State of the Game: What Does the Data Say About Golf Right Now?
Did you know one in every nine people plays golf? That’s more than participate in basketball, baseball, tennis, or skiing, making golf one of the nation’s largest participation sports. There’s no doubt you’ve heard a wide range of opinion about the state and health of the game, so let’s take a closer look at the […]
The Hotchkiss School Course: A Raynor Course Open to All
Golf architecture geeks surely know the name Seth Raynor. A local surveyor (and non-golfer) plucked out of obscurity by Charles Blair Macdonald to help him build the National Golf Links on Long Island, Raynor became Macdonald’s partner, the yin to his yang, and following his boss’s “template hole” formula designed a number of notable […]
What Can the PGA Tour Learn from the European Tour?
Since taking over the European Tour in August 2015, Keith Pelley has proved to be an agent of change. Under his watch the European Tour has tackled such topics as golf’s glacial pace-of-play problem with a 40-second shot clock at one tournament to breaking from the monotony of 72-hole stroke-play competition with such events as […]
Hiding in Plain Sight: Golf on England’s South Coast
By Graylyn Loomis I was once on a golf course with Tom Doak when he told a story about a trip he’d taken with one of his clients. The man asked Tom to plan a trip to the UK with no constraints on cost or time. The group would fly private from the states […]
What Next for the Bally Bandon Sheep Ranch?
By Tony Dear It has become decreasingly mysterious with every passing article—and there have been many—but the Sheep Ranch still possesses sufficient intrigue and anonymity to ensure the golfer recounting his experiences of the place speaks mostly to a hushed audience. Images and stories have been filtering through for nearly two decades, and its […]
100 Years of Pebble Beach: Concours d’Elegance
By James A. Frank In 2019, Pebble Beach Golf Links will celebrate its 100th birthday and host its sixth U.S. Open. To commemorate these milestones, each issue of LINKS Magazine and LINKSdigital between now and then will tell the unique story that is Pebble Beach. Those articles will also be shared here on our website. Pebble […]
Prince’s Golf Club: A Gem in Southeast England
By Graylyn Loomis When the revolutionary rubber-core Haskell Golf Ball arrived in Britain around 1900, it rendered old—and even contemporary—courses obsolete. To combat the problem, a developer decided to build Prince’s Golf Club. It was considered very long at 7,000 yards when it opened in 1906 and was heralded as a course for the […]
How Does GolfNow Work for Operators and Golfers? (And Does it Save You Money?)
For several years now, White Oaks Country Club in Southern New Jersey has leaned on tee-time seller GolfNow not just for its tee sheet capabilities, but to help the independently-owned public course with a website, e-mail marketing, a call center, and 24-hour customer support. “It provides every service you can think of,” says White Oaks […]
Rising from the Desert: Golf in Saudi Arabia
By Adam Schupak I’ve seen the future of golf in Saudi Arabia and it looks a lot like a modern-day, high-end American golf facility on steroids. There is something oddly wrong or charmingly comforting—I still can’t decide—about flying halfway around the world and feeling as though I could be at a Ritz-Carlton in Scottsdale […]
Restoring a Classic: Sleepy Hollow Country Club
By Ian Critser With a resume that includes restorations at Winged Foot, Merion, Fishers Island, and dozens of others, Gil Hanse is no stranger to giving new life to classic courses. While Sleepy Hollow Country Club north of New York City may not be as well known, the work that he and his team have […]