Top 10 Widest American Courses You Can Play
Bow-and-arrow target golf can be fun on occasion. But if you just unwrapped a new driver, all you can think about is smashing the ball all over the yard. Fortunately for the big bashers out there, and the wannabes, too, there is a fistful of public-access courses in the United States that combine world-class design […]
My Favorite Public Golf Holes in America (Back Nine)
After previously naming my favorite front nine public golf holes in America, the back nine reveals some definite biases. There are only three par fours, which might suggest that while most of the world’s holes are par fours (and two of those listed are among my favorite holes anywhere in the world), it’s the threes […]
Great Public Golf Courses Around Seattle
In his 1962 travelogue Travels with Charley, John Steinbeck wrote of his shock at seeing the rapid expansion of Seattle. He’d thought of it as a “little city of space and trees and gardens, its houses matched to such a background,” but it was now a place of eight-lane highways with traffic that rushed with […]
11 of the Biggest Par-Three Drops in the U.S.
There’s just something about a downhill par three in the way the green is invitingly laid out in front of you. And the more pronounced the drop, the more the golfer needs to consider—or reconsider—which club to use. Here are 11 of the most significant par-three elevation changes, the kind of exhilarating holes that mess […]
Top 10 Co-Designed Public Courses in the U.S.
With each memorable Masters Tournament, we are treated to one of architecture’s greatest design collaborations, with Alister MacKenzie and Bobby Jones responsible for the creation of Augusta National. Sixty-five years later, Pete Dye and Jack Nicklaus teamed up to craft Harbour Town, a beloved PGA Tour venue since 1969. What those courses proved is that […]
Jay Blasi Puts Me Right on Chambers Bay
Oh, Chambers Bay, how I love thee, let me count the ways… For starters, after several decades of use as a rock quarry, lumber yard, railroad depot, bus barn, paper mill, wastewater treatment plant, and sand/gravel mine, the site was eventually developed for what would become a top 100 golf course (golfers can get behind […]
America’s Top 10 Munis
The chief requirement for making this list is that the golf course must be owned by a municipality. We’re judging here on the quality of the design, test of golf, scenic appeal, and tournament lore. For best-value munis? We’ll leave that for another time. Here then are the 10 best municipal courses in the U.S. […]
10 of the Decade’s Toughest Major Championship Holes
In all, 39 championships were played over the last decade and 29 different major champions crowned—equaling a plethora of moments etched in the history of the game. A total of 29 different golf courses played host to majors over the last 10 years—some much more difficult than others. Which were toughest? And more specifically, which […]
What is Your Most Diverse 36-hole Day?
By Erik Matuszewski One of the many beauties of golf is that the playing field itself is different everywhere you go. There are true links, parkland courses, desert layouts, mountain courses, par threes, and more. The look and feel can change depending on the category of course, too, from a charming muni to […]
Golf’s Greatest Trees
No part of the golf course has come in for as much stick in recent years as its trees. Until around 2010, trees enjoyed a healthy-enough reputation, but over the last decade golfers have gotten wise to their shortcomings—impeding views, blocking sunlight, restricting air movement, sucking soil nutrients the turf needs, and hindering strategy. Actually, […]
