The Brilliance and Beauty of Bland Golf Holes
Last year, Colton Craig learned an important lesson about golf course architecture in the most unlikely of places. Walking through the Oklahoma City Museum of Art, full of what he calls “wild exhibits that stimulated the artistic side of my brain,” the Oklahoma City-based designer came to an empty room with white walls. “The vacant […]
Golf’s Ultimate Tests of Patience
In the first in a series about the attributes that are central to the design, challenge, and joy of the game’s most cherished courses, we identify the “Ultimate Test of Patience”: Pinehurst No. 2 Anyone who warms to the mention of golf’s greatest courses cannot help but engage in the time-honored grill room discourse on […]
Classic Courses: Mid Pines Golf Course
Donald Ross’s compact gem celebrates 100 years precisely as the architect built it Amidst the abundance of beautifully constructed courses in the Sandhills of North Carolina rests a club that has stood the test of time without bowing to the pressures of the modern game. Opened in 1921, Mid Pines Inn & Golf Club—five miles […]
Personal Bests
The big-name architects designed courses that anyone-including you-can play. Here are the best from each of them. One of the great things about golf is how many courses are open to the public. Another terrific feature is that so many different individuals brought their aesthetics and expertise to the task of designing courses. Put those […]
What Makes A Green Great?
It would be difficult to overstate the importance of interesting greens to the rank, renown, and reputation of a golf course. It would be similarly tough accumulating all the telling quotes the great architects have submitted on the subject—but here are a few: “Putting greens constructed with relation to the length and topography of the […]
Modern Classics: Sand Hills
Kudos to the course that cleared the way for what we think of as architecture today Some twenty-five years later, I still remember the sense of wonder that overcame me when I first saw Sand Hills. The drive out there, six hours from Omaha, was mesmerizing, especially the last hour through the namesake Sand Hills—19,000 […]
Advice from the Architects: How to Approach a Trip to Bandon Dunes
Over the past two decades, Bandon Dunes Golf Resort has built quite a base of loyalists—some of whom return for a buddies’ trip every single year. But the ever-growing golf destination on the Oregon coast also continues to expand its fanbase with first-timers eager for a remote escape and a taste of authentic links golf […]
The Sheep Ranch Makes Its Bandon Dunes Debut
While most everyone was fixated on the seemingly endless ocean views upon pulling up to the Sheep Ranch pro shop at Bandon Dunes Golf Resort, Bill Coore’s attention was elsewhere on opening day for the Oregon resort’s fifth 18-hole course. Coore was focused on the smiles. After success with Bandon Trails and the par-3 Bandon […]
LINKS Exclusive Q&A: Course Architect Keith Rhebb
By Adam Stanley What a life it’s been for Keith Rhebb. A life, he says, he couldn’t even imagine in his dreams. Rhebb got his start in 2002 after working for a construction company in his hometown of Lincoln, Neb., and has made a name for himself working alongside Bill Coore and Ben […]
Remembering Pete Dye
Pete Dye picked me up at the airport. It was 1988 and I’d flown to Palm Beach to interview him. He told me he’d have a rental car because he and wife Alice were on the road so much they didn’t keep a car at their Florida home, just rented whenever they were there. He’d […]
