Selecting a single hole at Oakmont Country Club to break down for our “The Hole at…” video series is challenging. Most courses have two or three candidates that are especially compelling for their history, architectural variety or beauty, so the choice is narrower. Others, like Augusta National, have a dozen or more, complicating matters, though Read more…
Of all golf course architects, Alister MacKenzie, who died in 1934, is the most entertaining to study. The courses he left behind, from Cypress Point to Crystal Downs to Royal Melbourne and beyond, are consistently creative, engrossing and visually explosive. He pioneered a flamboyant style of bunkers and green shapes, the boldness of which still Read more…
There is simply too much great golf in the United States to recognize only 100 venues, so Golf Digest first launched its Second 100 Greatest Golf Courses ranking to accompany its trademark America’s 100 Greatest Golf Courses list. The results have been just as competitive for the Second 100—in this year’s edition, two courses, Forest Read more…
Golf Digest has published America’s 100 Greatest Golf Courses since 1966, making it the oldest and most respected ranking in golf. We are proud to say our most recent edition, published in May 2023, is the most scientific ever—with our 1,800-plus panelists submitting more than 85,000 evaluations over our 10-year scoring criteria. Our evaluators play Read more…
The final three holes at Quail Hollow Club, site of next week’s 2025 PGA Championship in Charlotte, are notoriously known as the “Green Mile,” a reference to the color of the floor that death row inmates walk on the way to the electric chair in the Stephen King novel and movie of the same name. Read more…
The bulldozers have been blazing in Florida and South Carolina. Georgia and Tennessee are warming up, and in 2023 Alabama debuted its first new course in nearly 20 years. It was only a matter of time before Texas jumped into the fire. For a state of its geographic and demographic heft, Texas lags its peers Read more…
When Pinehurst #10 opened a year ago, it marked the debut of not just the resort’s first new 18-hole course in 28 years but an entirely new project, called Sandmines. Sandmines is a satellite development on a 900-acre parcel of land several miles south of the main Pinehurst campus that the resort acquired 15 years Read more…
Augusta National’s primary defense against the world’s greatest players has always been its greens. That was especially true until 20 years ago. Prior to the club narrowing certain fairways with pine trees (notably seven, 11, 15, 17 and 18) and the addition of the cut of light rough, players could attack the 30- to 80-yard-wide Read more…
Consensus is hard to find. But almost everyone agrees the 13th hole at Augusta National is one of the world’s great par 5s. The role it plays in determining the outcome of the Masters each April certainly contributes to its fame, especially as players encounter it on the second nine on Sunday with the wall Read more…
The entire Augusta National property resonates aesthetically, especially during the Masters when everything is in bloom, but the par-3 16th is a focal point. Just steps off the 15th green, it sits in a kind of amphitheater with the hillside under the neighboring sixth hole (which is not visible) providing bleacher-like seating for patrons and Read more…
It’s possible to overlook the complexity of the short par-4 third. In one regard, players can simply hit a long iron or hybrid club off the tee into position short of the fairway bunker complex on the left, setting up a full wedge or short iron into the elevated green. But the shortness of the Read more…
The par-5 second hole is a dynamic, fascinating test that’s emblematic of the evolved genius of Augusta National’s architecture, where hole location dictates the way the players strategise.
When Canyata, near Marshall, Ill., debuted on our America’s 100 Greatest Courses ranking in 2009 at No. 42, it caused quite a reaction. The most common one was, “What’s that?” The course, with the original three holes designed by Bob Lohmann and the rest by Lohmann’s then-associate Mike Benkusky, opened in 2005 and admitted just Read more…
The island green par-3 17th hole at The Players Stadium Course at TPC Sawgrass is rightfully one of the most famous, and infamous, holes in golf. The water surrounding the no-mercy putting surface sucks balls out of resort guests’ bags like bonbons moving too fast on a conveyor belt, and tour players each year during Read more…
When cultures and societies cross certain thresholds it becomes almost impossible to fathom life before. We once needed atlases, cameras, a Walkman, flashlights, PCs, watches and any number of other paraphernalia to do all the things a basic smartphone can do. And before Mike Keiser came along we almost exclusively constructed golf courses in places Read more…
When the Take a Swing Fore Batten auction goes live Feb. 19, nearly 18 months will have passed since the last time golfers had an opportunity to bid on some of the rarest outings in the game. For most players, the Fore Batten event presents their only chance to score a round on some the Read more…
Golf course scholars know that Alister MacKenzie’s big architecture break came when he won a design contest in the British publication Country Life Magazine in 1914. Architect C.B. Macdonald was one of the judges and liked MacKenzie’s winning entry so much (a brawny par 4 with multiple routes from tee to green based on how Read more…
If you are a person of certain means with access to private jets and destination club memberships, the last 10 years have been a golf revelation. Exclusive private clubs have opened in remote, difficult to get to locations in Nebraska, California, South Carolina and south Georgia, and new velvet-roped doors continue to open in off-the-beaten Read more…
For all the history, adoration and accolades Pebble Beach receives, it is not a particularly strategic golf course. One exception is the short par-4 fourth hole.
Australian Golf Digest
