Capilano Golf and Country Club, Canada
A Stanley Thompson masterpiece in Vancouver, Canada
Glasson Golf Club, Ireland
The Glasson Golf Club starter asked whether I would mind pairing up with two “society” golfers, Sunday plonkers named Jack and Jimmy who had motored out from Dublin that morning with their itinerant golf gang. For me it was the end of a six-day tour of demanding Irish linksland courses on the coastlines north […]
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 […]
Royal Porthcawl Golf Club, Wales
A prospective guest at Royal Porthcawl appears before the club’s secretary. A round at Porthcawl, arguably the finest layout in Wales, is no small feather in a golfer’s cap, and its guest policy is somewhat more stringent than at most courses in the British Isles. Thus, the interview with the all-powerful secretary is neither […]
Toronto Golf Club, Canada
The Toronto Golf Club keeps its own cutting garden, furnishing fresh bouquets for dispersal throughout its English manor-style clubhouse. Built in 1913, the clubhouse lies at the end of a half-mile, tree-lined road that winds past a classic Harry Colt-designed course. The club’s wooded grounds lie but a mile off the exit of a […]
Donegal Golf Club (Murvagh), Ireland
Donegal marks the entry to Ireland’s Northwest Passage through a land that’s surely the most desolate and dramatic in all the Isle. A windblown landscape of smoke-blue mountains and forlorn moors that sweep along towering cliffs above the Atlantic, this terrain is so sere and stark, sheep cannot even graze here. Against this rugged […]
The Good Life: Golf in Provence
When dining in the clubhouse at Pont Royal, one is obliged to meet the head chef, Thierry Candaele, a barrel-chested Frenchman with curly gray hair and abundant bonhomie. In the Gallic fashion he glides from table to table, doling out multilingual pleasantries, accepting well-erned compliments and making sure that all is just so. But […]
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 […]
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 […]
Pennard Golf Club, Wales
By Tom Doak Of all the golf courses I discovered in my year overseas studying golf architecture after college, the most unexpected find was an unknown links in southern Wales. Driving through the old gray city of Swansea, smokestacks in full force, it became clear how the course might have been overlooked for decades. […]
