Wykagyl Country Club

  Measuring a mere 6,702 yards, Wykagyl Country Club does not intimidate on paper, but since it was built more than a century ago, its relentlessly hilly, rocky terrain has provided a worthy challenge for the game’s best. And if not for a location in the heart of New York’s golf-rich Westchester County, where neighbors […]

Sonoma Golf Club, California

  You would expect a golfer with a classic swing to recognize a classic course when he sees one, and sure enough, when Sam Snead was asked to name the best course design he’d ever encountered, the Slammer answered: “One you probably never heard of—the Sonoma Golf Course in California.” Something in the sinewy twists […]

Champions Golf Club, Houston, Texas

For Jack Burke Jr., it is not enough for the Champions Golf Club merely to possess two of the Southwest’s most admired golf courses. For a club to be worth its salt, it first and foremost must succeed as a club. Members and employees alike must be totally committed to making every aspect of the club as good as […]

Chicago Golf Club, Illinois

  To some people, old fashioned is a cocktail; to others it’s a lifestyle. But to the members of America’s oldest 18-hole golf course, Chicago Golf Club, it is the defining characteristic. The club was old fashioned when it started 115 years ago, it’s that way today, and God willing, it will stay that way […]

Quaker Ridge Golf Club

  There are low-profile courses, and there are really low-profile courses. Then there’s Quaker Ridge Golf Club, which has long held the reputation of being one of America’s most low-key classic courses. For those familiar with its virtues, Quaker Ridge is as well regarded and admired as nearly any course in the country. For most […]

Tom Doak Redesign of San Francisco Golf Club

  Nearly six decades ago, the city of San Francisco announced plans to build a freeway abutting the eastern border of the property that makes up San Francisco Golf Club. Faced with such an intrusion, the intensely private club set out to rework the three holes nearest to the road on the only A.W. Tillinghast […]

The Golf Club, Columbus, Ohio

  The name was as simple as the design was revolutionary. It was 1967 when Pete Dye unveiled The Golf Club, one of his greatest yet still lesser-known masterpieces. Autocratic owner Fred Jones instructed Dye, a former insurance salesman who was just getting started in the design business, to build a course that would “feel […]

Lost Dunes Golf Club

“That’s my goal every round I play here,” Tom Doak confesses as he lines up yet another four-foot for par. “Not to three-putt. I don’t think I’ve succeeded yet.” Doak wears a serene expression on a cloudy October day at Lost Dunes Golf Club in Bridgman, Michigan, a half-mile from Lake Michigan’s gently breaking waves […]

Cascades Course at Omni Homestead Resort, Virginia

  It‘s widely touted as America’s finest mountain layout, but the Cascades course at the Homestead actually lies in a valley surrounded by the densely wooded hills of the Alleghenies. Regardless of how it’s labeled, most golfers would agree with the legendary Sam Snead, who calls it “the most complete course I know of.” William […]