Lake of Isles Golf Resort, Connecticut
Given its location in southeast Connecticut, along the densely populated New York City-Boston corridor, the opening of the Foxwoods Resort Casino nearly 20 years ago wasn’t much of a gamble. In fact, it’s just minutes off I-95, so there was no hassle at all to taking the exit and making a slight detour. Neither was the opening of […]
Taconic Golf Club
Just as Fenway Park sits serenely within the commotion of Boston’s Kenmore Square, Taconic Golf Club, at the opposite end of Massachusetts, tucks itself tightly alongside a middle-class neighborhood of Williamstown. Instead of a grandiose entry with artificial curves, Taconic makes do with short, straight Meacham Street as its conduit to the world. Williams College, […]
Broken Top Club, Oregon
By the 3rd tee it is obvious. The design team of Tom Weiskopf and Jay Morrish has succeeded again. As you stand on this 424-yard par 4 and prepare to launch your tee shot, it is impossible not to be overwhelmed by the view straight ahead of snow-capped Mt. Bachelor, all 9,065 feet of it. Here on […]
Pittsburgh Field Club, Pennsylvania
During the 2007 U.S. Open, one of the world’s greatest courses was occupied, wearing down the best players in the world. But savvy visitors to Pittsburgh were able to enjoy a round at Pittsburgh Field Club just a few miles from Oakmont, across the Allegheny River. While it doesn’t have nearly the bite of […]
Spyglass Hill Golf Course, Pebble Beach Resorts
The 3rd Hole at Spyglass Hill Golf Course. Photo by Evan Schiller. When Robert Trent Jones Sr. was designing Spyglass Hill Golf Course in the 1960s, the working title was Pebble Pines. But Pebble Beach visionary Samuel F.B. Morse came up with a better name: Spyglass Hill, in honor of Robert Louis Stevenson, who lived […]
Pine Lakes Country Club, Myrtle Beach
The very first golf resort in Myrtle Beach, Ocean Forest Hotel & Country Club, opened in 1927 right before the Great Depression. On March 12, amidst the greatest economic downturn since then, the club (renamed Pine Lakes in 1944) held its grand reopening following a 20-month, $15 million renovation of its Robert White course and […]
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 […]
Belvoir Park Golf Club, Northern Ireland
In the early ’90s, when Yanks began descending en masse on Ireland’s mightiest links, they first gathered at the magisterial courses of the southwest (think Ballybunion and Lahinch), then east coast wonders like Portmarnock and the European Club, and more recently, the raw and secluded northwest. But without direct flights to Belfast and scared […]
Ballyliffin Golf Club, Ireland
The Second Coming of Ballybunion? Years ago I subscribed to the New Yorker and it was then that I first became familiar with the name Herbert Warren Wind, the sportswriter. I was attracted not only by the clarity of his writing but by the mellifluosity of his name, which had as good a ring […]
TPC Snoqualmie Ridge
The TPC designation lends golf courses a certain cachet. The oft-challenging TPC layouts share a number of recurring design features: risk-reward par 4s; grassy mounds and swales; tightly mown chipping areas; and at least one short-but-dangerous par 3, which often seems to appear at the 17th hole (a la TPC Sawgrass). Surely one of the […]