Columbia Country Club, Maryland
Greens Committee chairman Walter Harban couldn’t have been happier: After a dogged four-year effort, the putting surfaces at his beloved Columbia Country Club were in top shape for the 1921 U.S. Open. The legendary Harry Vardon and the reigning U.S. Open champion, Ted Ray, had toured Columbia, located in Chevy Chase, Maryland, the previous […]
Inniscrone Golf Club, Pennsylvania
Philadelphia’s Main Line is home to such museum pieces as Hugh Wilson’s Merion East, and the William Flynn-Howard Toomey collaborations at Manufacturers and Philadelphia Country Club’s Spring Mill course. Any new course along this real estate certainly draws comparisons to these classics. But at Inniscrone Golf Club, Gil Hanse and his associates, Jim Wagner […]
Cypress Point Club, California
Cypress Point is, among golf courses, perhaps the ultimate enigma. It is one of the most famous, has been called the most beautiful and is widely considered to be one of the greatest golf courses in the world. Yet relatively few play it, there is no practice range or high-end logo-filled pro shop, the […]
The Honors Course, Tennessee
By Lee Pace The entrance to one of the nation’s finest golf clubs sits anonymously off a state highway about 10 miles northeast of Chattanooga, Tennessee, down the road from a strip of burger joints and convenience stores. Only a keycard properly inserted or a call via speaker box to the front desk—and someone has […]
Bully Pulpit Golf Course, Medora, North Dakota
Theodore Roosevelt fed his wilderness craving in the North Dakota Badlands, hunting buffalo and ranching cattle among these stark sandstone hills. The Badlands golf experience is similarly untamed, thanks to Michael Hurdzan’s inspired 2005 design, Bully Pulpit. So captivated was Hurdzan by the dramatic property, he ditched his staff and went solo here, visiting […]
Caves Valley Golf Club, Maryland
The dream to build a world-class club in the rolling hills outside of Baltimore began in 1977 when Les Disharoon, then CEO of Monumental Corporation, moved to the area and quickly discovered that with the exception of Baltimore Country Club, the area was lacking a certain kind of club—one devoted strictly to enjoying golf at its best. So […]
Huntsville Golf Club, Pennsylvania
More than any single redesign project in U.S. history, Jones’ work on The Country Club displayed the virtues of turning back the clock to an era of natural looking mounds, swales and flow lines. Rather than imposing himself on the course, Jones allowed the site and its original features to set the tone for his work. Indeed, he was most successful at The Country […]
Play Golf and Paraglide at Torrey Pines
At Torrey Pines, it is possible to pack two life experiences in a single day: playing a U.S. Open course and enjoying the exhilaration of paragliding at the Torrey Pines Gliderport, the self-proclaimed mecca of free flight in the U.S. Every year, during coverage of the Buick Invitational at Torrey Pines, CBS’ cameras always catch shots of the […]
White Bear Yacht Club, Minnesota
By Josh Karp In 1921 F. Scott Fitzgerald and his wife, Zelda, spent the summer—or at least part of it—living in a rented room at White Bear Yacht Club. Located 20 miles northeast of St. Paul, Minnesota, Fitzgerald’s hometown, the club seemed a perfect place to swim, relax and play golf in a quiet […]
River Oaks Country Club, Texas
River Oaks Country Club illustrates two of the main themes in the evolution of course design in America. Donald Ross’ original layout of 1923 was a classical example of his strategic style of design, while Joe Finger’s redesign of the late 1960s combined modern engineering with elements of the penal style to stiffen the […]