Sunningdale Golf Club Old Course, England
The original course at this venerated 36-hole club offers heathland golf at its most bewitching
The Royal St. George’s Golf Club, England
The founding of England’s first major-championship golf venue might easily have been dubbed the Great Escape of 1887. It was conducted by a group of frustrated golfers from Wimbledon Common in the suburbs of London, where the game was played by two golf clubs on the same course—in opposite directions. The search for new ground […]
Pennard Golf Club, Wales
By Tom Doak Of all the golf courses I discovered in my year overseas studying golf architecture after college, the most unexpected find was an unknown links in southern Wales. Driving through the old gray city of Swansea, smokestacks in full force, it became clear how the course might have been overlooked for decades. […]
Royal Porthcawl Golf Club, Wales
A prospective guest at Royal Porthcawl appears before the club’s secretary. A round at Porthcawl, arguably the finest layout in Wales, is no small feather in a golfer’s cap, and its guest policy is somewhat more stringent than at most courses in the British Isles. Thus, the interview with the all-powerful secretary is neither […]
The Links at Fancourt, South Africa
Gary Player may be the greatest ambassador South Africa has ever known, and for golfers, there may be no better reason to visit Player’s native country than his 2000 design, The Links at Fancourt. Part of a 72-hole resort and residential community, the par-73, 7,748-yard layout sits on a former airfield, in view of the […]
Barnbougle Dunes Golf Course
For Americans, Tasmania symbolizes the ultimate remote destination; even if most Americans don’t know exactly where it is, the name alone represents a place as far as one could imagine getting away. So it came as a surprise that our new course in Tasmania is accessible from Australia’s major population centers, especially Melbourne—a one-hour flight and just […]
Confidential Guide to Playing Golf in Australia
It takes a long time to get to Australia—more than 14 hours by air from Los Angeles—but today’s trip is hardly as taxing as the six weeks’ ocean voyage that Dr. Alister MacKenzie had to endure to make his landmark consulting visit to Royal Melbourne Golf Club in 1926. Because he went, so do […]
10 Very Expensive Golf Course Memberships
The home hole at the soon-to-be opened Sebonack Golf Club in Southampton, New York, is a natural beauty, a par 5 that dips, rolls and rises atop a cliff overlooking Peconic Bay. The target off the tee is a flagpole at the adjacent National Golf Links of America, opened in 1911. The symbolism is not coincidental. Sebonack […]
TPC Stadium Golf Courses
In the quarter-century since former commissioner Deane Beman unveiled his concept of a PGA Tour-operated network of fan-friendly golf venues, the Tournament Players Club (TPC) “brand” has quietly morphed into a machine for selling homesites and golf memberships. While certain facilities in the TPC portfolio—including the very first, the TPC at Sawgrass—are praised for their architectural brilliance and tournament-hosting capacity, the […]
The Evolution of Golf Course Architecture
Quite literally, the landscape of golf course architecture has evolved since LINKS began publishing 20 years ago. Since 1988, more than 3,500 courses have been built in the United States. Some, like Sand Hills, are among the greatest ever built. Others, like Shadow Creek, were unlike anything that golf had seen before. While overall quality of courses built […]
