You probably assumed the over-the-top scenes during the Maxi Golf tournament in Happy Gilmore 2 were produced by artificial intelligence. Who could blame you? Who would think that a golf course would allow a film crew to cover a fairway with six inches of sand to create a desert golf scene that took up just Read more…
Under strict instructions, from one of the secret service members, not to follow the group the President was playing in, I did then go out on the course and walk every hole around the Balmedie Dunes.
If you spend time around tour players, you’ll notice that they often put a towel underneath their feet when practicing putting in one spot on the green. Why? You may not practice as much as a tour pro, but for the times you might want to work on your putting, we asked a golf course Read more…
Golf trips are good for the soul. They’re also getting harder on our wallets. Travel to any top-tier resort, and you expect to pay thousands of dollars for golf, lodging, food, etc.—and that’s before travel. The boom in golf post-COVID has led to green fees increasing by 20 percent since 2019, per the National Golf Read more…
This year’s venue is a welcome diversion from the usual march of Open courses. The other championship venues are inarguably great, but Royal Portrush is unique.
EDITOR’S NOTE: How can a no-frills golf trip to the ancient Highlands help one better understand the modern problems in which professional golf finds itself mired? Golf Digest Senior Writer Joel Beall discovers many provoking answers in his book, Playing Dirty: Rediscovering Golf’s Soul in Scotland in an Age of Sportswashing and Civil War. The Read more…
After 37 1/2 years, there’s a new superintendent at the No. 1 course in the country, which is kind of a big deal. The old guy, Rick Christian, has retired at age 60, and therein lies a couple of stories. I was a new member at Pine Valley Golf Club when he was named head Read more…
A golf trip to Bandon Dunes is nirvana. It’s the only resort with five 18-hole courses ranked among our 100 Greatest Public Courses, and getting here is so coveted, Bandon Dunes recently instituted a lottery system just for the chance to make reservations. Once you do secure time at one of golf’s greatest locales, what Read more…
Like an abstract painting splattered on a canvas, the skill of golf course design is easy to dismiss. A tee box, a green, a fairway and some bunkers in between. The whole time you think, Hell, I could do that. Then you dive deeper, and you realize it’s not so simple. Whenever Golf Digest publishes Read more…
Pre-COVID, many golf clubs had no waitlists to join. For those with an extended process, provided you were a decent person or didn’t show any of your indecencies to the admissions committee, you could expect to wait a few years at most. Now some of those membership lists have waits upwards of seven years, with Read more…
How do courses decide where to put the hole locations on any given day? It might seem like a straightforward question with a simple answer, but it’s something most golf course superintendents invest more time in than you might realize. To learn more about this process, we caught up with Chad Blank, who recently transitioned 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…
Two summers ago, we endeavored to rank all 40 courses that have hosted multiple major championships since 1920 (outside the Masters and its forever home, Augusta National) in a matrix weighing course prestige against actual tournament results. You can see the results here, and the chart just below this paragraph, followed by a few cliff Read more…
Australian Golf Digest
