We’ve all participated in some iteration of the cocktail party conversation that starts with “If I had my own golf-themed bar, this is what I’d do.” Greg Bartoli did, too. He just had more firepower to make it a reality. Fifteen years of success on Wall Street had given Bartoli enough cushion to invest in Read more…
American golf travelers don’t need to be convinced to visit Scotland or Ireland. What might not be on your radar is a destination many European travelers frequent—and an international trip that might provide the most bang for your buck. As one European golfer describes it, visiting Portugal from England is the equivalent of a getaway Read more…
You might say it started when W.P. Kinsella wrote a baseball novel in 1982 called “Shoeless Joe” that used the haunting refrain, “If you build it, he will come.” The extraterrestrials of Stonehenge may have had the notion originally, but Kinsella’s mantra expressed perfectly that if you create something worthwhile, people will beat a path Read more…
Lost Rail, a private, stand-alone golf club near Omaha, earned second-place honors in Golf Digest’s 2023 Best New Private Course awards. It’s a remarkable property of uplands and ravines, prairies and clusters of hardwoods. A namesake abandoned railroad line cuts through a deep gully in one corner of the land, forming a dramatic hazard that Read more…
Each year Golf Digest honors the highest scoring new or remodeled courses in four categories: Best New Public Course, Best New Private Course, Best Renovation (courses that undergo conventional improvements like tree removal, new bunkers, altered tees and expanded or relocated greens) and Best Transformation (courses that are fundamentally remodeled with new or rerouted holes). Read more…
The Lido at Sand Valley in central Wisconsin opened in May and is a down-to-the-inch recreation of The Lido that C.B. Macdonald built on Long Island from 1914 to 1917. Heralded as one of the country’s greatest courses, it went extinct in the 1940s when the U.S. government converted the land to a naval base. Read more…
Winter golfers shouldn’t be course-condition critics, but we are. For golfers living in north climates and squeezing in January or February rounds, you might be playing on temporary greens—often cut to fairway height—and asking, “Is this really necessary?” To learn more about the risks of playing on regular greens during the winter, we talked with Read more…
Editor’s Note: Ladera Golf Club was named Best New Private course by Golf Digest for 2023. We will announce the winners of our other categories in the coming days. When building Ladera, their new course in the southern end of the Coachella Valley, Los Angeles-based entertainment executive Irving Azoff and Eddy Cue, Apple’s senior vice Read more…
It’s a desert town paved over the cracks of golf’s caste system. Only in Scottsdale can the wannabes compete against PGA Tour players on a public par-3 course—the only requisites for entry are a few bucks and an ability to run your mouth, preferably with a drink in hand. Away from the Papago Shootout, you Read more…
Every golfer has a bucket list of courses they want to play, but I prefer to ask friends for their Ice Bucket List: What’s the best drink you’ve had at the best courses? You haven’t completed the Grand Slam until you’ve tasted these four cocktails in situ: 1. Southside Traced back to Al Capone’s Chicago, Read more…
Great golf courses are often the passion projects of single-minded individuals. A pair of under-40 entrepreneurs, Nick Schreiber and PGA Tour player Zac Blair, are the visionaries behind two of the country’s most intriguing new courses—Old Barnwell and The Tree Farm—just 25 miles apart outside Aiken, S.C. Perhaps because of the relative youth and inexperience Read more…
If you want to take a trip somewhere that allows you to split time between the golf course and the beach, and has great places to eat and shop, head to Myrtle Beach. Epson Tour player Carley Cox grew up in North Carolina, but spent summer vacations at her grandpa’s house in South Carolina. She’s Read more…
We often refer back to the players who prevail on certain courses as a means to measure the greatness of those designs—at least as tournament tests. Jack Nicklaus, Lanny Wadkins, Tom Watson, Tom Kite and Tiger Woods have helped cement the reputation of Pebble Beach. Oakmont has identified greats like Gene Sarazen, Bobby Jones, Sam Read more…
Australian Golf Digest
