Royal Liverpool (Hoylake): Flat Out Great
Despite, or perhaps because of, its lackluster landscape, Royal Liverpool—better known as Hoylake—can still be counted on to provide a bumpy and exciting Open Championship By the time the opening tee shot is struck at the 151st Open Championship, avid golfers who have consumed every preview they can find will have grown weary of reading […]
The Value of Variety in Golf Course Design
As the spice of both life and golf (many readers will consider them one and the same thing), the importance of variety cannot be overstated. Imagine a course without any; where every nondescript hole looks and plays much the same as the others—how uninspiring and utterly forgettable. Alister MacKenzie spelled out how fundamental variety was to […]
Los Angeles Country Club: Ready For Its Close-Up
Los Angeles Country Club’s storied, if mysterious, North Course earns the U.S. Open spotlight It’s time to pull back the curtains. After an absence of 75 years, the U.S. Open is returning to our nation’s second-largest city and to a first-time venue, the Los Angeles Country Club. Course connoisseurs are salivating at the prospect of […]
Matching Golf’s Most Noteworthy Architects With Their Hollywood Equivalents
Visionaries, craftsmen, and taskmasters, golf course architects and movie directors share many of the same talents—and temperaments Amateur golf architect George Thomas never emerged from a barranca yelling “Cut!” And he never audaciously insisted on cutting up a marble floor to get his strategic angles just right, a bit of legendary assiduousness attributed to a […]
10 Top Double Greens in the U.S.
Among the many unique aspects of the Old Course at St. Andrews, it has seven double greens. So, 14 of its 18 holes have a shared green. In a previous story, we highlighted 10 of the top dual greens in the U.S.—examples in which a single hole has two separate putting surfaces. But what about […]
7 Golf Properties Featuring Multiple Eras of Distinctive Course Architecture
As great golf properties go, a lineup of multiple courses to play is a must. But this isn’t strictly a numbers game. It’s one thing to offer numerous layouts, but it’s another when those courses also showcase varied styles of architecture. What was in vogue in the 1960s, for example, will starkly contrast with what […]
18 of the Best Dogleg Holes
It would be a gross overgeneralization to say all straight golf holes are boring. The Old Course at St. Andrews has a lot of straight or straight-ish holes, but thanks to a combination of tantalizing fairway/green contours, bothersome bunkers that really are best-avoided, firm ground, and an ancient stone bridge, there’s not a single hole […]
The Greening of Oak Hill: A Master Restoration by Andrew Green
Meet Andrew Green, architecture’s low-profile master of restoring vintage golf courses, including the venue for the 2023 PGA Championship WHEN THE NEWS BROKE IN 2016 that Oak Hill Country Club had retained an architect to restore its Donald Ross-designed East course, a collective cheer erupted. When the club revealed that the architect chosen was Andrew […]
False Fronts: History, Evolution, and 10 of the Best
When a serious green jacket contender sees his ball land on the false front short of the flag at Augusta National’s 9th hole on Sunday afternoon and reverse 20, 30, even 40 yards back down the hill toward him, the patrons can barely stifle their groans. They’ve probably witnessed the same distressing sequence befall a […]
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 […]