Modern Classics: TXO

TXO

This Texas terror—formerly known as Wolf Point Ranch—puts a premium on strategy, pinpoint play, and one’s skill at wrangling an invitation When Al Stanger contacted Mike Nuzzo about creating a personal golf course near Carancahua Bay, about two hours southwest of Houston on the Gulf Coast, Nuzzo assumed the Texas rancher was really looking for something […]

The Art of Restraint in Golf Course Architecture

restraint

It’s a word that has become increasingly familiar to fans of great golf course architecture. The dictionary says “restraint” involves moderate behavior and self-control, and it’s an important trait for a designer to be able to call upon. Tom Doak says it is “deciding not to do something which is just as active a decision […]

Great Courses of Britain & Ireland: Royal Porthcawl

royal porthcrawl

Yet to host an Open Championship, the brute of Welsh golf boasts many hallmarks of great British courses Only a few die-hard advocates of Royal St. David’s and Aberdovey would dispute Royal Porthcawl’s claim to being the finest golf course in Wales. Moreover, many knowledgeable commentators would go further and argue that it is one […]

America’s Most Noteworthy “East” Courses

baltimore cc

The game of golf traveled west to the shores of the United States centuries ago, establishing significant golf clubs and courses up and down the country’s eastern shore. Predictably, some of those courses garnered “East” monikers, but as the game ventured west, other notable East-named courses were also created. Here, we spotlight five bucket-list-worthy layouts […]

Golf Course Architect Bill Bergin – LINKS Golf Podcast Ep. 168

bill bergin

Professional player turned golf course architect Bill Bergin joins the LINKS Golf Podcast to talk about his design of the Highlands Course at McLemore, and the new course he is building for the Georgia resort/community with Rees Jones called The Keep. The hosts also chat with Bergin about finishing 14th in the 1984 Open Championship, […]

10 U.S. Golf Holes with the Most “Water Balls”

Who among us hasn’t stepped up to a take a shot, made a quick hazard assessment after surveying the landscape (or waterscape) in front of them, and then pulled a different ball out of our golf bag to play? And how often did that beat-up ball we resigned to losing end up in a watery […]

Bernard Darwin: History’s Best Golf Writer

bernard darwin

The scion of a great English family wrote about golf better than he played it, which is saying a lot The life story of Bernard Darwin—arguably history’s first golf writer, inarguably its best—reads like a season of Masterpiece Theater. He was born in 1876 into a family of Victorian-era royalty: His grandfather was the naturalist […]