cobranded celebration of walking golf at Corica Park's South Course, presented by The Walking Golfer in partnership with AmateurGolf.com, and sponsored by Stewart Golf. Stroke play, on-course contests, an optional skins game, and a field of people who would rather walk five miles than ride four.

There is a reason it is happening here, and it is not a coincidence.

Our home course, and why we keep writing about it

Corica Park is the home course of AmateurGolf.com. Our Winter Invitational has been played on the South Course nearly every December since the Rees Jones redesign opened, and our staff has walked these fairways in competition, in preview rounds, and on ordinary Tuesday afternoons for a decade. When we say the place is walkable, it is not a marketing line lifted from a brochure. It is a scorecard we have personally carried, on foot, a lot of times.

It is also one of the more remarkable municipal golf stories in the country. The 333-acre complex on the island city of Alameda — once second only to Torrey Pines in California for rounds played — had fallen into decline before Greenway Golf took over operations. What followed was a total overhaul: the Mif Albright par-3 course, the Lucius Bateman driving range, a Rees Jones redesign of the South, and finally a Robert Trent Jones Jr. renovation and completion of the North.

The result is the only place in the world where the Jones brothers have their names on side-by-side municipal golf courses. Forty-five holes. Public. Affordable. Walkable.

Our Corica Park spot, which ran in select Northern California markets on Golf Channel.

The South Course: what Rees Jones actually built

We walked the South Course with Rees Jones in November 2015, while it was still acres of dirt. Even then the shape of the thing was visible.

Most of the money went where players never see it. Twenty-five miles of new drainage pipe. A rebuilt irrigation system. Six to seven inches of sand capping on every fairway, so the course stays firm and playable after the heaviest Bay Area rain — which matters enormously in late October. Drought-tolerant Bermuda strains cut the water bill. Even the old artificial turf from the driving range was recycled into bunker liners.

Above ground, Jones built a modern links: varied green complexes with real movement but nothing severe, closely mown surrounds and run-up ramps that reward the ground game, and bunkering that is very much the defining hazard on this golf course. The routing was reworked, too — the old first and second were combined into a par-5 opener, retiring the original par-3 second and smoothing out the flow of play.

Greenway's George Kelley was especially proud of the short par 4s — the 8th in particular. "It's easy to design a great long hole," he told us on that walkthrough. "But it's really hard to design a great short one."

Short par 4s and a firm ground game are exactly what makes a golf course fun to walk. You are not hiking 600 yards between shots to hit a wedge. The design and the walk are the same idea.

Read our full 2015 walkthrough: Rees Jones Redesign at Alameda South Taking Shape

And then his brother showed up

In 2023, Greenway announced that Robert Trent Jones II Golf Course Architects would renovate the North Course and complete its back nine. The North opened to the public on March 28, 2025, with a ribbon-cutting by longtime superintendent Vinny Paul and remarks from Jones himself.

Where Rees leaned on bunkers, RTJ Jr. used the fairways themselves as the hazard — contoured, positional, firm and fast, with the ground game built in. "We wanted you to play on the ground, under the wind," he said that day.

We were there with a camera. We also sent four AmateurGolf.com members out to play the North before it opened to the public, because that is the kind of thing we do.

More of our Corica coverage: Corica Park North Course Debuts with Ceremony, Community, and Pure Golf Joy · Robert Trent Jones II to complete North Course

The ghost in the range: Lucius Bateman

You cannot write about walking golf at Corica Park without walking past the Lucius Bateman Driving Range.

Bateman was a Bay Area teaching professional who was denied the chance to compete on the PGA Tour because of the racial barriers of his era. He took his talent to the practice tee instead and spent more than 25 years coaching kids — many from disadvantaged backgrounds — providing rides, meals, and free lessons along with the swing work. Tony Lema, an Open champion and 12-time PGA Tour winner, was one of his students.

His legacy is still operating. The Bateman Club at Corica Park gives competitive junior golfers completely free, unrestricted access to the courses and practice facilities. It is the reason this facility feels like a community asset rather than a golf business that happens to be publicly owned.

Read: Lucius Bateman: Golf's Unsung Mentor Lives On at Alameda's Corica Park

Why The Walking Golfer, and why now

If you have played an AmateurGolf.com event, you already know our position: golf is meant to be walked. Walking is how you see a golf course the way its architect drew it, flowing green to tee. You feel the slope. You notice the details. You get roughly five miles of low-impact exercise, you skip the cart fee, and you actually talk to the people you are playing with.

The Walking Golfer exists to preserve exactly that — and to solve the practical problem that comes with it. Not every course is genuinely enjoyable on foot, and until recently there was no good way to find out before you paid. WalkingGolfer.com is a community-driven map and rating system built around one question: is this course good to walk? Routing, elevation, green-to-tee transitions, overall flow.

This event is the two missions meeting in person. A walkable course, a walking field, and the site that helps you find the next one.

Related: Walking the Game · Why Walking Golfers Should Be Using WalkingGolfer.com · Walking Golf Is Just Golf

Stewart Golf: carry the clubs, not the load

Stewart Golf is a core sponsor of The Walking Golfer and of this event, and the Official Electric Caddie of AmateurGolf.com. Their electric trolleys carry your bag so you can spend your legs on the walk instead of on the pushing.

We landed on Stewart after testing the top electric caddie brands. The flagship Q Follow uses hands-free technology to trail you down the fairway, with remote control available for cart paths, bridges, tight walkways, and around the greens.

You will be able to test Stewart Golf electric caddies on-course throughout the day at Corica — which is the right way to evaluate one. Not on a showroom floor. On the 8th hole, walking.

Our long-term check-in on Instagram: