Courses

So, what goes into determining Golf Digest’s ranking of America’s Best New Golf Courses? In 2019, over 1,600 Golf Digest panelists across the U.S. and Canada played and evaluated Best New candidate courses, scoring each in eight evaluation categories: Shot Options, Layout Variety, Challenge, Distinctiveness, Aesthetics, Conditioning, Character and Fun. The average scores of five

Backyard football is the unofficial sport of Thanksgiving, but pick-up pigskin works better in theory than practice. Half the crew is out of shape or hungover, there’s always one guy delivering cheap shots to atone for unresolved childhood drama, and the quarterbacks are so bad they make Mitchell Trubisky look competent. Fun times! Which is

Pinehurst has been very good to Gil Hanse. The golf-course architect and his team just completed a significant renovation of Pinehurst No. 4, redoing the layout in time for the USGA to host the U.S. Amateur on both the storied No. 2 and No. 4 courses this summer. Hanse also built Pinehurst’s nine-hole short course,

Ever since animals first dug into the sides of sandhills in search of shelter from chilly winds, golf links have had deep, dark, foreboding bunkers. Naturally, golf architects soon began imitating nature, and the results are classic hazards like the Road Hole Bunker at St. Andrews in Scotland. Today, it’s a rare golf course that

LAS VEGAS — The slender man turned to the mountains and cursed loudly as his 15-footer stopped just short of its destination. It was not the curse words that were unnerving; profanity is the parlance of our sport. It was the word cursed that resonated, punctuated by fierce mannerisms and a gaze into the distance.

One of golf’s most mysterious sites is almost ready for its grand debut. Or for some, a re-introduction. Sheep Ranch is set to become the fifth 18-hole course at highly popular Bandon Dunes Golf Resort, as it will open its Bill Coore and Ben Crenshaw course in June 2020, the resort announced Tuesday. And to

In 2015, when Pete Dye started work on Links at Perry Cabin, he had no idea that soon after his approval of the contours of its last green, he’d be forced into involuntary retirement by the cruelest aspect of the aging process, the dissipation of one’s memory. His fans should know that the 93-year-old Hall

Donald Ross designed or reconstructed more than 400 golf courses in his lifetime, including many that have hosted major events in the past. This week’s Tour Championship is at East Lake Golf Club, originally laid out by Tom Bendelow, but Ross reconstructed a new course on its site in 1915. Ross has designed many former

Damn, this is good. A simple revelation, not particularly profound but true as I stood on the ninth hole at Sunset Bay. Not regarding my drive; shots come and go, and golf has a habit of making a good swing a distant memory by the next pass. This thought was something far from ephemeral, on

When the founders of Newport Country Club set out to build a clubhouse in the 1890s, they held a design competition, which, in a signal of the commission’s desirability, attracted more than 40 submissions from architects around the world. The winning entry was from an American in Paris, a young, socially connected architect of great

A clubhouse is a three-dimensional space that is the sum of the locker rooms, the bar, the dining rooms and more. And it exudes a certain character through its architectural forms. We asked our 1,700+ course-ranking panelists to evaluate the greatness of golf’s best clubhouses on a 1-10 scale. We instructed our panelists to disregard

On Sunday of the Open Championship, after a round in which he was caught rolling his eyes, motioning to an imaginary wrist watch, and possibly mumbling uncharitable things under his breath, Brooks Koepka was asked about the challenge of his pairing with the notoriously slow J.B. Holmes. Here, Koepka, the four-time major champion and part-time

It’s fitting as we celebrate and swoon over links golf on the eve of the Open Championship to wonder if it is the game’s consummate test. With cheek-rattling wind and sock-soaking rain and blind shots and hidden bunkers and slivers of water so impossibly thin that they can’t catch a ball until they most certainly

If you talk to even the most seasoned golf travelers, you’ll likely get a never-heard-of-it-look when you tell them you’re heading to Scotland to play at The Machrie Links. But if you find yourself in a conversation with a longtime scotch drinker, just say you’re heading to Islay and wait for the nod of approval.

Like a whiskey tasting at the 235-year-old Bushmills Distillery in County Antrim, Northern Ireland’s links golf is full of all the flavors you’d expect but always surprises you with new colors, smells and even emotions. That visceral reaction starts at the top of every golfer’s travel bucket list with Royal County Down and Royal Portrush,

You likely know that TPC Sawgrass started the Tournament Players Club movement in the 1980s as the first PGA Tour-owned and operated club. But do you know the origin of the concept of stadium golf, and how the TPC golf courses network grew since Sawgrass’ debut 38 years ago? Much credit is due to Deane

Golf has a history with dogs that dates back to the origins of the game in Scotland. In the U.S., we’ve been a little slower to adapt dogs into our golf culture, at least as we play the game. Superintendents and golf professionals, though, have realized that work can be so much more enjoyable with

PEBBLE BEACH—Golf’s best are at Pebble Beach. One of its best deals is down the road. Pebble Beach Golf Links, hosting this week’s U.S. Open, is said to be the finest convergence of land and sea known to man, a proclamation that brings little argument. Pebble Beach is also a public track, and on that