First Peek: Rancho San Lucas
By Brian McCallen Showpiece of an 834-acre resort community that bellies up to the Pacific 15 minutes from Cabo San Lucas, the newly opened Greg Norman-designed course at Rancho San Lucas is sure to be hailed as Mexico’s next great venue. Norman throttled back the bulldozers to create a low-profile layout with sweeping ocean […]
Top 10 Courses: Florida
Golf is a year-round game in the Sunshine State, where masses migrate during the winter months and there are more courses (over 1,200) than any other U.S. state. Inherently, great variety exists, from waterside courses on the Atlantic coast and the Gulf of Mexico, to inland tracks built around lakes and on top of phosphate […]
Royal Melbourne—The International Team’s Only Hope?
By Nick Edmund According to the form book and every available statistic, this week’s 13th rendition of the Presidents Cup was unlikely to be a close encounter. Here’s the proverbial case for the prosecution: the International team had triumphed in only one of the previous dozen matches and that was more than two […]
Plantation Course at Kapalua Reopens Following Coore & Crenshaw Renovations
Ben Crenshaw and Bill Coore faced a daunting task three decades ago: How to create a golf course on a mountainside in Maui that would be playable and enjoyable. The building of the Plantation Course “absolutely tested us to the max,” Coore says of a project that served as a springboard for arguably the preeminent […]
Revetted Bunkers in Mexico? You’ll Find Them at this New Cabo Course
By Erik Matuszewski Revetted bunkers were introduced to golf in Scotland, almost 5,500 miles from the windswept shores of Mexico’s Baja Peninsula. They were originally designed as a way to stop wind erosion, helping shore up the face of bunkers whipped by the wind. Anyone who’s visited the ever-growing golf hotbed of Los […]
Greg Norman Returns to Renovated TPC Sugarloaf
In early October, 50-some-odd members of private club TPC Sugarloaf in Duluth, Ga., followed along a ceremonial nine-hole loop featuring a foursome of course designer Greg Norman, two national media members, and one club member whose birthday wish came early when he won a raffle to tag along. Almost unfathomably, I found myself on the […]
Reynolds Lake Oconee’s Great Waters Course Gets Renovation
As I listened to Jack Nicklaus describe the renovation of Great Waters at Reynolds Lake Oconee—a course that he originally opened in 1992 and reintroduced last week—it was hard not to think golf’s greatest champion was perhaps describing himself, as well. “Irrigation wears out, bunkers need reworking. It’s just time.” Nicklaus will turn 80 in […]
Tom Doak is Building His First Course in Ireland
By Tony Dear In 1993, Tom Doak made a handshake agreement with the owner of Old Head in County Cork, Ireland, to design 18 holes but, for one reason or another, the plan fell apart. A decade or so later, another opportunity arose at Castlegregory, 10 miles west of Tralee on the beautiful […]
Wynn Las Vegas — Saved from the Chopping Block
Tom Fazio says it’s shocking that a golf course even exists on the Las Vegas Strip, and he’s the one who built the unlikely oasis in the Wynn Las Vegas’s backyard. Built and rebuilt it, actually. After getting a chance to play the second-coming of the reinvented Wynn Golf Club, it’s tough to disagree. You’d […]
Bandon Dunes Celebrates Its 20th Anniversary
Twenty-one years ago, Bob “Shoe” Gaspar delivered a load of mulch to a construction site just south of North Bend on Oregon’s southern coast. Unsure of what was being built, he walked over a dune and saw a half-finished golf course. There was no clubhouse, the back nine was dirt, the front nine was being […]
