The Best Golf Courses of Continental Europe
By Adam Lawrence Turn up at one of the marquee courses of Scotland or Ireland on a nice summer’s day and you can pretty much guarantee that many of the voices you hear will be American. Arrive at one of continental Europe’s big names, though, and things will be very different: Despite more attention […]
Great Courses of Britain and Ireland: Panmure Golf Club
There are few British or Irish golf clubs that can claim a direct link with the great Ben Hogan. One that certainly can is Panmure Golf Club, situated on a rugged piece of rolling linksland just over a mile west of Carnoustie. By Colin Callander It was there that Hogan, together with caddie Cecil Timms, […]
Modern Classic Course: Calusa Pines Golf Club
By Dave Seanor Anonymity is the number-one amenity at Calusa Pines Golf Club. When you set foot on the property, you become one with nature, unshackled from the sights, sounds, demands, and distractions of everyday life. At least that was club founder Gary Chensoff’s intent 20 years ago when he envisioned this golf purist’s […]
Tom Doak’s Sedge Valley – A Sub-Par 70 Design at Sand Valley
By Tony Dear Golf course design priorities have seen a welcome shift in recent years. The emphasis on demanding, arduous golf has started to give way to fun, sustainable courses that you’d want to play again and again. The new wave is seen in the boom of short courses across the country (Pinehurst’s Cradle, […]
What You Need to Know About Le Golf National, Site of the 42nd Ryder Cup
Call it TPC Paris. Le Golf National, site of the 42nd Ryder Cup, is located on the outskirts of Versailles, 20 miles southwest of Paris, and its towering dunes and natural amphitheaters would make architect Pete Dye blush at the less than accidental resemblance to his house of horrors at TPC Sawgrass. Designed by Frenchman […]
100 Years of Pebble Beach: A “New” Course for the U.S. Open
By James A. Frank In 2019, Pebble Beach Golf Links will celebrate its 100th birthday and host its sixth U.S. Open. To commemorate these milestones, each issue of Links Magazine and LINKSdigital between now and then will tell the unique story that is Pebble Beach. Every golf course is a work in progress, changing over […]
Royal Golf Club: From Corporate Playground to Community Course
By Adam Schupak When Art Fry, co-inventor of the Post-It Note, visited the construction site of Royal Golf Club in Lake Elmo, Minn., he took one look at the stunning clubhouse view of Horseshoe Lake and said, “I’ve played a thousand rounds here and I never knew there was a lake there.” That’s just […]
Arcadia Bluffs South Course – A True Modern Classic
By Tony Dear Thanks largely to social media, the names C.B. Macdonald and Seth Raynor have become familiar to more than just a small group of golf historians and architecture geeks in recent years. As their fame has grown, so has the desire to play the numerous top-100 courses they designed during the Golden […]
Country Club of Orlando – A Renovation Lesson for Classic Clubs
By Graylyn Loomis I grew up in the mountains of North Carolina, where hilly terrain and serious elevation change are standard on most golf courses. With that upbringing, I’ve often been skeptical of courses on flat land, finding them uninteresting. But, over the last few years, my bias has eroded as I’ve seen what […]
The Hotchkiss School Course: A Raynor Course Open to All
Golf architecture geeks surely know the name Seth Raynor. A local surveyor (and non-golfer) plucked out of obscurity by Charles Blair Macdonald to help him build the National Golf Links on Long Island, Raynor became Macdonald’s partner, the yin to his yang, and following his boss’s “template hole” formula designed a number of notable […]