You know it as the long wispy grass that grabs your club and forces you to thoroughly check for ticks, but fescue grass is much more than agonizing long stuff. Cut at shorter lengths, fine fescue characterizes the rough, fairways and greens of many links courses and helps deliver the bouncy conditions that are deemed Read more…
To put the absurdly confounding difficulty of the relatively microscopic 8th hole at Royal Troon in perspective, consider this: The average proximity to the hole on the PGA Tour for a shot played at a similar distance to the 8th’s 123 yards is just a shade over 20 feet. Whether the pin is set in the front, middle or back on the hole’s relatively wee putting surface, such a miss could very well not be on the green.
John Bodenhamer, the USGA’s Chief Championships Officer, has said the association is focused on taking the men’s and women’s U.S. Opens to the historic “cathedrals of the game.” The venues booked for most of the next 25 years support that assertion, including several mainstays among America’s 100 Greatest Courses in Shinnecock Hills, Oakmont, Merion, Pinehurst Read more…
The most important development in golf-course architecture during the past 20 years is the elevation of sand-based sites. Encouraged by the success of destinations like Bandon Dunes, developers have spent this time scouring the globe for sandy, dunes-like properties on which to construct new courses and lure golfers, several of which make their debut on Read more…
There was a time not too long ago when Central Florida was an afterthought for great golf. Too flat, too monotonous, too boring. Streamsong’s success has thoroughly rebuffed that notion, and now an ultra-exclusive private club, High Grove, seeks to further redefine the region’s golf potential. High Grove, located in Venus, Fla., will feature 36 Read more…
The first amateur golf design competition was likely held in 1914 when Country Life Magazine asked readers to submit suggestions for a theoretical hole. Actual architect C.B. Macdonald, one of the judges, liked the par 4 that Alister MacKenzie sketched so much (MacKenzie was still a doctor and not yet a practicing designer) that he Read more…
Architect Jim Urbina answers our question about which courses are worthy of being restored to their original versions. Urbina began working for Pete Dye in the 1980s and joined with Tom Doak at Renaissance Golf Design in the 1990s to help create America’s 100 Greatest Courses representatives like Pacific Dunes, Old Macdonald and Sebonack. He Read more…
Architect Robert Trent Jones Jr. fields our question about the importance of trees on golf courses. Jones Jr. began designing courses with his father, Robert Trent Jones, in the 1960s and has built more than 200 in countries around the world, including Chambers Bay in Washington and Hogs Head in County Kerry, Ireland. Question: In Read more…
Alister MacKenzie has been departed for 100 years, but his architectural concepts and design philosophies live on. In fact, you could say they’ve taken on a life of their own. Each year since 1998, except for 2004 and 2020, hundreds of aspiring architects and dreamy designers have conjured the spirit of MacKenzie when putting pen Read more…
As golfers, we often let the colors we see on a course dictate whether we think it’s in good shape or not. Green, good. Brown, bad. It’s not that simple, though. Aside from a compelling argument that browner, firmer turf is ideal for playability, courses in certain climates may turn almost completely brown for several Read more…
Golf course superintendents have perhaps the most thankless job in golf. Early wake-up calls, 16-hour days and should their course not meet a high standard, they are Golf Club Enemy No. 1. The stressors of the job have become so intense that a few years ago, Golf Digest’s Ron Whitten wrote about the mental-health crisis Read more…
It should be no surprise that our 2024 ranking of America’s 100 Greatest Golf Holes, the first of its kind since 1999, is heavily populated with representatives from the America’s 100 Greatest Golf Courses ranking. These holes are why those courses are considered great. To formulate this ranking, Golf Digest compiled a list of more Read more…
Having course awareness and taking the extra step of thinking through a strategy before your shot will help you manage wind that feels like it’s coming from a different direction on every hole.
Australian Golf Digest
