WELCOME TO AMERICA’S GREATEST
Welcome to our inaugural Top 100 Courses in the United States – with every entry playable by everyone. The US is the most popular destination for British golfers after the big names of continental Europe, so it was high time we tried to play a part in helping you make the best decisions about where to play on the other side of the pond. My knowledge of US courses amounts to fewer than 25 of this list and, as I always say, the ability to compare is essentially everything when it comes to compiling ranking lists. And I don’t like guessing about what’s good and what’s not.
So I took a backseat this month as a specialist US panel took control, led by Englishman-in-america Tony Dear and supported by various other well-travelled golfers including Jim Hartsell, Jimmie James, Kirk Baert and Malcolm Baker. They assessed the best of America in the usual categories of Design, Setting, Playability, Memorability, Consistency and Presentation.
I hope you enjoy the list and find it as fascinating as I did; Pasatiempo and Lawsonia (Links) are now very high on my wish list. Chris Bertram Top 100 Editor
1 PEBBLE BEACH PEBBLE BEACH, CALIFORNIA
Despite the somewhat hefty green fee (you’re looking at around the $600 mark), Douglas Grant and Jack Neville’s iconic design on California’s Monterey Peninsula remains one of the most sought-after teetimes in America. Now a couple of years into its second century, Pebble Beach is a round you will never, ever forget. 2 BANDON DUNES (PACIFIC DUNES) BANDON, OREGON
Tom Doak and his team at Renaissance Golf had already designed or renovated
a dozen courses before Mike Keiser hired them for the second course on the sandhills at Bandon Dunes Golf Resort. The result was exceptional and put Doak among a shortlist of truly elite designers. 3 PINEHURST (NO. 2) PINEHURST, NORTH CAROLINA
Donald Ross frequently tinkered with his original 1907 layout until his death in 1948. In the 1970s its tenor was impacted by narrow fairways bordered by heavy rough, but Bill Coore and Ben Crenshaw were, thankfully, hired to restore the course’s width and sandy character in 2010, reopening to a fanfare in 2011.
4 WHISTLING STRAITS SHEBOYGAN, WISCONSIN
Thanks to Pete Dye’s extraordinary vision, 560 acres of nondescript arable land on the western shore of Lake Michigan became a mesmerising journey up, over, down and through a landscape of entirely artificial, but fairly convincing, dunes that opened in 1998. 5 PASATIEMPO SANTA CRUZ, CALIFORNIA
The course Alister Mackenzie chose to live on (beside the 6th hole) during his final years, and which could well be the least altered of all his designs. It opened in 1929 and was lovingly restored by Tom Doak and Jim Urbina between 2006 and 2007. 6 BANDON DUNES (BANDON DUNES) BANDON, OREGON
Unlike Tom Doak, who had been creating courses for a decade or more before working on the Oregon coast, a 27-yearold David Mclay-kidd was a virtual newcomer to the design business (one course to his name… in Nepal!) when he and his father began clearing dense gorse on the cliffs above the Pacific Ocean in 1994. Five years later, Kidd’s outstanding links course opened to universal acclaim and rightly won just about every design award going.
7 KIAWAH ISLAND (OCEAN) KIAWAH ISLAND, SOUTH CAROLINA
The same ingenuity, creativity and artistry Pete Dye (and wife Alice) had called upon at TPC Sawgrass (No. 14), and which would show up years later at Whistling Straits, were likewise much in evidence at Kiawah Island where the Dyes raised the ground several feet so golfers would be able to see the ocean at virtually every turn. Adventure, intrigue and excitement packed into every hole.
8 BANDON DUNES (BANDON TRAILS) BANDON, OREGON
Bill Coore and Ben Crenshaw’s first course at Bandon Dunes takes golfers away from the coast and up into the pine forest southeast of the resort hub. That automatically loses it a few marks with purists, but the quality of its routing and overall design actually make Trails many people’s favourite course at Bandon.
9 BANDON DUNES (SHEEP RANCH) BANDON, OREGON
The newest 18-hole course at Bandon Dunes opened in June 2020, 18 years after Tom Doak and Jim Urbina had first laid out the Bally Bandon Sheep Ranch with 13 greens that golfers who knew how to gain access to the property could work into a round any way they wished. When Mike Keiser chose Coore and Crenshaw to create an 18-hole course, Coore’s routing skills would be taxed to the limit as he had only 140 acres to work with and Keiser wanted to use the coastline as much as possible. That they designed a course which feels much bigger than it is, that visits the ocean about 10 times and is every bit as popular as its resort neighbours, is a testament to C&C’S skill. 10 BETHPAGE STATE PARK (BLACK) FARMINGDALE, NEW YORK
Rees Jones may have renovated them a couple of times, but on the Black you are essentially playing the holes A.W. Tillinghast laid out (or was it the park’s superintendent Joseph Burbank?) in 1935. And they ain’t easy. This is muscular golf requiring muscular shots. As the sign says, the Black is an ‘extremely difficult course’.
11 STREAMSONG (RED) BOWLING GREEN, FLORIDA
It’s a great shame Coul Links was never built, but UK golfers only have to fly to Orlando and drive 90 minutes into central Florida to see why Coore and Crenshaw are probably the most acclaimed architects in the world. Here in Polk County they took advantage of significant acreage, dozens of lakes formed during the site’s phosphate mining days, and millions of tons of sand to route a constantly thought-provoking course with numerous memorable holes that opened in 2013. 12 BANDON DUNES (OLD MACDONALD) BANDON, OREGON
Doak and Urbina’s take on C.B. Macdonald’s templates and design philosophy results in a fascinating set of holes that make up a round perhaps better-suited to a head-to-head matchplay duel than a medal round. Whichever format you play, though, you’re going to Xxxxxxxxxxx love the firm, sandy turf and variety of shots you’re asked to hit. 13 SAND VALLEY (MAMMOTH DUNES) NEKOOSA, WISCONSIN
Wide fairways mean everyone gets off the tee safely, but cleverly-positioned and intriguingly-shaped hazards and other obstacles mean the golfer seeking to match or better par needs to bring his best stuff. Mclay-kidd’s Mammoth Dunes, opened a year after the original course at Sand Valley, and keeps golfers engaged the whole way round. 14 SAND VALLEY (SAND VALLEY) NEKOOSA, WISCONSIN
The course that gives every golfer the chance to get creative and make full use of his/her repertoire of shots is the course that holds their interest day after day, round after round – like Coore and
Crenshaw’s Sand Valley, which opened on an unlikely area of sandy soil in central Wisconsin in 2017. 15 TPC SAWGRASS PONTE VEDRA BEACH, FLORIDA
Playing the holes the pros play is always special. And if those holes were designed by a particularly creative, envelopepushing Pete and Alice Dye on what was once a swamp, the experience is all the more invigorating. 16 GAMBLE SANDS BREWSTER, WASHINGTON
High on a hillside overlooking the Columbia River in central Washington, David Mclaykidd was handed every golf course architect’s dream site – beautifully-rugged, feature-packed ground on sandy soil with no housing component and incredible views. And he absolutely made the most of it. The course opened in 2014 and has been working its way into golfers’ consciences ever since. 17 ERIN HILLS HARTFORD, WISCONSIN
The UK golfer will gaze astonished at the sheer immensity of barren, windswept Erin Hills, which throws up numerous inviting
shots over its 652 acres. Brooks Koepka made it look fairly limp in shooting 16 under at the 2017 US Open but, be assured, for you and I it is anything but. 18 STREAMSONG (BLUE) BOWLING GREEN, FLORIDA
The Blue rarely gets the plaudits the Red does. Fair enough, it’s not quite as dazzling. But bear in mind it ranks all of five places lower on our list of public courses in America, which boasts over 12,000 courses anyone can play – the difference between the two is really minimal in the grand scheme of things. A typically interesting Doak design, the Blue puts greater emphasis on your ability to strategise, make sound decisions and execute accordingly than it does in hitting the ball vast distances. 19 LAWSONIA (LINKS) GREEN LAKE, WISCONSIN
William Langford and Theodore Moreau’s design style was utterly unique. But far from being gimmicky or different for the sake of it, it resulted in wonderfully interesting golf that makes you wonder why they aren’t better known. Lawsonia Links, which opened in 1930, is perhaps the best and most distinctive of their remaining layouts.
20 TOBACCO ROAD SANFORD, NORTH CAROLINA
British golfers might not be familiar with architect Mike Strantz, who started out working for Tom Fazio and later built his own successful design company before sadly succumbing to cancer in 2005, at the age of 50. Of his eight (highly) original designs, Tobacco Road is considered to be his masterpiece with huge, sandy areas, heavily-contoured greens and unconventional-looking holes that make you double-take. The sight of the 1st hole, funneling between two grassy, 50ft tall banks either side of the fairway fills you with anticipation before you even start, and the excitement never really lets up. 21 STREAMSONG (BLACK) BOWLING GREEN, FLORIDA
Massive, undulating greens are the most noteworthy characteristic of Gil Hanse’s eye-popping 2017 design. They may be fairly easy to find, but getting down in two every time is a serious challenge. Huge sandy waste areas add to the Black’s very distinctive look. 22 CHAMBERS BAY UNIVERSITY PLACE, WASHINGTON
Beautifully situated on Puget Sound, 40 miles south of Seattle, Chambers Bay is a much better course than the one we saw during the 2015 US Open when burnt fairways and disfigured putting
surfaces were the story. The fescue on the greens, which never thrived, has since been replaced with poa annua and the course plays infinitely better as a result. 23 FOREST DUNES (THE LOOP; BLACK/RED) ROSCOMMON, MICHIGAN
Publications in the US tend to treat each course on this reversible 18 separately, but we wanted to celebrate the brilliance of Doak’s concept, routing and shaping by combining them, as the sum of the parts is a truly remarkable achievement. The Black Course, which opened in 2016, tends to be the more favoured of the two layouts but,
as with the Streamsong, Sand Valley and Bandon Dunes courses, there’s precious little to choose between them. 24 SHADOW CREEK LAS VEGAS, NEVADA
Forgetting the incredible feats of engineering and horticulture, the wild imagination and the sizeable investment needed to transform a once-rocky, sandy desert into a lush golfer’s Xanadu, Shadow Creek is a very interesting golf course with a number of memorable holes and conditioning the maintenance crew at Augusta National would be proud of.
25 ARCADIA BLUFFS (BLUFFS) ARCADIA, MICHIGAN
Not unlike Whistling Straits, the Bluffs Course is a totally man-made lakeside layout (on the east side of Lake Michigan) that very closely resembles a links. The Rick Smith and Warren Henderson design opened in 1999 and possesses a number of phenomenal holes on the water that make this an exciting round. Some of the inland holes are pretty special, too. 26 MOSSY OAK WEST POINT, MISSISSIPPI
With sand dredged from a nearby river, Gil Hanse was able to create firm and fast playing surfaces on the Mississippi Black Prairie while crafting the sort of beguiling, strategic holes you’d expect from so shrewd, perceptive and just downright clever an architect. The course opened in 2016 just down the road from Old Waverly, another course on our Top 100 list (No. 77). 27 THE GREENBRIER RESORT (OLD WHITE) WHITE SULPHUR SPRINGS, WEST VIRGINIA
It’s another steep green fee, but there’s a lot of history and significance attached to the Old White. Opened in 1914 and designed by C.B. Macdonald and Seth Raynor, it was the first 18-hole course offered to guests of the magnificent Grand Central Hotel (built in 1858) and is full of Macdonald’s famed template holes. Lester George worked on restoring the course in 2006 and Keith Foster was brought in for renovations following horrendous flooding in 2016. 28 SPYGLASS HILL PEBBLE BEACH, CALIFORNIA
Originally called Pebble Beach Pines, the course was renamed after a location in
Robert Louis Stevenson’s novel Treasure Island and opened in 1966. The first five holes of this Robert Trent Jones Snr design stretch out toward the sea and play among the sand dunes. The course then turns inland, heads into the trees and stays there for the rest of the round. The forest stretch doesn’t ever arouse the same level of excitement as the opening holes, but it remains a great test.
29 KAPALUA RESORT (PLANTATION) LAHAINA, HAWAII
When Ben Crenshaw called design partner Bill Coore to discuss the proposed project at Kapalua, he described “land gently rising from the sea”. When Coore saw the site for himself, he wondered if Crenshaw had been joking, and knew it would be a challenge to build a course on so steep an incline. But with perhaps the first signs of an uncommon knack for routing, Coore devised a PGA Tour-worthy venue that opened in 1991 (renovated in 2019) and which throws up a number of terrific holes, the best of them perhaps the unforgettable, downhill, 677-yard par 5 that has become so familiar to viewers of the Tour’s seasonopening event. 30 WINE VALLEY WALLA WALLA, WASHINGTON
Following a strong design debut at Bandon Crossings in Oregon, Portland’s Dan Hixson was hired to turn wheat and alfalfa fields a few miles west of Walla Walla into an exposed, linksy golf course that opened in 2009 and where strong winds are often in play. The ability to keep the ball down is frequently essential, as is a competent ground game. Views south and east to the Blue Mountains add to the appeal. 31 MANELE LANAI CITY, HAWAII
How often have you been tempted by a course’s signature hole only to discover the other 17 are, frankly, as dull as dishwater? The 12th and 17th at Manele on the Hawaiian island of Lanai certainly rank among the game’s most surreally-stunning holes, but thankfully the rest of Jack Nicklaus’s 1993 design is full of good golf. 32 PRAIRIE CLUB (DUNES) VALENTINE, NEBRASKA
The Nebraska Sand Hills have become synonymous with natural, lie-of-the-land golf and Tom Lehman’s Dunes Course at the
Prairie Club – co-designed alongside Chris Brands and opened in 2010 – typifies the genre with wide fairways, rugged bunkers, firm surfaces and large, undulating greens. 33 KARSTEN CREEK STILLWATER, OKLAHOMA
Former Oklahoma State University golfers Rickie Fowler, Victor Hovland, Matthew Wolff and numerous others who graduated to the PGA Tour once called this tough, 1994 Tom Fazio design on the banks of Lake Louise, their home course. 34 OMNI HOMESTEAD RESORT (CASCADES) HOT SPRINGS, VIRGINIA
After Peter Lees and then A.W. Tillinghast turned down the opportunity to design a course at the famous Homestead Resort in Virginia’s Allegheny Mountains, saying the valley was too cramped and full of rock to
build good golf holes, the resort turned to 33-year-old William Flynn. The Boston native, turned Philadelphian, used 20 tons of dynamite to blast through the limestone, managing to squeeze in a marvellous 18 holes that took just 13 months to complete and which opened to guests in 1924. A young Sam Snead worked here in the pro shop. 35 FRENCH LICK (DYE) FRENCH LICK, INDIANA
When the French Lick Springs and West Baden Springs hotels joined forces to become the French Lick Resort in 2005, the owners decided to add a third golf course to its list of amenities (it also manages Sultan’s Run GC, 20 miles south-west of the resort). Pete Dye was hired to build 18 holes on a difficult site many designers would probably have passed on, and moved 2.5m cubic yards of earth to make the course,
which opened in 2009, work… which it does in a crazy Pete Dye way. 36 MID PINES SOUTHERN PINES, NORTH CAROLINA
Just as Coore and Crenshaw revived Donald Ross’s No. 2 course at the Pinehurst Resort in 2010 with a bold but sensitive restoration, so Kyle Franz (who was part of the team that worked on No. 2) breathed new life into Mid Pines, another Ross original six miles east of No. 2 that had first opened in 1921. Ninety-two years later, Franz cleared trees, rebuilt bunkers, expanded greens and widened fairways to rekindle the Ross magic. 37 SAND HOLLOW HURRICANE, UTAH
John Fought and Andy Staples took advantage of the incredible red-rock scenery in southern Utah’s high desert when building a course that didn’t really fit into any conventional category when it opened in 2008 – and still doesn’t now. The front nine is stunning enough, but it pales against the awesome back nine where the stretch of holes from the 12th to the 15th takes you on a journey you won’t take anywhere else in the world. 38 SEA PINES RESORT (HARBOUR TOWN) HILTON HEAD ISLAND, SOUTH CAROLINA
Opened in 1969, ahead of the inaugural Heritage Golf Classic (now RBC Heritage), Harbour Town was designed by a 44-yearold Pete Dye, assisted in a consultancy role by then seven-time Major champion Jack Nicklaus. Fairways cut through more
than 300 acres of live oaks, pines and magnolias, resulting in some fairly narrow playing corridors and making Harbour Town a course where precision is favoured over power. 39 PINEHURST (NO.4) PINEHURST, NORTH CAROLINA
Shortly after Gil Hanse had completed his incredible 2018 transformation of the course that began life as a nine-holer in 1912, the USGA decided it was good enough to share hosting duties of the 2019 US Amateur Championship with the resort’s venerable No. 2 Course. Indeed, so highly did the USGA think of it, the first round of the 36hole matchplay final was played on No. 4. Not bad for a course barely a year old. 40 BIG CEDAR LODGE (OZARKS NATIONAL) HOLLISTER, MISSOURI
The generally flat, clay-based plains of Missouri, in the middle of the USA, might not have been the first place you’d expect Bill Coore and Ben Crenshaw to build a golf course, but Ozarks National is actually located on the Ozarks Plateau in the bottom half of the ‘Show Me State’, where the pair found all the elevation they needed. Indeed, it didn’t take Johnny Morris, owner of the five-course (including Tiger Woods’ Payne’s Valley) resort, long to convince Crenshaw to come. “There are so many beautiful spots on this course, it’s unbelievable,” said the two-time Masters champion. “There is a certain atmosphere about this place that we’ve never seen before. We’ve built a lot of golf courses, but there’s something special
about this piece of ground… it’s gorgeous.” Ozarks National opened in 2019 and attracted the usual stack of five-star reviews that Coore/crenshaw designs tend to get. 41 MARQUETTE GC (GREYWALLS) MARQUETTE, MICHIGAN
Mike Devries, who now heads up a global design firm with Australia’s Mike Clayton and Dutchman Frank Pont, sits just on the edge of today’s elite group of architects thanks to highly-acclaimed courses such as Cape Wickham in Australia and Kingsley Club in his home state of Michigan. Four years after Kingsley had opened in 2001, he arrived in the northern Michigan town of Marquette and cut a route through the forest, between huge chunks of granite (hence the name) and over amazinglyundulating ground to create a singular golf adventure that would be among the country’s most popular courses were it not for its somewhat remote location. 42 TORREY PINES (SOUTH) SAN DIEGO, CALIFORNIA
Originally devised by William P. Bell (but constructed by his son William F. Bell in 1957) and remodelled by Rees Jones in 2001, this southern California cliff-top course splits opinion between architecture aficionados who believe the design is somewhat formulaic and predictable and those enamoured with its coastal setting. Whichever side of the argument you fall on, there’s an awful lot to be said for any municipal that has hosted two pulsating US Opens and records roughly 90,000 rounds a year.
43 BLACK WOLF RUN (RIVER) KOHLER, WISCONSIN
As every golfer familiar with the Pete Dye legend knows, the Indiana native and onetime insurance salesman combined vivid imagination with resolute determination and a sometimes gruff manner to do things that few other people could even have imagined. Dye designed 18 award-winning holes here in 1988, but returned a couple of years later to chop them up and add nine new holes, forming the River Course. A year later, nine more holes were added to create the Meadows Valley Course. The River Course, enclosed within a bend of the Sheboygan River, features some truly original Dye moments at holes like ‘Hell’s Gate’, ‘Jackknife’, ‘Cathedral Spires’ and the extraordinary par-3 ‘Tall Timber’, with the river curving on the right and a stand of tall trees on the left. 44 RUSTIC CANYON MOORPARK, CALIFORNIA
Gil Hanse and his design partner Jim Wagner, together with author, broadcaster, blogger and golf architecture expert Geoff Shackelford, took a very old-school approach in creating this links-feel layout that opened in 2002, an hour north of Los Angeles. No plans or blueprints, just a lot of on-the-fly, on-site decision-making that resulted in a wonderfully natural, lie-of-theland course where your ground game is put to the test. 45 SEA ISLAND (SEASIDE) ST SIMONS ISLAND, GEORGIA
Golf at the luxurious Sea Island Resort began with nine Walter Travis-designed holes in 1927. Harry Colt and Charles Alison built a second nine-hole course in 1928, and two more nines were added later. In the late 1990s Tom Fazio was hired to join the Colt/alison holes to one of the other nines, forming the Seaside Course which opened in 1999. Fazio removed a lot of trees and added faux dunes and sandy waste areas to give the course the look and feel of a genuine links.
46 PRIMLAND (HIGHLANDS) MEADOWS OF DAN, VIRGINIA
High (3,000ft) in the Blue Ridge Mountains of south-west Virginia, Englishman Donald Steel had his pick of the 14,000-acre Primland property and chose a spot with amazing views of the Dan River Gorge. Building a course here was no easy task but Steel, along with then associates Martin Ebert and Tom Mackenzie, found a route along ridges, through valleys and over chasms that created an exciting journey any golfer would enjoy.
47 YALE NEW HAVEN, CONNECTICUT
Expect the C.B. Macdonald/seth Raynor design that opened in 1926 to be the highest riser between now and the next edition of this list. Long revered as one of the teacher/disciple duo’s best ever, the course’s condition had been in steady decline for many years before it closed altogether during the Covid lockdown, going unmaintained for well over a year. It eventually reopened to limited university and Connecticut-resident play in April 2021
and, five months later, the famous Ivyleague college announced it had hired Gil Hanse to renovate the course and bring back its once grand scale. Given the success of virtually every major renovation Hanse has carried out over the last decade, it’s a safe bet the new/old Yale will be something to behold. 48 FALLEN OAK SAUCIER, MISSISSIPPI
Deep in the De Soto National Forest, Tom Fazio designed an elegant woodland layout with natural wetlands that opened in 2006
and can only be played by guests of the 1,740-room, Mgm-owned Beau Rivage Resort and Casino, 20 miles south in the coastal town of Biloxi. 49 FOREST DUNES (WEISKOPF) ROSCOMMON, MICHIGAN
As the name suggests, the golf resort at Forest Dunes possesses both heavilywooded areas and expansive sandy areas that together form exceptional golf ground. Developed by trucking company owner Lew Thompson, Forest Dunes opened in 2002 with a superb Tom Weiskopfdesigned course, which travels through the woods on the front and opens up a little on the back with holes surrounded by large expanses of sand. 50 CROSSWATER SUNRIVER, OREGON
There is something very special about central Oregon’s high desert in the summer – deep blue skies, the snowcapped Cascade Mountains, scented pine forests and, at the Sunriver Resort, 20 miles south of the small but beautifullypositioned city of Bend, a gorgeous Bob Cupp-designed golf course that opened in 1995 and which sits in a lovely meadow crossed by the Little Deschutes River. It’s a magical combination. 51 PINE NEEDLES SOUTHERN PINES, NORTH CAROLINA
Southern Pines doesn’t get nearly the same
recognition as Pinehurst, six miles to the west. Like its neighbour, however, it possesses a ridiculous amount of good golf for a town of its size. As well as Mid Pines (No. 36) and Southern Pines (No. 95), it also has three-time US Women’s Open venue (a fourth coming in 2022) Pine Needles, which got the Kyle Franz treatment in 2018 when Donald Ross’s 1928 original returned to its glorious best. 52 CALEDONIA PAWLEYS ISLAND, SOUTH CAROLINA
Mike Strantz’s first solo project, in 1994, Caledonia features the sort of quirks, oddities and extravagances the architect became famous for. Yes, it’s idiosyncratic in so many ways, but Caledonia is also undeniably beautiful, and the combination of Lowcountry nature and Strantz immoderation is intoxicating. 53 PRONGHORN (NICKLAUS) BEND, OREGON
A 45-minute drive north-east of Crosswater (No. 50), and about 1,000ft lower in elevation, Pronghorn Resort is home to Jack Nicklaus and Tom Faziodesigned courses that opened in 2004 and 2006 respectively. While the Fazio Championship Course remains largely private, the Nicklaus Signature Course is open for public play and definitely ranks among the Golden Bear’s finest designs. The twisty, turny, uphill par-5 15th is the pick of a particularly strong stretch of holes on the back-nine. 54 SILVIES VALLEY RANCH (HANKINS/CRADDOCK) SENECA, OREGON
Reversible courses enjoyed something of a brief renaissance a few years ago with the opening of Tom Doak’s The Loop (No. 34) in Michigan and Dan Hixson’s Silvies Valley Ranch in far eastern Oregon. While The Loop (2016) opened before Silvies (2017), Hixson had started work on his course(s) long before Doak, but years of staggered, seasonal work, a small construction crew and the fact the 140,000-acre ranch was a three-hour drive from the nearest goodsized town meant holes appeared slowly. The fascinating 36-hole/27-green/16-fairway layout that eventually emerged from the desolate high desert was well worth the wait, however. 55 PAAKO RIDGE SANDIA PARK, NEW MEXICO
A 27-hole Ken Dye design from 2000, Paako Ridge sits at 6,500ft above sea level in the foothills of the Sandia Mountains, north-west of Albuquerque. A recent renovation by Minnesota-based architect Kevin Norby was part of a major improvement project the property’s owners initiated in 2018 – improvements that could soon see a fourth nine added.
56 THE DUNES MYRTLE BEACH, SOUTH CAROLINA
When Robert Trent Jones Snr arrived at the Dunes Golf and Beach Club, north along the coast from the small settlement of Myrtle Beach, first incorporated as a town in 1938, the site was open and sandy with a few oaks and the odd lagoon dotted about. The area developed rapidly in the second half of the last century, so the course is now surrounded by suburbia on two sides with the ocean to the south and Buck Island Swamp to the east. Though the Dunes came early in a career spanning 60-plus years, it would remain one of Trent Jones’s best courses, and the 13th – a 590-yard par 5 named ‘Boomerang’ that sweeps right around Dunes Lake – perhaps his most famous hole. 57 MAY RIVER (PALMETTO BLUFF) BLUFFTON, SOUTH CAROLINA
Another Lowcountry favourite, this Jack Nicklaus beauty opened in 2004 in the May River Forest, 20 miles west of Hilton Head Island and 25 miles north-east of Savannah, Georgia. Centuries-old oaks line fairways also bordered by the river, marshy areas, wetlands, large sandy waste bunkers and native grasses. It’s a heady combination that creates a tough but beautiful test.
58 GIANTS RIDGE (QUARRY) BIWABIK, MINNESOTA
Jeff Brauer has been a respected course architect for a long time, but his most productive period was 2000-2005 when he created a couple of northern Minnesota gems both ranked in America’s Top 100 Public Courses (see Wilderness at Fortune Bay, No. 97). The Quarry at year-round destination (winter and summer sports) Giants Ridge opened in 2003 just south of the Embarrass River, named by French explorers whose passage was constantly thwarted by fallen trees (‘Embarrass’ in French originally meant ‘blockage’ or ‘obstruction’). Built on a former sand, gravel and iron ore mining site, the course mixes a little woodland with heathland, a little Pine Valley with Sand Valley – a very appealing combination. 59 PGA WEST (STADIUM) LA QUINTA, CALIFORNIA
There are times at the Stadium Course when you walk on to the next tee, take a look at what now confronts you and think, “Again?” Pete Dye’s infamous 1986 caricature of a golf course never lets up and while it may have proven too much for many over the years (including PGA Tour
pros who originally lobbied the Tour to remove it from the schedule), the general consensus nowadays is that it is a thrilling examination. Tough? Yes. Wearing? Yes. Exhausting? Yes. But also highly entertaining and strangely satisfying. Dye did soften the course occasionally, but perhaps it was just waiting for 460cc titanium drivers and urethanecovered balls all along. 60 ATLANTIC CITY NORTHFIELD, NEW JERSEY
There aren’t many courses with Atlantic City Country Club’s design pedigree (well, none other than ACCC to be precise). Nine holes were built at Northfield, 10 miles west of the coastal destination city in 1897 to attract wealthy resort guests who would travel to and from the course by tram. The second nine was added shortly after and, in 1915, Willie Park Jnr was invited to make upgrades. Ten years later, William Flynn created a routing and 18 holes that remained untouched for 70-plus years, until the owners hired Tom Doak and his Renaissance Golf team to update it. Doak built up marsh-front fairways to mitigate the threat of flooding, rerouted the backnine and reshaped the flatter fairways.
61 PRINCEVILLE MAKAI KAUAI, HAWAII
The original course at Kauai’s luxurious Princeville Resort, the Makai Course opened in 1971 and was Robert Trent Jones Jnr’s first solo project. There were three nines until 2009 when Trent Jones Jnr returned to combine the Links and Ocean nines into one spectacular course which possesses a couple of thrilling clifftop holes, and awesome views of Hanalei Bay and Makana Mountain. 62 BEDFORD SPRINGS BEDFORD, PENNSYLVANIA
Another course with an amazing cast of design characters, Bedford Springs opened with a Spencer Oldham-designed 6,000-yard layout in 1895. Oldham’s original was lost, but A.W. Tillinghast salvaged and redesigned nine holes in 1912. Eleven years later, Donald Ross was hired to expand the course to 18 holes and in 2006/7, as part of a $120m resort renovation, golf course restoration expert Ron Forse, who has worked on more than 50 Ross designs, completed an acclaimed renovation that sought to incorporate Oldham, Tillinghast and Ross features.
63 WE-KO-PA (SAGUARO) FORT MCDOWELL, ARIZONA
Thirty miles east of the golf club after which it is named stands Four Peaks, a prominent landmark in the Mazatzal Mountains (‘We-ko-pa’ is the Yavapai pronunciation of ‘Four Peaks’). At just over 7,500ft, it is visible from virtually every one of We-ko-pa’s 36 holes, the first 18 of which (see Cholla Course below No. 88) debuted in December 2001. Coore and Crenshaw’s third course in the Arizona desert (their two courses at Talking Stick on Salt River Pima-maricopa Indian community land, 20 miles west towards Phoenix, opened in 1998) was named after the statuesque cactus that appears throughout the course and which can grow to be 150 years old. No single hole on the Saguaro Course stands out in particular because, in a sense, they all do. This is desert golf at its very best with beautiful vegetation, superbly-conditioned surfaces and holes wide enough to give every golfer a chance, but angled, shaped and positioned to reward careful placement.
64 BLACK DIAMOND RANCH (QUARRY) LECANTO, FLORIDA
In 1987, when Tom Fazio’s Quarry Course opened at Black Diamond Ranch, 75 miles north of Tampa, fancy signature holes that clearly cost a lot to build were all the rage. The 371-yard 15th hole, with water all down the left and canyon walls behind the green, was splashed over every golf publication of note. The course ranked very highly and, though it has slipped a little over the last 34 years, it deserves its top 100 spot because, as it turns out, the rest of the course is pretty good too. Long a private club, Black Diamond Ranch now offers stay/play packages at houses in the community, hence its place here. 65 WORLD WOODS (PINE BARRENS) BROOKSVILLE, FLORIDA
Just 20 miles south of his acclaimed Quarry Course at Black Diamond Ranch (No. 64), Tom Fazio’s sandy, heathland Pine Barrens course at World Woods GC opened in 1993, with Fazio himself calling it his “best work”. It has long been a mainstay of Public Top 100 lists and is frequently described as a mix of Pine Valley and Augusta National. That might just be the marketing people talking, though the seemingly outlandish claim actually isn’t unreasonable. 66 WHISTLING STRAITS (IRISH) SHEBOYGAN, WISCONSIN
Two years after Pete Dye’s incredible threetime Major championship and one-time Ryder Cup-hosting Straits Course (No. 4) opened, the Irish Course joined the Whistling Straits GC line-up. Built on similarly artificial, Dye-made dunes a little further inland from Lake Michigan than its older brother, the Irish Course shares its rugged, linksy look but features Bentgrass surfaces instead of fescue and allows buggies, unlike the walking-only Straits. So it’s a smaller, more resort-golfer-friendly version of the Straits Course, but still wildly enjoyable for every type of golfer.
67 CAPE ARUNDEL KENNEBUNKPORT, MAINE
This exquisite Walter Travis gem on the Kennebunk River opened in 1920, replacing nine holes designed by Scottish immigrant Alex Findlay. Though private, the club welcomes public play – meaning everyone can see how adept the three-time US Amateur champion and 1904 Amateur Championship winner was at creating strategic holes with mesmerising greens. Long hitters will assume the sub-6,000yard, par 69 layout is a pushover – before falling foul of its ticklish demands. 68 MYSTIC CREEK EL DORADO, ARKANSAS
Not well-known to golfers in the UK, or even the USA outside of ‘The Natural State’, Mystic Creek is a big, brawny test (7,529 yards from the back) among the cathedral pines of southern Arkansas, designed by Ken Dye and opened in 2013. 69 LINKS OF NORTH DAKOTA RAY, NORTH DAKOTA
Stephen Kay, like Jeff Brauer, Ron Forse, Mike Strantz, etc, is largely unknown in the UK, but widely respected in the USA where he has practised since 1983, working on 300+ courses both as the original architect and expert restorer/renovator. His bestknown design is undoubtedly the Links of North Dakota, which opened in 1995 on a barren, exposed, remote spot overlooking the Missouri River. So remote is it, in fact, its official address puts it in the tiny town of Ray, which is actually 16 miles away. Much of the Peace Garden State sits on clay-based soil, but here Kay got to work on a rare seam of sandy soil and moved only 7,000 cubic yards of earth in creating a pure, organic course where imaginative use of the ground pays dividends.
70 COG HILL (NO.4) PALOS PARK, ILLINOIS
The fourth course at Joe Jemsek’s famed golf facility, 30 miles southwest of downtown Chicago, was built by Dick Wilson and Joe Lee and opened in 1965. It was designed to be Cog Hill’s championship layout, capable of challenging the best golfers in the world, and Wilson’s narrow fairways and heavily-bunkered greens certainly fit the bill. The course hosted the PGA Tour’s Western Open from 1991 to 2006 and the BMW Championship in 2007 and 2009-2011, as well as the 1997 US Amateur Championship. Rees Jones made some tweaks in 2008, adding length but pushing the fairway bunkers out a little to simultaneously increase the challenge for Tour players but make it a little friendlier for green fee payers. 71 WILD HORSE GOTHENBURG, NEBRASKA
A largely wild and barren course built on the Nebraska Sand Hills with a minimalist philosophy, Wild Horse was designed by former Coore/crenshaw associates Dan Proctor and Dave Axland, who formed their own design company – Bunker Hill – in 1989 with the intention of honouring the strategic and artistic courses of the Golden Age (Axland is now part of the firm Whitman, Axland & Cutten). It opened 22 years ago but still boasts a peak-rate green fee of just $62. Paying the equivalent of £47 for a course this good is almost unheard of in this day and age. 72 BAY HARBOR (LINKS/QUARRY) BAY HARBOR, MICHIGAN
Arthur Hills’s Bay Harbor opened in 1998 with 27 holes. Any of the three combinations is a fun 18, but the best of
them is probably the Links 9, which plays on higher ground overlooking Lake Michigan, and Quarry 9, which uses a stone quarry near the Lake to great effect. 73 WARREN COURSE AT NOTRE DAME NOTRE DAME, INDIANA
Named after, and financed by, a University of Notre Dame alumnus, the Coore/ Crenshaw-designed Warren Course opened in 2000 on fairly flat ground half a mile north of the university campus – about 100 miles east of Chicago. 74 TACONIC WILLIAMSTOWN, MASSACHUSETTS
Another university-owned course, Taconic is the home of Williams College golf and was designed by Warren Stiles and John Van Kleek. It opened in 1928 on charming parkland in the far north-west of the Bay State and was renovated by Gil Hanse in 2009. 75 WILDERNESS CLUB EUREKA, MONTANA
Just eight miles south of the Canadian border, Wilderness was designed by Nick Faldo with Brian Curley and opened in 2009 – a bad time for a big-money, 550-acre residential development to open, hence its move from private club to public access. With three mountain ranges in view, lakes, streams, pines and sandy expanses, the course is a delight – if a little tough to get to.
76 CASCATA BOULDER CITY, NEVADA
We’re tempted to say Cascata is the poor man’s Shadow Creek, but, depending on what time of day you play, you may still need to part with $550 to play this striking 2000 Rees Jones design. It lies 25 miles south-east of the Las Vegas Strip. 77 OLD WAVERLY WEST POINT, MISSISSIPPI
Site of the 1999 (the year after it opened) US Women’s Open, won by Juli Inkster, the Bob Cupp and Jerry Pate-designed Old Waverly is a gracious parkland course where creeks and lakes affect play on 11 holes. 78 BAYSIDE BRULE, NEBRASKA
More excellent but very remote Nebraska Sand Hills golf and more restrained, unpretentious Axland/proctor design that wisely uses what undulations, ridges and other features were already here to create interesting holes. Bayside opened in 2001 with views over Lake Mcconaughy from almost every hole. The nearest good-sized town is Denver, 220 miles away. 79 TETHEROW BEND, OREGON
A beautiful, if tough, high-desert course with firm, sandy turf located just outside David Mclay-kidd’s adopted hometown of Bend. Tetherow opened in 2008, nine
years after the Scotsman had burst onto the scene at Bandon Dunes, 250 miles to the west. 80 FRENCH LICK (ROSS) FRENCH LICK, INDIANA
Seven years after Donald Ross completed the design of his rolling, exposed layout at the French Lick Springs resort, it hosted the 1924 USPGA Championship won by Walter Hagen, who beat English native Jim Barnes 2&1 in the final. A muchneeded renovation was completed in 2006 by Lee Schmidt, working alongside the Donald Ross Society. The project focused primarily on bunker renewal and tee-restoration as Ross’s greens were still largely intact. 81 WOLF CREEK MESQUITE, NEVADA
When you shut your eyes and think of the most spectacular golf course you can imagine, with lakes, streams, lush green fairways and light, sandy rock formations framing the strips of green, you’re probably picturing the incredible Wolf Creek GC on the Nevada/arizona border about 80 miles north-east of Las Vegas. Wolf Creek opened in 2000 and probably isn’t for minimalist or Golden Age enthusiasts and may be a course you play only once. But what an experience it is, and what an amazing accomplishment by first-time architect Dennis Rider.
82 TORREY PINES (NORTH) SAN DIEGO, CALIFORNIA
Torrey’s North Course was originally designed by William F. Bell and, like its more famous sibling to the south, opened in 1957. Fifty-nine years later, former Open champion Tom Weiskopf completed a renovation so extreme it is probably better labelled a redesign. Weiskopf took 18 bunkers out, reducing the total number from 60 to 42, expanded the greens significantly, removed trees, rebuilt a few greens and redesigned the 7th hole, turning it into the sort of short par 4 he is so keen on. He also reversed the nines, moving the more dramatic holes to later in the round. 83 LINKS AT SPANISH BAY PEBBLE BEACH, CALIFORNIA
Sand from this part of the Monterey Peninsula had been used in the construction of Pebble Beach Golf Links and by the time the Pebble Beach Company began considering a fourth course (after Del Monte, Pebble Beach and Spyglass Hill), the sand here had more or less been mined out. Some small dunes remained though and more sand was bought in, but the design was limited quite severely by environmental considerations. Those and the fact the original fescue was replaced by ryegrass not long after the course had opened in 1987, meant Trent Jones Jr, Tom Watson and Sandy Tatum’s design was never quite what it could have been, but Spanish Bay is still a thrill to play.
84 RAMS HILL BORREGO SPRINGS, CALIFORNIA
Rams Hill has had a fairly turbulent history. The original Ted Robinson design opened in 1983 in the Anza Borrego Desert and was very popular. By 2007, however, it was in need of a revamp and Tom Fazio was hired to redesign the course, which also changed its name to Montesoro Golf and Social Club. With sensitive desert water rights rearing their very ugly and expensive head, the effects of the economic downturn and the harsh desert climate in general, Montesoro lasted just three years and returned to seed. Three years later, however, the property was bought by a real estate investor who ploughed millions into the course’s revival. It reopened in November 2014 and has been attracting five-star ratings ever since. 85 FIRESTONE (SOUTH) AKRON, OHIO
The first course at Firestone CC, built for employees of the Firestone Tire and Rubber Company, was designed by Bert Way and opened in 1929. Thirty years later, Robert Trent Jones Snr made significant changes, while retaining the original routing, ahead of the 1960 USPGA Championship. It became the South when the club added another Trent Jonesdesigned course (the North) in 1969, and has hosted two more USPGA Championships –
in 1966 and ’75. The long-time host of the NEC World Series of Golf and WGC Bridgestone Invitational, Firestone South was always popular with PGA Tour pros who liked its straightforward, ‘what you see is what you get’ layout. The club now offers stay/play packages. 86 REYNOLDS ON LAKE OCONEE (GREAT WATERS) EATONTON, GEORGIA
Great Waters ranks among Jack Nicklaus’ best resort courses – visually appealing and plenty challenging with 11 holes affected by the narrow, spiny Oconee, while offering the more modest golfer generous bailout areas. One of six courses at the 12,000-acre Reynolds resort community, Great Waters opened in 1992. 87 INDIANA UNIVERSITY (PFAU) BLOOMINGTON, INDIANA
Steve Smyers has been designing golf courses in the USA and around the world for more than 40 years, and the wealth of experience he stored up in that time was put to good use in designing Indiana University’s Pfau Course, which opened in 2020. Named after a major benefactor and IU alumnus, the course replaced an outdated layout from the 1950s and accommodates public play as well as high-calibre college tournaments.
88 WE-KO-PA (CHOLLA) FORT MCDOWELL, ARIZONA
Coore and Crenshaw’s Saguaro Course gets most of the attention at this Sonoran Desert resort, 30 miles north-east of Phoenix, which isn’t surprising given the near celebrity-status of its designers. But it’s a mistake to disregard Scott Miller’s original Cholla Course. It has a very different look to its close neighbour but, some say, even more outstanding holes. 89 THE BROADMOOR (EAST) COLORADO SPRINGS, COLORADO
Your first trip around the East Course can be a little jarring as it features two very distinct design styles, so unlike each other you wonder for a moment if you’ve jumped courses by mistake. The original Donald Ross design at the Broadmoor opened in 1918, but Robert Trent Jones Snr arrived in 1948 to design nine more holes which eventually became the 7th to the 15th of the East Course (the nine remaining Ross holes were added to nine more Trent Jones holes to form the West Course in 1964). As you might expect, the Ross holes have a little more nuance, romance and quirk while the Jones holes are in your face and typically challenging. In 2005/6, Ron Forse worked on restoring Ross’s features while adding Ross touches to the Jones holes. He did a
terrific job and the course certainly became more harmonious than it had been, but even the least architecturally-aware golfer will be able to distinguish between the two architects’ work. 90 PRAIRIE CLUB (PINES) VALENTINE, NEBRASKA
Graham Marsh’s Pines Course at the Prairie Club, opened in 2010, doesn’t have its sister course’s (No. 32) sweeping prairie views as half of it is tree-lined, giving the Sand Hills resort a nice variety of courses. A deep canyon formed by the Snake River frequently comes into play and only adds to the interest. 91 DIAMOND SPRINGS HAMILTON, MICHIGAN
A year after his sensational Kingsley Club opened, Michigan’s Mike Devries got another chance to design a course in his home state, two and a half hours to the south, outside the city of Grand Rapids. Though Diamond Springs has never climbed Kingsley’s heights, it is another exceptional design that uses the natural ground superbly well. The property’s main feature is a ravine that Devries uses to give better players a chance to shine without forgetting higher handicappers who have plenty of space to steer clear of trouble. Humble, out of the way Diamond Springs will never have the pull or glamour of many courses listed here, but its contoured greens and superb routing make it the sort of course you’d like to call home. 92 MAUNA KEA KONA, HAWAII
A lot of people are familiar with the oceancarry par 3 3rd at Mauna Kea, designed by Robert Trent Jones Snr and opened in 1965, but not much else. The rest of the course can’t touch the 3rd for excitement or memorability, but there are plenty of good holes – like the downhill par 3 11th with the deep, blue Pacific as its backdrop. 93 ARCADIA BLUFFS (SOUTH) ARCADIA, MICHIGAN
Dana Fry, a former shaper for Tom Fazio, long-time design partner of Michael Hurdzan and now in business with Jason Straka has been a fan of C.B. Macdonald and Seth Raynor’s storied Chicago GC for as long as he can remember. So when asked to design Arcadia Bluffs’ second course on an expansive, exposed site a five-minute drive from the Bluffs Course, he went full ‘Macraynor’, building a course with an entertaining assortment of geometricallyshaped greens and bunkers that opened in 2018. The South isn’t just about distinctivelooking bunkers, though; there is real strategy here which, coupled with some fairly strong winds, makes it a mental and physical challenge. 94 CORDEVALLE SAN MARTIN, CALIFORNIA
The area immediately east and south of the San Francisco Bay area is characterised
by undulating hills covered in wispy, Sisyrinchium californicum, or ‘Yellow-eyed Grass’, which turns the slopes an attractive golden colour during late spring, summer and early autumn. Numerous highlyacclaimed courses take advantage of the attractive topography and vegetation, with Robert Trent Jones Jnr’s Cordevalle among the very best of them. Private when it first opened in 1999, it is now part of an upscale resort. 95 SOUTHERN PINES SOUTHERN PINES, NORTH CAROLINA
As we saw at Mid Pines (No. 36) and Pine Needles (No. 51) above, Kyle Franz does a pretty mean renovation of Donald Rossdesigned Carolina Sandhill courses, and he excelled himself here, too, repeating the successful formula of removing trees, adding width to fairways, rebuilding bunkers and exposed sandy areas, and expanding the greens while adding lost contours and fine details. Even though the newly-renovated course reopened as recently as September 2021, word of its return is getting out fast and it certainly deserves its place here. 96 OLD TOCCOA FARM MINERAL BLUFF, GEORGIA
As we’ve seen numerous times above, Bunker Hill’s Dan Proctor and Dave Axland, along with their lead shaper Jack Dredla, have a knack for building natural, rough-hewn courses in arresting places that fit the land so beautifully while offering all the golf you can handle. Opened in 2015, Old Toccoa Farm is situated on a beautiful 125-acre property between the Cherokee and Chattahoochee National Forests, and epitomises everything Bunker Hill is about. 97 WILDERNESS AT FORTUNE BAY TOWER, MINNESOTA
A year after Jeff Brauer’s astonishing Quarry Course opened at the Giants Ridge resort, the Texas architect’s follow-up, Wilderness at Fortune Bay, opened to similar fanfare. Big bunkers, lakes, exposed
rock and fairways lined (but not closely) by White Pine Trees characterise this scenic challenge in the far north-east of the state known as the ‘Land of 10,000 Lakes’. 98 BLACK JACK’S CROSSING LAJITAS, TEXAS
There are plenty of remote courses on our list, but this 2012 Lanny Wadkins design might be the most isolated of all as El Paso, the nearest city, is 315 miles distant. Just a hundred yards or so from the Rio Grande and Mexican border, Black Jack’s Crossing is a rocky, desert course where you can almost hear Ennio Morricone’s The Good, The Bad and The Ugly whistle floating over the fairways. 99 BAY HILL ORLANDO, FLORIDA
Architect Dick Wilson built the original course over rough ground north-west of the small town of Orlando in 1961, but after Arnold Palmer fell in love with its location after first visiting in 1965, it wasn’t long before changes started to happen. Palmer took out a five-year lease with the option to buy in 1970, and eventually assumed ownership in 1975. The course had hosted its first Florida Citrus Open in 1966, the event evolving into what is now the Arnold Palmer Invitational (via the Bay Hill Classic, Bay Hill Invitational and numerous other names). The course has grown in size and stature over the years and benefited from a major, Palmer-led refit in 2009. 100 BLACK MESA ESPAÑOLA, NEW MEXICO
Opened in 2003 to great acclaim, Baxter Spann’s rollicking high-desert layout, 25 miles north of Santa Fe, fell on hard times around 2012/13, caused by a major disagreement between the Santa Clara Pueblo, which owns the course, and the company that leased it. Once the situation had been resolved and a new superintendent found, however, Black Mesa began rising rapidly in the rankings again and is now back to something like its best.