Category: Gold Star Courses

The Best Courses in Golf

Mammoth Dunes: The People’s Champ

Mammoth Dunes: The People’s Champ

Over the last several years we’ve been witnessing a fairly radical development in golf architecture. Ever since the most important golf tournaments shifted formats from match play to stroke play, architects and clubs and organizations have been concerned, and occasionally obsessed, with “defending” par. In modern golf par has become sacrosanct, an (admittedly arbitrary) construct…

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Sand Valley, Sun-n-Dale

Sand Valley, Sun-n-Dale

Mike Keiser once said the property at Sand Valley reminded him of a combination of Pine Valley, Sand Hills and Sunningdale. Talk about raising expectations. Intimate knowledge of those courses isn’t required to appreciate this rare environment of barren sand, monstrous dunes and orbital pine forests that accounts for Sand Valley. In fact you need…

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The Myth of Augusta National

The Myth of Augusta National

There is no point in trying to “rate” Augusta National. Putting an evaluation or rating on the golf course would be like doing a contemporary movie review of “Star Wars.” It doesn’t matter. Commenting seriously on Mark Hamill‘s flat delivery, the anti-intellectualism of the “Force” or the cheapening effect of Han Solo‘s dues ex machina arrival in the…

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Sky Mile: Four Mile Ranch

Sky Mile: Four Mile Ranch

Every golf course is designed for a different purpose, to fulfill a different function, for different people. They all, however, share one common obligation: be interesting. Jim Engh once said he was in the “image creation business,” and if there’s anything that can be said about his courses with 100 percent accuracy, it’s that none…

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Straight Doping the Straits at Whistling Straits

Straight Doping the Straits at Whistling Straits

I don’t know what billionaire owner and developer Herb Kohler asked for when he hired Pete Dye to design and build the Straits Course at Whistling Straits, but if he wanted a true homage to an Irish links he didn’t get it. Though it looks the part in a sweeping glance there’s scant opportunity for the creative or interpretive play that real links…

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Seaside at Sea Island — In Its Element

Seaside at Sea Island — In Its Element

No one has ever accused Tom Fazio of being a minimalist. In fact Fazio seems almost hostile to the idea that there’s virtue in building holes with as little construction involved as possible. If the option is presented, why not take full control of the design process? Had modern industrial machines and equipment, Fazio has conjectured, been widely…

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Mad About Mid-Pines

Mad About Mid-Pines

Trying to describe the essentials of good golf course routing calls to mind Justice Potter Stewart’s old brief about classifying porn — I can’t define it, but I know it when I see it. Bad golf course routings can be spotted miles away but truly great ones can be sublime. You often don’t realize they’re…

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The Standard Club: Atlanta’s Overlooked Standard of Excellence

The Standard Club: Atlanta’s Overlooked Standard of Excellence

Debates regarding the best golf in cities like Los Angeles, San Francisco, Chicago and Philadelphia typically revolve around tier 2 and 3 courses, as general consensus exists about the clubs there that are truly elite. Not so Atlanta. Once past Peachtree Golf Club, widely considered no. 1 by knowledgable players and panels (including me), the conversation about what’s good in Atlanta quickly devolves…

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Masterpiece Theater–TPC Sawgrass Stadium Course

Masterpiece Theater–TPC Sawgrass Stadium Course

A favorite debate among golf architecture students and historians is about what courses constitute the most influential in the evolution of golf design. Most groupings would include St. Andrews, National Golf Links of America, Pine Valley, Augusta National, and Sand Hills. The PLAYERS Stadium Course at TPC Sawgrass is often cited as another construction and cultural landmark. For better or worse (depending to…

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