Inwood Country Club
It has been generations since the Belt Parkway and Kennedy Airport bestowed their mixed blessings on the town of Inwood. Today a drive down the JFK Expressway and Rockaway Boulevard carries you past blank-looking freight warehouses and the backs of strip malls, with occasional, reassuring glimpse of scrub pines or an old bait shack. […]
Grayhawk Golf Club, Arizona
In an area known for high-end experiences, Grayhawk Golf Club set the standard for country-club-for-a-day facilities when its first course, Talon, opened in 1994. Tom Fazio’s Raptor opened the following year. Together, they pack a one-two punch worthy of Muhammad Ali. So do the service and amenities, which rival those of a top club. Inside the grand stone […]
Ballyneal Golf & Hunt Club Revisited
Back in 1979, Jim O’Neal and his older brother Rupert were mending fences on grazing land for the family’s cattle. Only 12 at the time, Jim was the family golfer, playing the Holyoke municipal course at every opportunity. Looking out across the unusual sand dunes known as chop hills, Jim proclaimed, “Rupert, you could […]
Belvedere Golf Club, Michigan
Simple pleasures and fond memories lie at the heart of one of American golf’s great Northern outposts. Wheel into the parking lot of Belvedere Golf Club and you know right away that this place is not into pretense or status. The modest white-clapboard clubhouse sits at the far end of the lot. At the other […]
Peachtree Golf Club, Georgia
In the golfing world, a smile that speaks of deep respect and awe emerges on the faces of everyone who hears the name “Bobby.” Even more than 25 years after his death in 1971, people still remember “Bobby” as the immortal Robert Tyre Jones Jr., and they do so with great appreciation for a […]
Garden City Golf Club, New York
We might say Garden City Golf Club has aged gracefully, except it hasn’t aged at all. It is a small, private club frozen in time, in the heart of a prosperous Long Island town just east of New York City. It is a place where golf simply feels more like golf, where your second step […]
Desert Forest Golf Club, Arizona
Any conversation about golf’s great visionaries ought to include the names Tom Darlington and K.T. Palmer. Never heard of them? That would probably suit Messrs. Darlington and Palmer just fine, as the founders of Desert Forest Golf Club seemed more intent on relaxation than recognition. To wit, in the early 1960s they dubbed their […]
Cherry Hills Country Club
Once a frontier upstart in an Eastern-dominated sport, this William Flynn opus has proven its pedigree through a string of hard-fought national championships
Old MacDonald, Bandon Dunes
You don’t go to Bandon Dunes for spas, infinity-edge pools and thread counts. And you’re not there to play 18 leisurely holes per day on a cart before going to explore the resort on a bike. Bandon Dunes is all about Advil, knockdown shots and carry bags. You’re there to stand on the tee […]
A Course Record at TPC Sugarloaf
Golf is the ultimate game of self-centeredness. Case in point: While the rest of the world remembers the 1997 Masters for Tiger Woods’ breakout victory, for me the tournament will always be associated with my first—and only—course record. Sure, I remember Tiger’s epic performance. I walked nearly the entire way with him, from his front-nine 40 on Thursday […]
