Top 18-Hole Golf Course Openings for 2021
With more than 38,000 golf courses worldwide, there’s no shortage of options for golfers with wanderlust. And given the wealth of supply and the demand for land, new golf course openings are pretty limited. But there are still some great ones to celebrate. After recently highlighting the top course debuts of 2020, it’s only fitting […]
“Getting to 18”: Tom Doak’s Invaluable Addition to the Golf Library
A relatively small, though certainly important, part of a golf course architect’s job is deciding on a hole’s cosmetics, or how it’s going to look. A more important layer for most is its strategy, or how it’s going to play. By far the most crucial consideration, however, as it pertains to the functional, operational, and […]
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 […]
First Peek: Sheep Ranch
Bandon Dunes’s best-kept secret is a secret no more The fifth, and likely the final, 18-hole layout at Bandon Dunes—perhaps the most highly anticipated course in the world since its announcement in 2019—debuted on June 1. For years, the Bally Bandon Sheep Ranch sat hidden away from visitors to Bandon Dunes on an oceanfront plot […]
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 […]
Mach 1: The Wild Story Behind the Revolutionary New Grass at Streamsong
In April, Streamsong Resort will begin a massive course enhancement project that will see the installation of a new grass type, Mach 1, on all 18 greens of both its Blue and Red courses. The original plan was to conduct the project in phases (Blue in 2020, Red in 2021), but given the uncertainties and […]
Top 10 Courses: Florida
Golf is a year-round game in the Sunshine State, where masses migrate during the winter months and there are more courses (over 1,200) than any other U.S. state. Inherently, great variety exists, from waterside courses on the Atlantic coast and the Gulf of Mexico, to inland tracks built around lakes and on top of phosphate […]
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 […]
The Future of Municipal Golf Courses
The future of municipal courses in America is a subject of great concern with course closures on pace to exceed openings for yet another year. Many of the approximately 2,500 municipal golf facilities in the U.S. face an uncertain future despite making positive impacts with an often-conflicting responsibility—providing an affordable community recreation option while still […]
Tom Doak is Building His First Course in Ireland
By Tony Dear In 1993, Tom Doak made a handshake agreement with the owner of Old Head in County Cork, Ireland, to design 18 holes but, for one reason or another, the plan fell apart. A decade or so later, another opportunity arose at Castlegregory, 10 miles west of Tralee on the beautiful […]
