Ranking the World – United Kingdom and Ireland
LINKS presents the start of a four-part series in which we’ll be ranking the nations of the world (outside of the U.S.) according to the quality of their golf. First up: the nations of the UK and Ireland. By Darius Oliver In the first of our four-part LINKS Magazine series, Scotland has emerged as the leading country in […]
Classic Course: Renegade at Desert Mountain
By James A. Frank In 1987, when Jack Nicklaus opened the Renegade course at Desert Mountain—the first of six he’d eventually build at the luxury community in Arizona’s Sonoran Desert— it truly broke new ground. For along with typical Nicklaus features like mounding-lined fairways and a high degree of difficulty, every hole at Renegade […]
Great Courses of GB&I: Dunbar Golf Club
Scotland’s self-proclaimed “Golf Coast” offers some illustrious options for traveling golfers. But while Muirfield and North Berwick get most of the headlines, nearby Dunbar Golf Club more than holds its own. First laid out in 1856, and later redesigned by Old Tom Morris, Ben Sayers, and James Braid, this seaside East Lothian links regularly hosts Open Championship […]
Cavendish: Hawaii’s Free-to-Play Golf Course
By Erik Matuszewski At the end of a non-descript road in Lanai City, there’s a golf course unlike any other in the heaven-on-earth that is the Hawaiian Islands. The tee boxes and fairways are a bit shaggy. Drainage can be a problem. Worm casings cover many of the greens, and deer hoofprints crisscross […]
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 […]