For better or worse, private jets and golf go hand in hand. The top pros fly on their own charters. Each and every April, the runways at Augusta Regional Airport turn into parking lots. Even Alabama ball coach Nick Saban uses one when he’s running late for a tee time. So it makes sense that elite clubs across America would cater to this lifestyle, but none more than Mountain Air Country Club in Burnsville, North Carolina, which has its own private-jet landing strip slap-bang in the middle of the course.

 

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Wild stuff, but that’s just the start. As if a private-jet runway splitting the sixth and eighth holes wasn’t enough, the narrow tarmac strip also happens to be the highest of its kind east of the Rocky Mountains. The resort also gets frequent flyovers by nearby military aircraft for high-altitude flight training.

 

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Other golf facilities include Lost Chimneys, a 17,000-sqaure foot learning centre outfitted with the latest cameras and fitting technology, and a simulator for those rainy days when you still want to squeeze in a round. Even if you don’t have a private jet to call your own, Mountain Air Country Club — perched in the heart of the Blue Ridge Mountains — still offers one of the most unique and stunning golf experiences on the US Eastern seaboard. As long as you’re not afraid of heights that is …

The post This North Carolina golf course has a private-jet runaway splitting its sixth and eighth holes, looks incredible appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.

Where should the tour take the match-play tournament next? There are many worthy candidates, but we’ve narrowed it down to 15 venues that lend themselves to the format and deserve a regular tour stop. Sure, some of these are ambitious, but an exclusive course rarely seen on TV would reinvigorate an event that has battled an identity crisis in recent years.

Ohoopee Match Club

Dom Furore

We’re not sure how tour players would react to the unconventional nature of this built-for-match-play venue. But we’d love to see it. Three holes are listed on the scorecard, perhaps whimsically, as par 4.5s instead of par 5s, and members and their guests can play different 18-hole routings across this 22-hole design. Of course, the club is super private, and we’re not sure they’d be game to host a tour event … but hey, Congaree Golf Club hosts a tour event, and they’re just as private.

Bandon Dunes

USGA

Though the beloved six-course resort along the rugged Oregon coast has hosted numerous USGA championships, we concede it would be a bit of a logistical challenge to host a top tour event. That said, if we approach a match-play tournament at Bandon as a made-for-TV spectacle rather than one with thousands of fans lining the fairways, the intrigue becomes clear. The format and course combinations to be used are endless. Mix it up. Perhaps three rounds of stroke-play qualifying on Bandon Dunes, Pacific Dunes and Bandon Trails. Heck, we’ve got a tie for the last match-play spots? Head over to the Preserve, a wild par-3 test typically reserved for sunset matches among the common folk.
We’re torn on which course takes the match play honours, but the drivable 16th hugging the coast at Bandon Dunes might tip the scale in the original layout’s favour. The PGA Tour Match Play isn’t supposed to be like any other week, and sending it out to Bandon and getting creative with the format would reenergize the tournament and showcase arguably the best golf resort in the country.

Inverness Club

Andy Johnson

An old-school Donald Ross design that can tip out at 7,700 yards, Inverness provides a compelling modern test on a historic layout that was restored by Andrew Green ahead of the 2019 US Junior Amateur. Studying Ross’ original drawings and early photography, Green repositioned some putting surfaces, reworked bunkers and added three new holes which replaced ones designed by George and Tom Fazio in the 1970s. The result is a design that better reflects Ross’ vision and makes creative use of the unique topography, with humps and hollows creating plenty of interesting shots. The course has hosted four US Opens (the last in 1979) and most recently held the 2021 Solheim Cup, which proved the layout’s match-play merits and saw impressive fan turnout north of 100,000 people.

Trinity Forest GC

Courtesy Trinity Forest

One of golf’s great modern courses with a ton of width, options and strategic architecture can be found at Coore and Crenshaw’s Trinity Forest. It had a brief stint of hosting the AT&T Byron Nelson, but extremely hot weather in Dallas in May and a lack of sufficient infrastructure doomed the event. Perhaps a better time of year, and an event requiring a smaller footprint is the right combination to bring Trinity Forest back to the PGA Tour.

Medinah No. 3

Stephen Szurlej

A highly anticipated renovation by Geoff Ogilvy and his design partners Michael Cocking and Ashley Mead is expected to return the venerable Chicago design to being one of our nation’s great championship tests. The work will include three entirely new holes and the reinstitution of more angles and options with fewer trees to better challenge decision-making, which would once again make it a great match-play layout, as it was for the 2012 Ryder Cup. The former major venue is slated to host the 2026 Presidents Cup, so it’s already under the PGA Tour umbrella.

Whistling Straits

Getty Images

Pete Dye’s bold, in-your-face design philosophy lends itself to the risks and rewards of match play, especially at Whistling Straits, as shown with the entertaining — if uncompetitive — 2021 Ryder Cup. Remember that insane Jordan Spieth hacking flop shot from 12-feet below the green at the par-3 17th? It’s these recoveries that the Straits course — with its dramatic fall-offs and rugged bunkering — allows for, especially when players take on a little more trouble than they ordinarily would in stroke play.

Pinehurst No. 2

Dom Furore

The Sandhills of North Carolina is one of the most popular golf regions in the country and is deserving of a regular tour stop. Sure, Pinehurst’s famed No. 2 is set to host five US Opens over the next quarter-century — including in 2024 — but we’re greedy and want to see the world’s best navigate the diabolical tabletop greens on a regular basis. A strong match-play course presents plenty of risk-reward opportunities, and while No. 2 is pretty straightforward off the tee, pins tucked toward the edges of greens will require precise approach play to avoid testy chips.
We’d love to see an LPGA match-play event contested the same week on the Gil Hanse revamped No. 4 course. With fans being able to move from one course to the other, it would be a great opportunity to showcase both tours and arguably the two best Sandhills courses. Remember way back in 2014, No. 2 successfully hosted the US Open and US Women’s Open in back-to-back weeks, so they’ll have a head start on logistics.

Eugene CC

John Giustina

Oregon Duck Aaron Wise won the 2016 NCAA individual title at his home course, before Longhorn Scottie Scheffler beat him in the finals of the team championship, so we’re betting those guys won’t take issue with this idea. Oregon won that week, in what was a wild finish with the raucous home crowd, and overall, the course was praised for providing a fair and challenging test. A 2021 renovation made the course more thought-provoking through the shifting of tees, remodelling of bunkers, the expansion of greens that bring more hole locations into play and a renewed emphasis on using the unique ground contours and swales as more strategically influential factors. The towering Douglas fir trees still frame each hole and influence much of a golfer’s strategy from tee to green.

PGA National Resort: Champion

PGA National Resort

Speaking of lost events on the schedule, the Honda Classic was likely contested at PGA National for a final time this year. If another stroke-play event doesn’t return to the Champion course, we’d love to see a return to match play at PGA National, site of the 1983 Ryder Cup. The layout would make for compelling matches in modern times — with the cliche but challenging Bear Trap providing some tough pars while also offering birdie holes at the start and middle of the routing. It’s worth noting the resort has a new Match course, too, which might not work strategically but could make for some fun playoff solutions.

Scottsdale National

Joann Dost

Former Fazio associates Tim Jackson and David Kahn devised a fun routing with three par 5s, three par 4s and three par 3s on each nine — a perfect set-up for match play. A ton of width and variety offers options off the tee, but precision is required into these undulating green complexes at the very private club owned by PXG founder Bob Parsons. To really spice things up: The tour could add a few holes (maybe for playoff purposes) on the notourious Bad Little Nine.

The Lido

The Lido

One of the most highly anticipated course openings of the modern era, The Lido will have course aficionados clamouring to play the recreation of the world-renowned Long Island course built by CB Macdonald. And what a thrill it would be to watch the world’s best tackle this strategic test. Tom Doak recreated every hump and bump from the legendary links by studying old imagery and capturing it in 3D thanks to golf historian Peter Flory. Bringing a tour event here would shine the light on everything that makes course design such a fascinating pursuit and to Sand Valley, a destination helping to put Wisconsin at the top of any enthusiast’s bucket list.

Hamilton Farm GC (Highlands)

Dana Fry

With the longtime FedEx Cup Playoff event leaving the NYC-metro area, we’d like to see a regular tour stop return to this golf-hungry market. Hamilton Farm, about 50 miles west of Manhattan, might be unknown to some, but the Dana Fry- and Michael Hurdzan-designed Highlands course hosted the LPGA Tour’s match-play event from 2010-12. A 2022 renovation removed hundreds of trees to better show off the hilly 730-acre property, which would make a great test for the world’s best.

Shadow Creek

Shadow Creek

Shadow Creek has hosted a few big-time match-play events recently — hosting the first edition of The Match between Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson for that massive $9 million pay day. The LPGA Tour also visits the jaw-dropping Tom Fazio design for its only match-play event. It’s a course that settles big-money wagers on a daily basis for the high-rollers of Vegas, with a great risk-reward par-5 16th, the picturesque par-3 17th and another par-5 finisher — so it’d be a proper host of a PGA Tour event, too, like it did in 2021 for the CJ Cup.

We’ve given our realistic hopes for where the tour could send its match-play event, now indulge us in a little wishful thinking.

Cypress Point

Cypress Point

Is the iconic Alister MacKenzie coastal California layout long enough to host a tour event? Probably not. The course doesn’t sniff 7,000 yards, but in match play, does it really matter how deep the pros are taking it? (For the record, the current match-play host, Austin Country Club, plays only 7,100 yards at its longest and surrenders birdies by the dozen.) And it’s not like Cypress Point is without challenge. Here’s how our architecture emeritus, Ron Whitten, defends the course to naysayers who argue distance gains have rendered it defenceless.
“Certainly one way to play Cypress is the full-bore, take-dead-aim, grip-it-and-rip-it, bomb-and-gouge approach. But it’s also a course where finesse still matters, where course management is still rewarded. Yes, long bombers can go low at Cypress Point these days, but so can short-hitting, thoughtful players, who much like sailors in a storm tack their way around bunkers, trees, dunes and ocean coves. And when the winds come up, as they often do at Cypress, it’s the latter approach that’s likely to be more successful.”
A match-play event is our best (and only) chance to see the top players compete on one of our nation’s greatest courses, and though the exclusive private club might object to such exposure, it would help give the event the unique allure it needs to justify its place on the tour schedule. Wind blowing, sun setting, match on the line heading to the 233-yard par-3 16th, perhaps the most famous hole in golf? Decent TV.

National Golf Links of America

National Golf Links of America

Another improbable, though not unrealistic proposal would be to send the PGA Tour Match Play to eastern Long Island and one of the nation’s most historic layouts. CB Macdonald set out to build a course that would not just take inspiration from the great courses of the UK and Europe but rival them. The result is a group of template holes — Road Hole, Eden, Redan and Sahara among them — that prove comparable, if not superior to their Old World originals. Though the course, tipping out just over 6,900 yards, is not long enough by tour standards, it did hold up in hosting the 2013 Walker Cup. Throw in the coastal breeze on this exposed links, and we’re confident it would provide a strong match-play test

The post 15 courses we’d love to see host a future match-play event appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.

“That’s my ocean.”

Weed is standing outside the nearly completed clubhouse at The Grove XXIII, the uber-exclusive golf course he built for his client, NBA Hall of Famer Michael Jordan (it opened in the fall of 2019), explaining how Shinnecock Hills became the inspiration for the design even though this particular site—formerly a citrus grove near Hobe Sound—is South Florida flat and unambiguously landlocked.

“We started to gradually raise this land where the clubhouse is, and as we did, we realized we had views across the whole course,” he says. “We could see everything.” The vastness of the property and the sandy, grass-covered spaces between the holes reminded Weed and senior design associate Chris Monti of the famed U.S. Open venue on Long Island. A visit to Shinnecock to double-check their instincts confirmed the idea.

LC Lambrecht
WET & WILD The brutish par-4 12th

The logic works. Seen from the patio, The Grove XXIII’s holes spool and unspool against the open backdrop of undeveloped pasture—the sea. And from the golf course, the clubhouse is never out of sight, a modernist stand-in for Stanford White’s omnipresent, wood-framed landmark.

The Grove XXIII (the Roman numeral represents the number Jordan wore with the Chicago Bulls) twists in an ingenious double-helix routing that can be played in four nine + nine combinations, and in shorter three- to six-hole loops. The key to the flexibility is the clustering of greens and tees, and a crossover junction after the fourth and 13th holes. Walking off the fourth green, for instance, play can continue on at the fifth, or it can switch over to the 14th and finish in the opposite direction, so each nine can be broken into sections. In fact, it’s possible to play continuous internal circuits without ever returning home, enhancing the likelihood of ongoing presses, overtimes and emergency holes.

LC Lambrecht
The par-3 13th, playing towards the “sea.”

Architects love to work with nature’s broken lines and irregular shapes, but little of that splendour existed here. Each hole was cajoled and massaged using fill from a chain of lakes that Weed transformed into a marshland habitat. Jordan’s primary requirement that the course play fast and firm with features that produce dramatic matches gave way to broad fairways that glide over dips and swales and melt into low-slung putting surfaces. Watching players putt or bump 7-irons onto greens from 20 yards makes Weed giggle.

In an era when nearly every new and remodelled course bears a naturalistic or faux-historical aesthetic, The Grove XXIII skews clean and contemporary, all short grass and sophistication. Weed’s “collection architecture,” rife with hollows, depressions and shallow scoop bunkers that gather shots, celebrates the centripetal force of gravity.

LC Lambrecht
A look behind the eighth green.

There’s certainly nothing pacific about the 15th and 16th, two holes that can quickly flip matches. The first is a par 3, drawing diagonally over a ridge of moguls to a partially blind green kicking everything rightward into a deep chipping hollow. The other, just 260 yards from the regular tees, features a strand of central bunkers separating routes to the hole and a convex putting surface that moves chips and putts in irrational directions.

LC Lambrecht
An aerial of the 17th hole.

Although limiting in some ways, the old, agricultural property did offer an unexpected bonus in the form of two deep irrigation canals bordering the north and eastern boundaries. Weed notched slender strips of tees atop the high banks on the opposite sides, using the canals as the rarest of features in American golf: long, dead-straight hazard lines that play like inverted versions of the stone walls at North Berwick in Scotland.

“We kept asking ourselves if we were overdoing it [hitting across the canals],” Monti says, “but then we’d cross to the other side, and it was a better hole from over there.”

Architecture’s best rule is: Use what’s there. Sometimes that’s a perfect landscape, a Shinnecock Hills with wild grasses, sand ridges, a distant bay. Sometimes it’s Florida citrus land, a pasture and canals.

LC Lambrecht
A view from the fifth hole, playing along the canal.

LC Lambrecht
The clean, sharp edges of bunkers evident at Grove XXIII’s 12th hole.

LC Lambrecht
A view behind the 18th green, and its intricate bunkering surrounding the green complex.

The post Welcome to Michael Jordan’s new course, The Grove XXIII appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.

For the third time we’ve included a ‘Readers’ Choice’ section where you can have your say on the top courses and the region’s best performing clubs.

Best of all, your valued opinion could win you a pair of season passes to the 2020 Omega Dubai Desert Classic where defender Bryson DeChambeau is one of six Ryder Cuppers confirmed for the $3.25 million European Tour event at Emirates Golf Club from Jan. 23-26.

Entry is easy but you need to be quick. Simply rank your five favourite courses in the region in order of preference from 1-5 (one being your absolute favourite) from the drop-down menu below.

RELATED: Top 10 Courses: 2018 Readers’ Choice

Please also select your favourite 9-hole course, Clubhouse, the club with the best F&B and the club that provides the best overall Service, as prompted.

We’ll draw one lucky reader at random to win a pair of season passes to the 2020 Omega Dubai Desert Classic. Entries close 5pm, Thursday, November 7, 2019.

Make sure to share with friends to increase your chances of watching DeChambeau and co. for FREE on the Majlis at Emirates G.C. in the New Year.

Good luck and thank you again. We value your opinion!

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The post VOTE & WIN! Last chance to have your say in the 2020 Top 10 Courses Readers’ Choice Awards appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.

Being a completist is hard work. Just ask Terry Inslee, who joined our panel in 1984 and is our most prolific rater, having evaluated 3,050 courses. He’s played 93 of the 100 Greatest and 96 of the Second 100 Greatest. The seven he’s missing from the first list roll off his tongue quickly: “Augusta National, Boston Golf Club, Shinnecock Hills, Sebonack, Friar’s Head, Garden City and Old Sandwich.” Inslee is retired, but over a career as a Missouri-based sales rep with a national territory, he worked in a lot of golf on business trips. Why hasn’t he played them all? Though association with Golf Digest does open doors, personal connections and the rub of the great green in the sky are still paramount, even for our panelists.

Told there was a golfer who’d accomplished the feat of playing “the century” in a calendar year, Inslee is impressed, if not a little shocked. “Completing the 100 is a major logistics problem. You’re always juggling so many balls in the air—the schedules of different hosts and your own, tournaments, outings, renovations, weather … for someone to do that in 12 months is absolutely amazing.”

“You ought to award the guy a green straightjacket,” says Senior Architecture Editor Ron Whitten. Salty as Whitten can seem, the heart connected to the fullest brain in golf architecture has a soft spot for any golfer so passionate.

Who could and would pull off such a stunt? Clearly, someone who isn’t working. Has to be a Golf Digest panelist, right? Not the case. Then some mid-am silver fox with a private jet and a fat Rolodex, right? Wrong again. Our golfer of the year is as unlikely as the idea itself.

Jimmie James, 59, was raised the fourth of eight children by a single mother. Their house in the sawmill town of Huntsville, Texas, had no plumbing or electricity. On the dusty and uphill path to the store, Jimmie and his siblings and half-siblings would walk from their black section through the Latino section before getting to where the whites lived. Signs forbid him to drink from certain fountains.

The James kids survived on what they could hunt and grow, and later on USDA-issued cheese, dried mashed potatoes and canned meats. Despite the nearly crippling cost of commuting via taxi, their mom worked the same job as a nurse’s aide for 30 years. “Our mother had a tremendous amount of drive. She taught us determination, integrity and to never complain,” says James, who was the first of his siblings to graduate high school, although all would become productive and comfortable members of society.

With a job at a department store and a partial scholarship, James earned an engineering degree from Prairie View A&M University. His climb up every rung in a 33-year career at ExxonMobil rivals any fiction by Horatio Alger. Last year, he retired as Manager of Americas Fuel Operations. “I was responsible for making sure that every town in North, Central and South America that needed fuel got it, while keeping the company’s workers safe without impacting the environment. It was a very high-stress job with a lot of global travel,” James says. “When I retired and went from 100 miles per hour to 30, I wanted a project to keep me engaged, because I’d seen others struggle with this transition in their lives.”

The athletically built James, who became a 12-handicap after taking up golf at 45, had the idea that for the first year of retirement he’d play two golf courses in every state. A previous trip to the Old Course at St. Andrews, when a golf buddy canceled last minute because of a work conflict, instilled a taste for the thrill of playing as a single and pairing with locals, and he thought he might re-create that experience again and again. But then a grander notion popped into his head: If he was going to play 100 courses in the United States, why not the best?

“Since the Golf Digest rankings update every two years, it occurred to me that perhaps no one had ever played the entire list while it was current,” says James (correctly), who at the time of conception had bagged just four: No. 16 The Country Club, No. 22 Whistling Straits, No. 75 Congressional and No. 21 the Ocean Course at Kiawah—the latter multiple times, because he has a residence there. For good measure, he’d play these four again. “It was important to me that I play each course within the 12-month time frame.”

Photo by Nathaniel Welch
Jimmie James, 59, was raised the fourth of eight children by a single mother.

GETTING TO THE MOUNTAINTOP
Funny how the most remarkable adventures will derive from logic entirely self-imposed. In 2015, the Swiss skier Jeremie Heitz announced his intention to climb and descend the 15 most famous 13,000-feet peaks in the Alps in two seasons. Most thought he was nuts, not only for how fast he ripped down these cliff-choked and avalanche-prone lines, but because high-alpine navigation requires exact weather conditions. Forcing an agenda against time across a wide geographic area would surely lead to poor decision-making. There were scares, but with cojones and a little luck, Heitz pulled it off, and the journey of his accomplishment documented in the Red Bull film “La Liste” is beyond compelling.

In golf, of course, the major obstacles are exclusivity rather than extremity. That’s why James knew his first course had to be Augusta National. “As I pursued my quest, I anticipated that a lot of people would ask if or how I was going to get on Augusta. Playing there first gave me credibility. People knew I was serious.” James met his wife, Erika, on a flight.

Walking to his car, he kicked himself for not getting her contact details and rushed back to intercept her at the gate of her next connection. The Dean of the Goizueta School of Business at Emory University, Erika is also an overachiever. When she took the job, she made an open plea to her board that if anyone would invite her husband to play golf, she’d sure appreciate it. That led to James’ quest kicking off in style, aboard the private jet of the golfer who had the Augusta connection.

“Augusta wasn’t my favorite golf course [that was Cypress Point], but it was my greatest overall golf experience,” James says. “From the drive up Magnolia Lane, to warming up on the Par-3 Course, to the pimento-cheese sandwich for lunch, to the gallery of staff coming out to watch our opening tee shots on the championship course, I never wanted the day to end.” Having 1992 U.S. Mid-Amateur champ and Augusta National member Danny Yates in the foursome added to the ambience, and after the round, Yates offered to help James with entree to other courses. James declined.

“Once you get introduced into a certain circle, you could really leverage someone for their contacts, but I didn’t want to lean on any one person to help with more than a handful of courses. The fun was going to be meeting people as I went and letting this network of people develop naturally.” As such, James rarely planned his itinerary further out than a month. Though we must insert one small asterisk: James played Augusta National in May 2017 during his last month of work. Not until he was settled into retirement on June 12 did his quest officially begin, he says, and he completed the list on June 11, 2018, so he gave himself a year to play 99 courses. The judges will allow it.

James is a successful guy, but he and his wife still have two teenagers who will want to go to college. Cashing out his modern road warrior’s chest of accrued hotel, airline and car-rental rewards points, nearly half of the travel for Jimmie’s Top 100 Golf Course Tour with the namesake blog was booked without opening his wallet. And with the sort of status so lofty at United Airlines it’s unpublished, James could make last-minute flight changes without getting penalized. Like, say, when his No. 5 Oakmont invitation suddenly materialized when he was on his way out to No. 73 Cherry Hills.

A few manic travel moments aside, mostly his year unfurled beneath prime season sunshine at a pace befitting the game. James loved hanging around putting greens, starting conversations and seeing where they led. “Whenever I told anyone what I was doing, the reflex response was to wonder how they could help.” Who did they know, and where?

“I think this trip gave my husband an even greater appreciation for the goodness in people, the beauty of the human spirit, than he already had,” Erika says.

Says former Southern Cal quarterback and retired athletic director Pat Haden, a member of No. 3 Cypress Point: “I’ve been on trips to Ireland and Scotland where I got hooked up by local members, and part of being a golfer is the joy of sharing what you have. … Jimmie is such a thoughtful, pleasant guy, that I was glad to help him, but it wasn’t until months later that I truly understood his personal history.”

When James was an intern in college, his host for the summer was shocked when a black person showed up at her door. She hastily concocted a back story and made arrangements to protect James from being arrested if he was seen in the neighborhood after dark. “Forty years ago, there’s no way I could’ve played all these courses,” James says. “There were people who warned, last year, that there would be some courses I couldn’t get on, but I felt totally welcomed and respected everywhere I went.”

Race wasn’t an issue, and neither was weather—except in California. In the so-called Golden State, rainouts, wildfires and deadly mudslides conspired against him, and he needed six trips to play 12 courses. For his entry on No. 80 Valley Club of Montecito, a region that was devastated, James wrote, “It goes without saying that the people had a lot more to deal with than some guy trying to play golf. We and our planet are a resilient lot, but incidents like this show how fragile life can be.”

*567,500 UNITED AIRLINES MILES REDEEMED FOR 42 FLIGHTS **91 DAYS OF RENTAL CARS, INCLUDING 12 FREE FROM NATIONAL ***980,000 MARRIOTT REWARDS POINTS REDEEMED FOR 75 NIGHTS

SOME OF THE HIGHLIGHTS
Such a year is filled with superlatives, but for brevity’s sake, we’ll mention just a few. The most expensive green fee was $750 at No. 63 Canyata in Illinois, although James did have the place to himself. A lone pyramid of range balls awaited his arrival. The private club averages 350 rounds per year.

The strictest cellphone policy seemed to belong to No. 14 Chicago Golf Club, where use of any kind is permitted only inside a car. In the official pamphlet emailed to guests in advance of play, it is also advised that the standard bet is a $1 nassau.

James’ most indelible memory might be the sudden silencing of silverware on the patio that occurs when you address your opening tee shot at No. 6 Merion. And though James encountered an outpouring of hospitality almost everywhere, the vibe at No. 56 Old Sandwich sticks in his mind: “I stayed for three hours after my round. They wouldn’t let me leave!” A multitude of members became highly engaged with his blog.

If there’s one rule to being America’s guest, James says, “it’s to realize that every club is a refuge, and to never disrupt that sanctity.” He made a habit of writing thank-you emails to head pros and club managers on every flight home, always noting the terrific service of their staff while cc’ing his hosts and playing partners. “If I’d acted questionably, word would’ve spread and ended my quest quickly,” James says. “The other critical element is memory. I have a pretty good knack for remembering names and making connections.

There’s a great underlying community of golf at this level, and if you make the effort to know who trained as an assistant under which head pro and where, the rivalries between certain golf-management schools, the home club of a winning member-guest partner—these things come up in conversation, and they give you the opportunity to demonstrate your sincere love for the game.”

But being well-informed with an open checkbook for guest fees and your clubs in the trunk isn’t always enough. James says the hardest place to get on was No. 71 Milwaukee Country Club. He worked his contacts for months to nail down a host, and even then had to tee off on the 10th hole, as do all groups with multiple guests at MCC during midday peak times, per club policy.

When James ran global fuel-supply lines, the master logistician never left anything to chance. But toward the end of his golf mission, he had to get lucky. With 35 days remaining, he had 29 courses to go. Leaving No. 4 Shinnecock Hills unpegged the spring before it was hosting the U.S. Open was poor planning, and not all segments of his trip to the important New York area were locked down.

Because the front nine of Winged Foot’s No. 10 West Course was being renovated—by Gil Hanse in advance of the 2020 U.S. Open—James had to play a composite 19 holes with the No. 62 East Course. (The judges will allow it, though not without some grumbling.) Like at Baltusrol, the only other two-banger property with its No. 39 Lower Course and No. 61 Upper, James saved in the golf shop. Because he purchased a hat and ball marker from each club, these two Tillinghast playgrounds made his collections 98. (Each of Bandon Dunes’ four 100 Greatest Courses has its distinct logo and merchandise.)

Across a leafy residential street from Winged Foot is No. 76 Quaker Ridge, another Tillinghast design. Not to assail his geography, but James was unaware of the true proximity. As he approached on Griffen Avenue in search of the Hutchinson Parkway, something like fate intervened. A guest in an outing struck a massive slice at the eighth, a short par 4, which connected with the windshield of a passing pickup. Head pro Mario Guerra was summoned to mediate. Despite Guerra’s assurance that the club would cover the cost of a new windshield, the driver was reluctant to move his truck until police arrived, and with traffic backing up with impatient drivers, Guerra feared another accident.

“Then, walking up the shoulder of the road, I see this tall African-American guy with a big smile. He comes right up to us and starts in, ‘Gentlemen, I’m sorry for this damage that has occurred today, but with every unfortunate situation there is a silver lining. Do you believe in destiny? You see, I was born poor in south Texas and am now on a quest to play all of our nation’s greatest courses and …’ He goes on, and the golfer, the pickup owner and I are all stunned by this guy. I was impressed with how he handled himself. I gave him my contact details to ping me that night, and I played with him a few days later.”

To avoid traffic, James caught a ferry across Long Island Sound to make the first of several tee times. So he wouldn’t get dinged with a weeklong one-way rental, he exchanged that car at LaGuardia Airport for a fresh one to drive to Boston. On a separate trip for Shinnecock, member Jimmy Dunne did a solid and rushed home early from his college reunion so he could host James on the final day guests could play before the U.S. Open.

During this home stretch James recognized a tension within himself. Was the urge to complete the mission overwhelming his ability to savor the experiences? To get back in a slower gear, he mindfully returned to what he’d really been doing all along: making small talk with as many employees at each club as he could. His go-to opening line: “What’s the one piece of advice you would give me for playing this course?” These interactions supplied the texture to make days memorable within the blur.

Of course, while James was making chit-chat with locker-room attendants, his wife kept things together at home and survived their teenage son learning to drive. “He traveled so much when he was working, that it didn’t feel that different, except the cadence of the golf trips was more random,” Erika says. Despite her husband grabbing a trip to Ireland and an additional 70 rounds along the way, he did make it back for a lot of important dad activities. For his 99th course, the couple walked together in their back yard at Kiawah, and his last course he could drive to, No. 25 Wade Hampton in North Carolina.

All this golf helped James’ handicap drop as low as 8.5, but toward the end his body broke down and he regressed to 9.4. Comparisons to Bobby Jones’ 1930 or Tiger Woods’ 2000 are troubled, but it was a pretty damn good year, and James deserves the microphone:

“I believe that there were four critical components needed to complete this quest—an understanding and supportive spouse, time, financial resources and connections. Save the understanding wife, I would have been hard-pressed to have the other three 100 years ago. One hundred years ago, my time would have been totally consumed with obtaining the basic requirements of food, shelter and clothing. Today so many more of us have much more time for leisure, more disposal income, and a much larger circle of friends and associates than we would have had. For all this current talk about tribalism, there is so much more that links us than separates us. Yes, I really do believe that ours is a world that is better today than it ever was. I also believe that in another hundred years, it will be even better… Our imaginations, our creativity, and our belief in things bigger than ourselves will make it so.”

One last observation from the golfer who’s seen it all? “Oh, yeah,” James says. “Without fail, a member at every golf course, except one, told me to tell the people at Golf Digest their course should be ranked higher than it is.”

The post A Regular Golfer’s Quest To Play America’s 100 Greatest Courses In One Year appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.

Robert Trent Jones Sr. designed the existing course in 1960. Bellerive ranked inside our 100 Greatest from our first set of rankings in 1966 through 2003, ranking as high as our Second 10 in 1969. Jones’ son, Rees Jones, has done recent work at Bellerive, restoring some of his father’s design elements and modernising other aspects. Bellerive Country Club is currently the top-ranked course in its state, and it ranks 118th on our Second 100 Greatest ranking (jumping 27 spots in our most ranking from 145th).

The first hole at Bellerive is no easy opener. You need to find the fairway to score well on this 425 yarder, well guarded by fairway bunkers—a theme throughout this Trent jones design.

Gary Kellner

Right away, you can see the refined bunker edges that Jones’ team has worked on recently.

Gary Kellner

The view from the first green looks back up at the clubhouse.

The second hole was redesigned from a sharp dogleg left, with its green not visible off the tee, to a wide open look at the green—though still retaining the architectural elements of the previous hole.

The large lake at the front of the green used to be a creek, but Rees Jones changed the hole significantly in his 2006 restoration.

Another terrific view behind a green, this looking back down No. 2 fairway.

The first one-shotter at Bellerive is short, playing just 147 yards for the PGA Championship.

The tee at the fourth hole, which plays as a par 5 for member play. It will play a sizable 520 yards or so for the PGA Championship.

Looking down at the green from the fourth fairway.

The fifth tee.

The 213-yard par-3 sixth hole at Bellerive played at a 4.03 stroke average at the 1965 U.S. Open. This long, diagonal green is protected by a number of swales—making precision paramount. Though it looks like a skinny green from the tee, it’s visually deceptive: You could have a 75-foot putt on this green.

The seventh hole is a short two-shotter, which will likely play less than 400 yards—making this a true birdie opportunity for the field.

The seventh green.

The eighth is a slight dogleg left par 5, which will play around 610 yards for the PGA Championship.

Perhaps the toughest par 4 on the outward nine at Bellerive is the ninth. The uphill approach shot to a green with different levels is an intimidating number to hit. If you’re any bit offline, par is a tough score.

The 10th hole is a dogleg left that runs downhill once you’re past the fairway bunker on the left.

The view behind the 10th green.

Rees Jones made some modifications at No. 11, including the option to make this a drivable par 4, which is likely to happen over a couple rounds. Jones made the kick slope left of the green short grass as a target for those going for the green from the tee, yet wanting to stay away from the water on the right. Balls might bounce off it and onto the green, but more likely, balls will settle in that tightly mown hollow, making for a tricky pitch and run off a tight lie.

A view looking down the 12th fairway.

The visually intimidating fairway bunkers at No. 12.

The 13th hole is a par 3 that plays over a creek to a slightly elevated green. This green has been rebuilt far more often than any in the course. The ridges and undulations make this a difficult green to navigate.

The risk-reward 17th hole, which will play around 600 yards for the PGA Championship.

Rees filled in a pond that was short right of the green, replacing it with bunkers. The stream along the right does come close to the right edge of the green, so there’s still some risk for those attempting to reach this par 5 in two.

The 18th hole is the most heavily bunkered fairway, and green, on the course— befitting a closing Robert Trent Jones hole.

The 18th fairway.

—Additional commentary provided by Golf Digest’s Senior Architecture Editor Ron Whitten.

The post PGA Championship 2018: Bellerive Country Club course tour appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.

By Stephen Hennessey
The Pacific Coast of Oregon and the middle of nowhere Wisconsin wouldn’t seem to have too many similarities. But in discussing why great golf works at Bandon Dunes, and how David McLay Kidd took inspiration from his successful breakthrough course more than 20 years ago, you arrive in tiny Nekoosa, Wis.

Kidd’s Mammoth Dunes at Sand Valley opens Thursday, less than four years after having walked the site and being rewarded the design job from Mike Keiser. Keiser gave Kidd his shot at Bandon Dunes and also found Sand Valley, whose Bill Coore and Ben Crenshaw course won Golf Digest’s Best New course in 2017. Kidd’s new course is a top contender for the honor in 2018, along with Streamsong Black and some others, but regardless of the outcome, the design represents a shift in philosophy from Kidd and his design team that started 10 years ago after a return to Bandon Dunes.

As a little-known mid-20s architect from Scotland, Keiser picked Kidd to design his first course at what is now one of the world’s most well known golf resorts. Since then, Kidd realized he had deviated from what he knew instinctively from growing up as the son of a greens superintendent, playing Old Tom Morris and James Braid courses in Scotland. What did Kidd get right at Bandon? And how could he learn from those successes? Having received some criticism for some of his later work—the most extreme of which was fellow designer Tom Doak giving Kidd’s Castle Course at St. Andrews the only “0” on his 1-10 scale on his Confidential Guide to Golf Courses—Kidd took his two lead designers, Casey Krahenbuhl and Nick Schaan—back to Bandon Dunes to draw specifics on what succeeded. The result? A shift in design philosophy that is most embodied at Mammoth Dunes.

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WATCH NOW: EVERY HOLE AT PINE VALLEY GOLF CLUB

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“There’s a misconception that the super creative, best shaping work we do in the dirt has to result in difficult. And that difficult courses that are somehow a badge of honor,” Krahenbuhl says. “So that was the memorable part for me. We realized we can have both. We can create these amazing golf holes—like the 16th hole at Bandon Dunes—which are also extremely playable while being great golf holes.”

Since that trip, Kidd’s team had successful openings at Gamble Sands in Washington and Huntsman Springs in Idaho among others. But Kidd won the design competition in 2014 to build the second course at Sand Valley, and the end result might be Kidd’s team best work yet.

“We needed to remind people that golf could be fun again, and 10 years after my epiphany at Bandon Dunes, Mammoth Dunes opens, so it’s pretty cool,” Kidd told Golf Digest at Mammoth Dunes, a day before the course’s official opening. “I hope this helps in its way to steer the course of golf courses in the future. I’m on a mission for myself and also golf in general to make courses more playable.”

It’s not hard to buy into Kidd’s statements. The scale and width at Mammoth Dunes allows golfers to play into sharply contoured greens from any angle, but not heavily penalizing golfers for spraying it left or right, or missing a shot left or right. Perhaps the most fun hole is the drivable par-4 14th, which plays from an 80-foot tall sand ridge down to a green that Kidd calls the “Big Brother version of a Redan green on a par 4.” Talk about unique. And there are options left or right, including a speed slot to the right that will funnel one’s ball down to the green.

Kidd incorporated the design of Golf Digest’s Armchair Architect winner Brian Silvernail for the 14th hole, using Silvernail’s original sketch. Though Silvernail got some technical lessons on drainage, irrigation and maintenance, the design is Silvernail’s, and McLay Kidd’s team made it work.

The before-and-after drone footage of the hole that tips out at 325 yards but plays from 297 yards from the second set of tees (and downhill) is a must watch.

9 Days Until Mammoth Dunes Opening Day: Mammoth Dunes #14 – The Golf Digest Armchair Architect Hole – Have you ever thought about designing and building your own golf hole? In 2016 as construction was underway, the Keisers with architect David Kidd agreed to have the 14th hole at Mammoth Dunes, a David McLay Kidd design, ultimately designed by the winner of the 2016 @golfdigest Armchair Architect Contest. Over 500 contestants mailed in their concepts including Brian Silvernail, a graphic designer who spent time designing golf courses for video games from Florida. Silvernail won the contest with his downhill, drivable par-4 that featured a dramatic sloping fairway from right to left. He visited the site in 2017 to work with architect David Kidd and his team to finalize the layout and location of bunkers and fairway lines. This video shows the transition from concept to final. #DreamGolf #Mammoth Dunes

A post shared by Sand Valley (@sandvalleygolf) on May 22, 2018 at 6:17am PDT

The design played into Kidd’s concept of a successful drivable par 4.

“My premise for a really fun par 4 starts with getting as many players as possible to actually go for it. If golfers feel they need to lay up because the trouble is too much, they feel like they were robbed and didn’t have that same opportunity. In order to make as many people as possible to try to drive it, you have to make the penalty for error pretty minor. So you have to be willing to give away birdies and pars to have them go after eagles. And if you miss, your recovery shot is achievable.

“Part of the thrill, too, is the concept based on the Redan-style green, which is usually found on a par 3. But we achieved it on a par 4. So you have the thrill for a golfer hitting their driver and watching it chase on the ground for 15 to 20 seconds before it stops, who doesn’t think that’s cool?”

Other highlights include a boomerang green on the sixth hole, inspired by a trip that Kidd made to Crystal Downs Country Club in Frankfort, Mich., No. 11 on Golf Digest’s latest 100 Greatest ranking, and studying Alister MacKenzie’s half-moon seventh green.

Jeffrey R. Bertch

Kidd and his team spent some time trying to adapt the unique green, even taking a basketball and rolling it from one side to the other, making sure it was possible to putt from one side to the other. As Wednesday’s pin location proved, the task was a success and the green is one of many interesting green sites on the course.

Perhaps the most impressive is the par-3 13th green, and the massive landforms in which the green sits.

The impressive 13th green.

And the fifth hole, which down a massive sand ridge before the green that sits in the valley, kicks off a truly invigorating stretch of holes. “This is the place on this golf course that I stand and say, ‘Wow,’ “ Krahenbuhl said.

Jeffrey R. Bertch
The fifth green at Mammoth Dunes.

Plus the island-green par-3 eighth hole, with a green surrounded by sand instead of water, comes after the seventh, which features a bunker that incorporates an old settlement house found during construction.

The island green on the par-3 8th is one of the smaller greens on Mammoth Dunes. Though the tee shot can seem intimidating from the back tees, the tees are situated in a way that as you move forward the tees also move farther left, making the angle for your tee shot much more friendly. Just another example of how @dmkgolf protects against low scores from the best players while allowing the hole to be playable for everyone else. #mammothdunes (? by @linkslandphoto )

A post shared by Sand Valley (@sandvalleygolf) on May 8, 2018 at 6:10am PDT

6 Days Until Opening Day at Mammoth Dunes. The island green par-3 8th #mammothdunes

A post shared by Sand Valley (@sandvalleygolf) on May 25, 2018 at 5:32am PDT

4 Days Until Opening Day at Mammoth Dunes – Enter at Your Own Risk. David Kidd and his team stumbled upon the foundation of this settlement home from the early 1900’s while shaping the Par-5 7th hole. Now it protects the green from a long approach. How would you name this bunker? #MammothDunes

A post shared by Sand Valley (@sandvalleygolf) on May 27, 2018 at 9:03am PDT

And so golfers will find yet another great golf course in Wisconsin, following the lead of Whistling Straits and its four courses, and 2017 U.S. Open site Erin Hills. In Sand Valley’s case, you have two courses, plus a 17-hole par-3 course from Coore and Crenshaw, with the likelihood of more courses down the road, is the result of a golf-course shaper Craig Haltom finding this untouched timber forest plantation and suggesting to Keiser that he check out the land, which he did in 2013, telling our Ron Whitten: “I really tried to resist this project, but within 30 minutes of being on-site, I was hooked.”

Drive four hours from Chicago, three and a half from Minneapolis or two and a half from Milwaukee, and you find Sand Valley Resort. It’s an hour on I-39 north from Madison, Wis., and make a left turn, and then a right, and you’ll have a similar reaction to Keiser.

Kidd’s course, which he refers to as “the latest groundwork in Mike Keiser’s master plan for a bigger project to create a pine barrens resort that spreads out in every direction,” has successfully utilized massive sand dunes into a pine oaks savannah of incredible scale.

“We’ve made it so that the fear of failure isn’t so daunting,” Schaan said. “Sure, the 20-handicapper is willing to accept the consequences of a bad shot. But if he’s able to find it, keep it in play and have a chance on your next shot to pull off a fun recovery shot, that’s going to be more fun, and that’s a success. And a lot of that is visual. The whole idea that hitting a golf shot should be based on pass or fail isn’t very fun.”

The post Mammoth Dunes at Sand Valley: How David McLay Kidd used Bandon Dunes as inspiration to bring fun back to golf appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.

For the second time we’ve included a ‘Readers’ Choice’ section where you can have your say on the top courses and the region’s best performing clubs.

Best of all, your valued opinion could win you a pair of season passes to the 2018 Omega Dubai Desert Classic.

Entry is easy but you need to be quick. Simply rank your five favourite courses in the region in order of preference (from 1-5) from the drop-down menu below.

Please also select your favourite 9-hole course, Clubhouse, the club with the best F&B and the club that provides the best overall Service, as prompted.

We’ll draw one lucky reader at random to win a pair of season passes to the 2018 Omega Dubai Desert Classic. Entries close 5pm, Thursday, December 7, 2017.

Make sure to share with friends to increase your chances of watching Rory MciLroy, Henrik Stenson, Sergio Garcia, Pat Perez and co. for FREE on the Majlis at Emirates G.C. from Jan. 25-28.

Good luck and thank you again. We value your opinion!

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The post VOTE NOW! Top 10 Courses Readers’ Choice Awards appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.

The post VOTE NOW! Top 10 Courses Readers’ Choice Awards appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.

Monterey Peninsula (Dunes)
The original course at Monterey Peninsula Country Club, just up 17 Mile Drive from Pebble Beach, has a pedigree most clubs would cherish. Originally routed by Seth Raynor in the mid-1920s, it was completed after his death by Robert Hunter and Alister MacKenzie. In the late 1990s, it was refashioned by Rees Jones, who moved the par-3 10th green (above) to a spot right above the crashing Pacific surf. Yet the Dunes lacked the sex appeal of its much-younger sister, the Shore Course, founded in 1961 and reinvented by the late Mike Strantz, who made it his artistic masterpiece in 2004. To remedy that, the club hired Tom Fazio (Strantz’s former mentor), who teamed with his son, Logan, longtime associate Andy Banfield and former associates Tim Jackson and David Kahn on a plan that integrates holes into the peninsula’s unique environment. Sandscape zones now frame most holes, ranging from hillsides of exposed sand to large, reconstituted ocean dunes. Once-straight fairways now zig and zag around jagged bunkers. Nearly all the greens are diagonal to lines of play, with the fourth green a dogleg wrapped around a sand hill. Drainage channels serve as prominent hazards along some holes, and trees were removed to open vistas of the sea. The Dunes Course now lives up to its name and is a worthy companion to The Shore.

Courtesy of Streamsong/LC Lambrecht

Streamsong (Black)
Streamsong Resort in Central Florida already has a dynamic duo: the Tom Doak-designed Blue course and the Bill Coore and Ben Crenshaw-designed Red both are in the top 25 of Golf Digest’s America’s 100 Greatest Public Courses. That’s a tough lead-in for Streamsong’s third act, the new Black course (par-3 fifth, above), one mile southeast on reclaimed land not nearly as dramatic as the massive dunes created by phosphate-mining operations. Still, architect Gil Hanse was enthused by the opportunities of the low-plateau site. “It’s as good a golf ground as we’ve ever worked with,” he says. “It’s also the largest piece of land we’ve ever had.” The routing changes direction frequently—wide fairways twist and turn, with several playing uphill to greens perched on the horizon. The par-5 fourth encounters a meandering stream, and 18 edges a vast, attractive wetlands savannah. To further distinguish the Black, Hanse gave it a “Royal Melbourne treatment,” with vertical-edged bunkers similar to those he used at the Rio Olympic Golf Course. You’ll find crisp edges, abrupt slopes and a couple of the deepest bunkers on the property. The Black will open late in September 2017, with advance tee times available now with a room reservation. Says Hanse: “I hope people put the Black right alongside the Red and Blue.”

Courtesy of Mark Degnan/Torrey Pines

Torrey Pines (North)
Phil Mickelson campaigned for years to have La Jolla, Calif., upgrade its North Course at Torrey Pines to complement the championship South Course. His lobbying, under state law, prevented Mickelson from bidding on the redesign. Tom Weiskopf, who won his first PGA Tour event at Torrey Pines in 1968, got the bid over a field that included Robert Trent Jones Jr. and (surprise!) LPGA player Natalie Gulbis. To provide more challenge to tour players, but not frustrate the 80,000 average golfers who flock to the North each year, Weiskopf enlarged and flattened the greens (so they can be sped up when needed), surrounded many with chipping areas, relocated and reshaped all bunkers and improved irrigation. He also reversed the nines, so golfers finish in glorious coastal scenery, and created two new closing holes, the par-5 17th, with a canyon along its left, and the long par-4 18th. The North is now perfectly balanced, with all the par 3s (15th, pictured) and par 5s facing different directions. Each nine also has 21 bunkers (down from a total of 58). Though the South is still the showcase draw—it’ll host its second U.S. Open in 2021—a round at the North Course is no longer an afterthought.

Main image Courtesy of Chip Henderson/Monterey Peninsula Country Club

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