California Golf Travel: Palm Springs
I just had to see Frank’s house before leaving Palm Springs. The map said it was close to O’Donnell’s nine-holer, the first course ever built in the desert, back in 1925. Armed with a self-guided star map and a handful of Rat Pack CDs, I was plotting the perfect conclusion to my retro golf […]
Eagle Ridge Resort and Spa, Illinois
In the collective American mind, a principal characteristic of the Midwest is flatness. Regions of Michigan and Minnesota to the north or the Ozarks to the south form exceptions, but most of the Midwest is strictly on the level. For golfers, this conjures up Midwestern resort courses dependent on water hazards for definition and bulldozers […]
Sunningdale Golf Club Old Course, England
The original course at this venerated 36-hole club offers heathland golf at its most bewitching
Great Seaside Golf on Prince Edward Island, Canada
Prince Edward Island (PEI) is connected to the New Brunswick mainland by an eight-mile bridge. For about six months of every year, the maritime lifestyle and pastoral setting draw legions of visitors, many of whom have been coming here for generations to stay at the colorful inns and bed-and-breakfasts near the beaches—and to play the […]
Risk Reward Holes: Casino Golf Courses
Barona Valley Ranch Resort and Casino Barona Creek Golf Club Lakeside, Calif. Best gambling hole: No. 14, par 4, 316 yards “A short tight fairway, with a mountainous natural reserve to the right. Most of the time it’s downwind, so it’s appealing. I’ve taken everything from a 2 to a 9. That’s what makes […]
A Long Weekend at The Omni Homestead, Virginia
Where to Play: Cascades: Sam Snead helped build this Golden Age William Flynn course and honed his Hall-of-Fame game on it as its first head pro. The front nine is built into the hillsides, while the back features one of the most unusual and fun finishes in golf with two par 3s bookending two […]
Wentworth Club, Surrey, England
South of London, the Wentworth Club boasts two world-class layouts. The East was laid out in 1924 by Harry Colt, the father of British course architecture. Colt ran the East through a forest of fir and silver birch that afforded a natural sense of isolation. Patches of purple heather lined the fairways and large […]
California Golf Travel: Santa Barbara
Drifting north on El Camino Real, the “King’s Highway” that links California’s 21 colonial missions, I can sense Junipero Serra’s presence in the red-tile roofs and whitewashed adobe walls all around us. My wife, for some reason, cannot. “Nobody can walk that far for that long and not collapse,” she insists. But Serra, a […]
Historic Golf Vacation in Williamsburg, Virginia
When the Brits arrived at Jamestown in 1607 to establish the first permanent English settlement in North America, they could not have had golf on their minds. Four centuries later, golf still doesn’t necessarily spring to mind at the mention of Williamsburg, Virginia, but it’s at least gained a foothold in a region more […]
Formby Golf Club, England
Scan the itinerary of any golfer on a pilgrimage to the British Isles and the chances are Formby Golf Club will be somewhere near the bottom, next to the reminder about buying presents for the family at the airport on the way home. There is one reason for this oversight and it has nothing […]
