When Rees Jones, the golf course architect who redesigned Congressional and Torrey Pines, walked the back nine of The Keep during the 2021 U.S. Open, he said the course "could host a major." That is the kind of line that gets printed on a hotel brochure and repeated at every ribbon cutting since. It also tends to convince people who live a few miles away that the whole operation is out of reach unless you own a home there or write a check for a membership.
That assumption is wrong, and it got more wrong this year, not less. In January 2026, McLemore Resort rolled out its first Stay and Play resort fee, charging overnight guests $30 to $100 depending on the season and the home they're renting. If you saw a headline about that fee and filed McLemore under "getting more expensive," you filed it in the wrong place. The fee applies to people booking a stay. It does not touch the program that actually gets a Lookout Mountain resident onto the golf course and into the clubhouse restaurant for free.
Four Ways In, and Only One of Them Costs Nothing
McLemore, which sits atop the southern stretch of Lookout Mountain near Rising Fawn, Georgia, runs on four separate access tiers, and they get confused constantly because the resort markets all four under one glossy name.
| Access type | Who it's for | What it costs | What you get |
|---|---|---|---|
| Friend of McLemore | Non-members who want occasional access | No initiation fee, no dues | Highlands Course up to 4x/year, clubhouse dining at The Creag on play day |
| Stay & Play guest | People renting a home or Cloudland hotel room | $30-$100 resort fee (as of Jan. 2026) | Tennis, pickleball, pool (May-Sept), driving range, Cairn short course |
| Full Non-Resident Member | Golfers who don't own property at McLemore | Membership dues (not published) | Unlimited tee times on Highlands and the 6-hole short course, guest rounds at half price |
| Full Resident Member | Property owners inside the McLemore community | Membership dues (not published) | Same course access, plus family privileges for spouse and children under 34 |
The tier most Lookout Mountain residents have never heard of is the first one, and it is the one that matters if you have zero interest in buying real estate on that part of the mountain but would like to play a round on a course Golf Digest has called the Best Finishing Hole in America Since 2000.
What "Friend of McLemore" Actually Gets You
There is no application fee and no recurring dues. You sign up, and you get access to play the Highlands Course once per season, up to four times a year, first come first served. The booking mechanics are specific enough to be worth knowing before you try:
- Tee times start at 1 p.m. during daylight saving time and 12 p.m. during standard time
- Booking windows run Sunday through Wednesday within 30 days of your desired date, and Thursday through Saturday within 6 days during the season (14 days outside peak season)
- Cart fees are included
- On the day you play, you also get access to the clubhouse, locker rooms, and The Creag, the on-site restaurant that has been open since 2020
That last point is worth sitting with. A resident who has never set foot inside McLemore's clubhouse can walk into The Creag for lunch after a round, at no cost beyond whatever they order, using a program that requires nothing more than signing up as a Friend. The new resort fee that made the local news this year never touches this arrangement. It was built for people paying to sleep on the mountain overnight, not for locals showing up for an afternoon tee time.
Two Courses, Not One
If you do book a Friend round, know which course you're getting. Friend access is specifically for the Highlands Course, the original layout and the one with the finishing hole that earned the Golf Digest recognition. The Keep, the newer of the two courses and the one Jones was describing when he made his major-championship comment, is reserved for members of McLemore and The Keep, plus guests staying at Cloudland, the resort's 245-room hotel that opened in February 2024. The Keep runs to more than 7,800 yards along the eastern cliff edge, and Sports Illustrated named it a Best New Course for 2026. It is a different experience than the Highlands, and Friend access does not include it.
That distinction matters if you're deciding whether the free path is worth pursuing. You are not getting a discounted version of everything McLemore offers. You are getting full, real access to one specific, well-regarded course, four times a year, with a meal included.
What Actually Changed in January
The confusion around the new fee is understandable, because McLemore's own marketing lumps every kind of visitor under the same "Stay & Play" language. But the fee that took effect January 1, 2026, is scoped narrowly. It applies to guests booking overnight lodging, whether that's a private home rental inside the resort community or a room at Cloudland, and it covers a specific list of amenities: West Village tennis courts, West Village pickleball courts, the West Village pool (open May 1 through September 30), driving range access with range balls, the Cairn short course, and the putting course.
None of that list includes the Highlands Course tee time a Friend of McLemore books, and none of it includes a meal at The Creag. The fee is a lodging surcharge, not a gate fee on the golf course itself.
The Calendar, If You're Watching From the Road
McLemore has spent 2026 building out a public-facing golf calendar, and it's worth knowing what already happened and what's still ahead if you want a sense of how active the place has gotten. The Women's Golf Retreat ran April 22 through 24, built around PGA-led instruction and small-group clinics. The Parent/Child Golf Tournament ran September 6, just two weeks before this was written. The one still on the calendar is the 2nd Annual Mixed Mountain Cup, October 5 and 6, a mixed-couples event that lets participants play both the Highlands Course and The Keep in the same weekend. That event is open to McLemore and Keep members and to Cloudland hotel guests rather than the general public, so it functions more as a signal of how the resort is scaling its programming than as something a Friend of McLemore can walk into. If you drive past the clubhouse the first weekend of October and see more cars than usual, that's why.
What This Means If You Live Nearby
None of this changes anything about home values or what it costs to buy near McLemore, and that isn't the point of laying it out. The point is that a resort with a national golf reputation sitting on your mountain does not require a six-figure membership to actually use. It requires knowing that a no-dues program exists, understanding what it covers and what it doesn't, and recognizing that a headline about a new fee this year was never describing your situation in the first place.
If you're weighing what it's actually like to live on this part of the mountain, whether that means proximity to a resort like McLemore or the more familiar rhythms around Covenant College and Rock City closer to town, that's the kind of on-the-ground context worth having before you make a move. You can browse current listings and get a feel for the range of homes on our Lookout Mountain neighborhood page, and if you want to talk through what a specific property or area actually offers day to day, The Tiano Group is happy to walk you through it. Schedule a meeting whenever you're ready.
