Top 10 Courses: Ohio
Known mainly to the golf world for producing the great Jack Nicklaus, it should be unsurprising that Ohio boasts an incredibly rich collection of golf courses. Though the Golden Bear has undoubtedly left his mark on a few of these layouts—he grew up practicing at #4 on our list and #1 is famously referred […]
Great Courses of Britain & Ireland: Lindrick
There are two golf clubs in England that will be forever linked with the Ryder Cup: One is The Belfry, the other is Lindrick, and they couldn’t be more different. The Belfry (or more precisely its Brabazon Course) was “purposely built” in the 1970s to host important tournaments. In human terms, it is a big strapping youth, […]
Classic Course: Country Club of Charleston
Rare are the moments, while playing a golf course for the first time, that you round a corner or reach the brow of a hill suddenly to come face to face with a shotmaking assignment so visually arresting that you stop dead in your tracks, speechless except perhaps for a murmured “wow.” Examples that come […]
The Full Scoop on Bandon Dunes’s New 5th Course – The Sheep Ranch
By Ian Critser While on a recent trip to Bandon Dunes, we had an unusual resort guest sit next to us at breakfast one morning—Ben Crenshaw. While listeners of the LINKS Golf Podcast will have already heard about this encounter in Part 1 of our Bandon Dunes episode, most won’t know the actual reason he […]
Who Really Designed Bethpage Black?
By Tony Dear A while ago, we asked who deserved the credit for how a golf course turns out—designer, design associate, construction foreman, re-designer, restorer, renovator, shaper, superintendent, some of the above, or all of them. It’s an especially pertinent subject at Bethpage Black as a question mark hangs over the identity of the […]
The New Bobby Jones Golf Course: New Life for Atlanta’s Oldest Public Layout
By the mid 2000s, the Bobby Jones Golf Course was no longer the fitting tribute to its namesake that it was on opening day in 1932. Although it sat on prime real estate in the heart of Atlanta, the city’s oldest public golf course had become hopelessly run-down. It was the type of course that […]
A Weekend at Troon North in Scottsdale, Arizona
By Graylyn Loomis One of the benefits of being a golf writer is traveling to popular golf destinations around the country. With that travel comes frequent questions from golfers about where they should go next. Until recently, I had a large hole in my resume. I had never played golf in Arizona and had to […]
The Battle to Save Lions Muny in Austin, Texas
By Adam Schupak Ben Crenshaw is taking a break from renovating Kapalua’s Plantation Course on the island of Maui to talk about a project near and dear to his heart—the effort to Save Muny. He grew up a few blocks from Lions Municipal Golf Course, a historic gem that sits on golf’s endangered species list, […]
Tiger Woods and Payne’s Valley at Big Cedar Lodge
By Erik Matuszewski During one of his recent visits to the Ozarks in Missouri, Tiger Woods brought his son Charlie along to help with the construction of the Big Cat’s first public course in the U.S.: Payne’s Valley at Big Cedar Lodge. The team from Woods’s TGR Design was leveling some of the severe terrain […]
Top 10 Courses: Arizona
1. Estancia, ScottsdaleTom Fazio’s 1995 Scottsdale debut remains the Arizona gold standard. Generous fairways and greens and relatively few forced carries make for a less penal assignment than at most desert courses and this ultra-exclusive layout is always in top condition. 2. Forest Highlands (Canyon), Flagstaff Set in the mountains at 7,000 feet, this is […]