5 Myths About Tour Pros
[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]Ahh yes, the lavish life of a tour professional. How many times have you watched a golf tournament on television and thought, “These guys get paid to play golf for a living…How cool is that?” Yes, being a tour pro certainly has its perks. Playing a game you love in vacation-like settings for large sums […]
American Dream Courses: Midwest (East)
[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]The eastern half of the Midwest is our sixth region having navigated about two-thirds of the country in our “American Dream Courses” series. We’ve identified dozens of interesting, affordable, welcoming golf courses, but may have hit peak “Dream Golf” here in Wisconsin, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, and Michigan…especially Michigan. Because there are so many excellent courses […]
Winged Foot’s Championship Pedigree
[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]This year’s U.S. Open marks the sixth time the championship has been contested on the West Course at Winged Foot. As players continue to tee off on this A. W. Tillinghast brute (updated in 2017 by Gil Hanse), viewers should expect to see Winged Foot be every bit as difficult as in past championships there. […]
LINKS Golf Podcast Episode 62: A Member’s Guide to Winged Foot
LINKS President and Publisher Jack Purcell joins Digital Editor Al Lunsford on the show to provide an insider’s perspective on Winged Foot, where Jack has been a member for more than 30 years. Jack gives the scoop on the preparation of the West course for this year’s U.S. Open, the things players need to do […]
Winged Foot’s Challenging U.S. Open Setup
[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]Winged Foot. The name conjures images of sidewalk-thin fairways, ball-devouring rough, and concrete-hard greens that repel approach shots—and make three-putting from five feet all too possible. In other words, it’s the perfect U.S. Open venue. Because of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Open is returning to Winged Foot’s renowned West Course a few months later than […]
New York—One of the Biggest Golf Hotbeds in the World
[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]It makes sense that states like Florida and California rank 1–2 in number of U.S. golf facilities, given their year-round warm weather and positioning on opposite coasts. But do you know which state checks in third? That would be New York, with more than 750 golf facilities stretching from Buffalo to Montauk. Michigan has a […]
Gull Lake View: The Biggest Golf Resort You Might Not Know
When golfers think of Augusta, their first thought probably isn’t Michigan. But due west of Detroit and Ann Arbor, midway between Battle Creek and Kalamazoo, lies one of the largest, yet unheralded golf resorts in the country: Gull Lake View Golf Resort. The property is family-owned, now in the fourth generation of the Scott family, […]
Dumbarnie and Coul Links: How Two Acclaimed Links Course Proposals Met Vastly Different Fates
[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]The two projects were announced with great fanfare—and had golfers salivating. In 2015, Coul Links Ltd., a consortium headed by Americans Mike Keiser and Todd Warnock, proposed the construction of a new links course in Embo, Scotland, just north of Dornoch. It was to be the first Scottish links from the esteemed design team of […]
The Ultimate U.S. Open Course
[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]We asked a panel of players, architects, officials, and media to look at the USGA’s five favorite Open venues and rank them, hole by hole. Here are the results. Not long ago, the USGA expressed publicly its devotion to an elite quartet of U.S. Open venues—Oakmont, Pebble Beach, Pinehurst No. 2, and Shinnecock Hills—with the […]
LINKS Golf Podcast Episode 61: In-Depth on Sand Valley
Digital Editor Al Lunsford reports live from Sand Valley Golf Resort in Wisconsin, part of the Dream Golf umbrella, in this episode of the LINKS Golf Podcast. Al interviews Sand Valley General Manager Michael Carbiener about the resort’s two top 100 public golf courses, the activities and amenities available to guests beyond golf, and what’s […]
