Quail Hollow Championship, North Carolina
Modern-day Charlotte, the commercial hub of North Carolina’s Piedmont region, is nicknamed “Queen City.” When it comes to the golf, the moniker is especially appropriate, as the Quail Hollow Championship, enjoys a regal status as one of the marquee PGA Tour stops. As it has every year since its inaugural in 2003, Quail Hollow […]
Desert Forest Golf Club, Arizona
Any conversation about golf’s great visionaries ought to include the names Tom Darlington and K.T. Palmer. Never heard of them? That would probably suit Messrs. Darlington and Palmer just fine, as the founders of Desert Forest Golf Club seemed more intent on relaxation than recognition. To wit, in the early 1960s they dubbed their […]
Grayhawk Golf Club, Arizona
In an area known for high-end experiences, Grayhawk Golf Club set the standard for country-club-for-a-day facilities when its first course, Talon, opened in 1994. Tom Fazio’s Raptor opened the following year. Together, they pack a one-two punch worthy of Muhammad Ali. So do the service and amenities, which rival those of a top club. Inside the grand stone […]
Nakoma Resort, California
If you’re a do-it-yourselfer, surely you understand how small, seemingly simple undertakings can mushroom into major projects. You decide to replace a few tiles in the shower and three months later you’ve remodeled your entire bathroom. When Dariel and Peggy Garner start a project, it tends to build to a grand scale. They couldn’t seem to find the […]
A History of Pasatiempo Golf Club
The opening of any golf course represents an ending as well as a beginning—the end of a long struggle to identify the land, to carve the course out of its raw potential. But Pasatiempo represents a more poignant end than most, because it was the last great course of the Roaring ’20s, opening just […]
Rancho Santa Fe Golf Club, California
Amid the four-lane concrete highways of sprawling San Diego County, a commercial neighborhood ends by offering Encinitas Boulevard motorists a choice of narrow, winding roads. Veering right, the traveler starts down a winding lane shaded by sycamores and live oaks, seemingly headed for San Diego’s agricultural backcountry. But locals know this as the access […]
Tom Doak Redesign of San Francisco Golf Club
Nearly six decades ago, the city of San Francisco announced plans to build a freeway abutting the eastern border of the property that makes up San Francisco Golf Club. Faced with such an intrusion, the intensely private club set out to rework the three holes nearest to the road on the only A.W. Tillinghast […]
Sonoma Golf Club, California
You would expect a golfer with a classic swing to recognize a classic course when he sees one, and sure enough, when Sam Snead was asked to name the best course design he’d ever encountered, the Slammer answered: “One you probably never heard of—the Sonoma Golf Course in California.” Something in the sinewy twists […]
The Restoration of a MacKenzie Treasure, Pasatiempo Golf Club
Marion Hollins was the preeminent female athlete of the 1920s, earning accolades in tennis, golf, polo and steeplechase. Hollins was also involved in real estate, and managed the development of the Cypress Point Club. She was also the visionary behind Pasatiempo Golf Club, one of the finest public courses in the country. Hollins teamed up with another giant […]
Play Golf and Paraglide at Torrey Pines
At Torrey Pines, it is possible to pack two life experiences in a single day: playing a U.S. Open course and enjoying the exhilaration of paragliding at the Torrey Pines Gliderport, the self-proclaimed mecca of free flight in the U.S. Every year, during coverage of the Buick Invitational at Torrey Pines, CBS’ cameras always catch shots of the […]