Golf provides the perfect excuse for a well-deserved vacation and the perfect reason to plan an adventure to a beautiful place where a group of people, for whatever reason, decided to create, devise, develop, and build a place dedicated purely to pampering, ease, relaxation, and the maximum enjoyment of the greatest game. In common golf parlance, such a place is known as a “golf resort,” but that’s a hugely pedestrian phrase that fails to describe what makes a golf destination so special. The writer who came up with “golf resort” was clearly not a golfer and wasn’t much of a writer either.
North America alone has more than 100 golf resorts and destinations. They come in all shapes and sizes, from the international mega-destination to the regional favorite. At each golf destination, whatever the size and scope, the people who make these places tick spend untold energy ensuring that every guest and visitor is giddy from the moment they arrive to the moment they leave. The much-decorated chef wants to make absolutely certain that your steak is cooked just the way you like it. The person who cuts the greens every morning wants you to make all your short putts. The shoeshine expert wants you to see the reflection of the full moon in your Bostonians when you walk from the lobby to the restaurant. The sommelier in the restaurant spends hours sweating over the wine list to ensure that the guests have the right wines to pair with the just-introduced spring menu. The general manager walks the property daily to make sure guests and visitors are quasi-delirious. The caddies, even though they might have spent a few moments longer than necessary at a local gathering spot, arrive early and are willing to help you navigate the resort’s courses and their many and varied hazards. And the golf professionals and the golf staff show up before dawn every day with the singular goal of making sure that all golfers have everything they need to enjoy their golf day. They can’t swing the club for you on the first tee, but if they could, they would.
And then there’s the golf, or to be more specific, the golf courses. Many of the finest courses in the world are private—so private that the chances of even a well-connected golfer getting on are slim to none at best. So the top golf destinations in the world provide anyone with the desire to play a top course with the opportunity. Yes, there’s a price tag, but if you want to play Pinehurst No. 2, site of two very exciting U.S. Open Championships, it’s right there. Ditto Pebble Beach. Ditto the highly regarded courses at Bandon Dunes. Want to play Augusta National? Highly unlikely unless your father-in-law is a member and he likes you. Want to play Pinehurst No. 2? Call 1-800-ITS-GOLF. When the person answers the phone, she will say, with passion, “It’s a beautiful day in Pinehurst,” even if it’s bucketing down sleet and wintry mix outside. Within a week, or even less, you could be standing on the first tee of one of the top twenty golf courses on the planet.
The destinations in this chapter have not been chosen at random, but neither are the selections a “best of” list—empirical or otherwise. Nor have I listed them in any particular order. I chose them based on fame, enjoyment, reputation, and pilgrimage to reward quotient. I also considered (mightily) the quality of the golf. Some are resorts, while others are geographical areas. Either way, I firmly believe that every serious intelligent golfer should make the effort to visit one of these locations at least once. Some require somewhat arduous journeys (unless you have a private Bell Ranger or Citation X), and once you have arrived, all of them find ways to help you earn more credit card points than you thought possible in such a short period. But all of these must-plays represent resort and public-access golf at its very, very best.
You will not soon forget a visit to any of these locations. But perhaps most important, you will enjoy these spots because they are civilized without being overbearingly snobby. Each section includes a bit of insider information that should help you enjoy each destination a little bit more than the person who has not purchased this tome. I hope you enjoy these spots as much as I have enjoyed writing about them.
PINEHURST RESORT
VILLAGE OF PINEHURST, NORTH CAROLINA
800.487.4653/910.295.6811
WWW.PINEHURST.COM
Pinehurst is one of the crown jewels of American golf. Opened in 1895 by James Walker Tufts, a Boston soda fountain entrepreneur and multimillionaire, the resort has provided golfers from around the world with more than a century of wonderful golf and relaxation in the idyllic, quiet, and bucolic sandhills of North Carolina. In the past decade, Pinehurst has augmented its already superb reputation through a series of improvements, additions, renovations, and events—most notably the hosting of the U.S. Open Championship in 1999 and 2005. To borrow some British phraseology, Pinehurst is currently in excellent form.
Located roughly between Charlotte and Raleigh in central North Carolina, Pinehurst sits on sandy soil, a geological abnormality in a state with a surfeit of sticky red clay. The terroir is thus perfect for golf: well-drained, gently undulating land dotted with tall pines. The scenery isn’t jaw-dropping. The ocean is a three-hour drive, and there are no mountains to provide postcard backdrops for signature holes. Yes, there are adjunctive activities such as croquet, tennis, and lawn bowls, and you can book a chain of treatments at the spa, but the person who hates golf will likely be bored brainless staring at pine trees all day. Pinehurst is pure golf—powerful, undiluted, passionate, raw golf. For the intelligent golfer who wants golf and pretty much nothing else, it’s paradise—a golfaholic’s nirvana.
There always has been, and probably always will be, some mild confusion (and legal wrangling even) over the true meaning of the word Pinehurst. To some, primarily people who live in the Carolinas, it’s the area in and around the resort, an area that includes more than thirty top-quality golf courses. To others, Pinehurst is the resort. For the sake of expediency, this section details just the resort, but I thoroughly encourage you to investigate the surrounding area—to travel off-campus, as it were.
The resort comprises the Carolina Hotel, the main clubhouse, and eight courses simply numbered one through eight—further proof of the purity of the golf. There’s no “mountain course,” “ocean view course,” or “lake course” because there are no mountains, no nearby ocean, and no lakes of any real significance. Courses one through five are located around the main clubhouse while courses six, seven, and eight are separate entities. The hotel is about half a mile from the clubhouse, and there’s a convenient shuttle if you don’t want to walk. The overall operation is slick and well organized yet never demeaning or ostentatious. Immediately adjacent to the Carolina Hotel is the quaint Pinehurst Village with its boutiques, golf memorabilia stores, and eateries. Pinehurst is very much about stepping out of the daily routine and into a different place and world. Ditch the BlackBerry, the cell, and the laptop and unwind.
The resort boasts a pleasant variety of visitors, guests, and locals. Pinehurst is nowhere near a major airport, yet the resort attracts a busy conference and meeting business. The membership, mostly local golf-crazed retirees, is healthy, active, and omnipresent. Visiting groups of four to twenty, often the same people over and over, make a trip to the resort an annual event. Plus there are plenty of couples and foreign guests as well. The only common denominator is a love for the game and for the sweet pine scent that greets you as you approach the resort.
Those looking for chef-driven cuisine and big-time nightlife will want to go elsewhere. Pinehurst is not a party village, although it’s possible on certain weekends to find some late-night activity. The food is wonderful, especially if you’re a meat-and-potatoes guy or gal. You’ll even find some southern delicacies at Pinehurst if you scour the menu.
Pinehurst has seasons. Summers can have volcanic heat, and there’s always the possibility of a violent thunderstorm mid-to-late afternoon. Fall brings clear skies, less humidity, and pleasant temperatures, which means that October might be the best time for a visit. But Pinehurst was originally a winter resort, so while the weather is less predictable from December to mid-March, with a bit of luck you’ll get fine conditions. Have you watched the Masters played every April? That describes the spring weather in Pinehurst, with flowering shrubs and trees included at no extra charge. The bottom line, weather-wise? Stay four days, and there’s a better than 80 percent chance that you’ll play golf every day.
But why not stay for eight days and take in all eight courses? Each has its own identity and vibe. The rock star is Pinehurst No. 2, site of the 1999 and 2005 U.S. Open Championship. It’s a mysterious and fiendishly difficult golf course for an intelligent golfer of any standard, even though it looks relatively modest at first introduction. It’s a fun course off the tee, with plenty of room, yet the approach shots are hugely difficult as the greens are relatively small but play even smaller. Jack Nicklaus famously said that landing a ball on a green at Pinehurst is like landing a ball on the top of a VW Beetle. Once your ball has rolled off the side of the turtle-backed greens, which it will, getting up and down requires the touch of a surgeon, the knowledge of a physics professor, and the guts of a paratrooper. Things can be going along fairly well at No. 2 for a few holes; then, shazam, there’s an 8 on the scorecard—on a par-3.
The challenge with Pinehurst No. 2 is that it’s an impossible course to get to know unless you play it about fifty times. There are keyholes, but they are hard to find—even with a caddy. There are answers to the questions that the course asks, but these too are never especially obvious. The course is a tough, tough examination. If you fail the first time, which you likely will, just remember that No. 2 got the better of the world’s top golfers when they visited for the two U.S. Opens: there were lots of red faces and big numbers. Just ask John Daly what he thinks about the eighth hole. He had a double-digit score on the hole and even hit a ball while it was moving.
The good news at Pinehurst is that the other seven courses are more user-friendly and thus more enjoyable—at least for the intelligent golfer with a mid-handicap. Pinehurst No. 1 is a course that any club in the United States would be proud to own. It’s nowhere near as difficult as No. 2, and the challenges are more obvious, but it’s no pushover because it still features some of the dynamics that make No. 2 so totally impossible—like those humpbacked greens. For the first-time visitor to Pinehurst, No. 1 is a fine introduction. Pinehurst No. 3 looks short enough to be a ladies-only course, but it’s well worth a visit and is fun—especially after the torture of No. 2. The tough, small greens require total concentration.
Architecturally, Pinehurst No. 4 has had a mixed background and complex history. That changed around 1998 when famous golf course architect Tom Fazio reengineered and redesigned the course to complement No. 2. In fact, several greens at No. 4 are more severe than the greens at No. 2, but thankfully, the course isn’t as hard because the intelligent golfer can successfully approach each putting surface from different angles, making it significantly more enjoyable. Pinehurst No. 4 boasts a prettier piece of property, with some beautiful lakes and slightly more undulation. From the back tees, though, it’s a worthy test for the scratch golfer. The defining feature of the course might be the brutal, deep pot bunkers that seem to be just about everywhere.
Relatively new by Pinehurst standards, Pinehurst No. 5 is the last course on the resort campus. The course has more elevation change and is slightly narrower in spots than the other courses; it’s even quirky in places. The greens are not as severe, and the bunkering is not as punishing. The result is a hidden gem that’s perhaps the most enjoyable of all the Pinehurst courses. It’s a great first course to play as an introduction to the resort.
Pinehurst No. 6, No. 7, and No. 8 are just a short drive from the main resort; each course has its own character and own plot of land. Pinehurst No. 6 has had its fair share of tinkering over the years yet remains quintessential Pinehurst, with wide fairways and undulating greens. Generally hillier than the other Pinehurst courses, No. 6 has an excellent set of par-3s. George Fazio, Tom Fazio’s uncle, designed the course in 1979, and Tom renovated it in 2005.
Pinehurst No. 7 is a curious course whose design and routing owe more to a phase in the life of Pinehurst when the then-ownership wanted to maximize real estate frontage and development. Architect Rees Jones said that when he got the commission to design No. 7, he stayed up all night working on the layout and, in places, it shows. There are too many holes with downhill drives and semi-blind uphill approach shots so that, after a while, the course develops a certain sameness. Just after 2000, Pinehurst hired Jones to renovate and redesign the course, and Jones removed the one characteristic that made No. 7 so interesting—a roughness around the edges. Still, No. 7 has its devotees who think it’s one of the finest Pinehurst courses.
To celebrate its centennial, Pinehurst hired Tom Fazio to design Pinehurst No. 8, and that course might be the best course at the resort behind No. 2. Though a modern course in many ways, as soon as it opened in 1996, No. 8 looked like it had been there for decades. The land used to be the resort’s shooting grounds, and it was a scrubby and rough piece of property dotted with wetlands—today’s word for swamps. Fazio left much of the rough ground intact; thus, the course has a most un-Fazio-like rough-hewn look that augments the strategic interest and visual appeal. There’s only one modest hole, the uphill par-4 third, but the others are really solid. A first-time visitor may find the greens a hair confusing, but they are not as hard as they look. Like today’s well-designed modern courses, Pinehurst No. 8 is elastic: it has hosted a professional championship, yet Golf for Women magazine ranks it the sixteenth most woman-friendly golf course in the United States. While Pinehurst No. 2 is a must-play for its history and major championship appeal, No. 8 is the must-play for its ambiance and fun factor.
For a vivid sense of the history of the game, a couple of short walks at Pinehurst are mandatory—from the main entrance of the clubhouse to the golf shop, and the hallway of the Carolina Hotel that stretches from the administrative offices to the meeting rooms. In less than an hour, you’ll discover the history not just of the resort, but also of American golf at the professional and amateur levels. Anyone who is anyone has won something at Pinehurst, and perhaps the finest U.S. Open took place at Pinehurst in 1999 when Payne Stewart won with a twelve-foot putt on the eighteenth hole. There’s a large and wonderful bird’s-eye photo of the scene in the hallway of the main clubhouse. Look closely at the photos, and you’ll see famous professionals and mostly A-list celebrities. Study the boards that list past champions, and you’ll come to know some of the most famous names in the game. On Sundays, Pinehurst No. 2 places all of the hole locations in the same spots as on the final day of the 1999 U.S. Open.
The most famous name at Pinehurst is Donald Ross, the Scottish-born professional golfer and golf course architect who made his winter home and developed his reputation at Pinehurst. He added holes to Pinehurst No. 1, then designed No. 2, No. 3, and No. 4. Guests who visited the resort from all over the United States subsequently asked Ross to design and build the courses in their communities. Ross visited only a fraction of the courses that bear his name, but his influence in early American golf cannot be understated—and it all began at Pinehurst. There’s a statue of the great man just behind the eighteenth green of No. 2, and there’s plenty of memorabilia in the clubhouse and main hotel. Make some time to soak it all up.
The other, totally essential way to get to know Pinehurst is with the assistance of one of the many fine caddies who work full time at Pinehurst. If you decide to play Pinehurst No. 2 or any of the other courses in a golf cart, go back to the hotel and work on your taxes instead—it’s just not civilized. As Peggy Kirk Bell, owner of Pine Needles in nearby Southern Pines, says, “You haven’t played golf until you’ve played a Donald Ross course with a caddy.” The powers-that-be at Pinehurst keep golf carts off the course at No. 2 anyway, so when you check in, make sure that you ask for a caddy. The professionals in the golf shop will send you downstairs to the unattractive basement where the caddy master will set you up. It’s also fun, and wise, to hire a caddy when you play the other courses at Pinehurst, although you can carry your own bag on some of them. It seems a great shame to go to Pinehurst and drive around in a golf cart—it’s rather like visiting the Museum of Modern Art in New York City while wearing a blindfold.
Once the sun begins to set, there’s plenty of post-round entertainment at Pinehurst, both at the resort and off. The main clubhouse has a restaurant and bar—fittingly called the 91st Hole. When the weather is pleasant, head outside to enjoy the libation while overlooking the massive practice putting green. The Holly Inn and the Manor Inn both have excellent restaurants; the main meal inside the main dining room at the Carolina is a formal affair, where men are required to wear a jacket. Courses No. 6, No. 7, and No. 8 also have bar areas. The only four-diamond restaurant in the Pinehurst area is at the Holly Inn, which is part of the resort. The Holly also has what might be the best bar in the area—at least from an ambiance perspective. After dinner, repair to the Ryder Cup Lounge in the main clubhouse or go off-campus to the famous Pine Crest Inn. For an ever rowdier time, try Dugan’s in the village—head straight downstairs to the tiny basement. Sometimes there’s a band tucked into a corner. If you stay until closing and wake up the next morning feeling slightly piqued, visit Pinehurst’s opulent spa.
Pinehurst isn’t sexy and it’s not a celebrity hangout or enclave, and that’s part of its attraction. It’s what golf was meant to be, perhaps … serene, charming, fun, inviting, and intelligent. As soon as you set foot on the property, you feel like part of the club and part of a history that dates to the very beginning of golf in the United States. And for that alone, it’s well worth a visit.
PEBBLE BEACH RESORTS
PEBBLE BEACH, CALIFORNIA
800.654.9300
WWW.PEBBLEBEACH.COM
Standing alone, without golf, Pebble Beach on California’s Monterey Peninsula is the type of spot that sends the senses into total riot. It’s one of the most magnificent and jaw-dropping locations in the United States, the climactic point perhaps of the rugged and wild West Coast. Thankfully for the intelligent golfer, there’s a golf course there. Several, actually, the most famous of which is Pebble Beach Golf Links, which opened in 1919.
Eliciting glassy-eyed stares and moments of silence from even the most garrulous golfers, Pebble Beach is the resort that nobody wants to leave. The poster child for the ultimate in American golf luxury, location, and subtle decadence, it’s the golf resort that nongolfers really want to visit. Pebble Beach dwarfs and renders inconsequential the various and sundry celebrities who pitch up for all those celebrity events the resort has hosted over the years. Pebble Beach is not exactly a secret—nor a hidden gem. Golfers from all over the world make the effort to get to Pebble Beach and enjoy all that the resort has to offer. For the lucky few, it’s a regular indulgence. For most, it’s a once-in-a-lifetime visit.
Located near Monterey and Carmel, about a two-hour drive south from San Francisco Airport, Pebble Beach sits directly on the Monterey Peninsula. Those who would rather avoid the drive from the Bay Area might want to consider using the Monterey Peninsula Regional Airport, which is a short drive from the golf and lodging.
Pebble Beach comprises four full-length golf courses: Pebble Beach Golf Links, the Links at Spanish Bay, Spyglass Hill Golf Course, and Del Monte Golf Course. There’s also a short “Executive” nine-hole course called Peter Hay. You’ll find a variety of resort-owned lodging as well: the Lodge at Pebble Beach, the Inn at Spanish Bay, and Casa Palmero.There’s also an expansive spa and several eateries. Anyone can play Pebble Beach, and anyone can stay at the resort, given the inclination. The resort offers a number of seasonal Stay and Play packages. The packages can be expensive, and sundry items like steaks and bottles of really good wine will inflate the final bill—a hair—but the value of visiting one of the finest golf courses anywhere makes the cost worthwhile.
Pebble Beach Golf Links (let’s just call it Pebble Beach, shall we?) starts rather inconspicuously with three inland holes. Then the figure-eight routing dramatically brings the ocean into play at the fourth where a cliff borders the right side of the green. The first of Pebble Beach’s truly epic holes is its shortest, the par-3 seventh, just 103 yards. The green seems to sit right in the middle of the Pacific, and the exposure makes club selection tricky. Anything from a lob wedge to a 4-iron might work. Someone someday probably had to hit driver. The par-4 eighth features perhaps the finest second shot in golf, an approach over a chasm to a tiny green; if this shot fails to get the blood pumping through the veins a little faster, then you have assumed room temperature. Anything to the right on the next two par-4s means trouble since the two holes are perched precariously next to the Pacific.
The start of the back nine heads inland through the Monterey Pines then emerges back to the cliffs at the end, most spectacularly at the seventeenth and the eighteenth, quite possibly the two foremost finishing holes in the game. The seventeenth features the famous hourglass green, where two-putting and getting up and down are extremely treacherous. The eighteenth is a glorious par-5. Sea otters frolic in the kelp below the tee, and from the tee, there’s a decision to be made—play short of the tree on the right side of the fairway or take it on by bringing the sea to the left into play. Even after a successful tee shot, there’s work ahead: Jack Nicklaus reached the green in two shots, but most resort golfers will need to lay up and hit an extremely precise wedge for the approach. Even if the round has not gone well to that point, a par at the last hole will make up for just about everything. Can you think of the vacation that was so good you never wanted to leave? That’s the feeling you will likely have as you walk off the eighteenth at Pebble Beach.
Unless you play a lot of golf in the area or at a similar type of location, the grasses at Pebble Beach may seem unfamiliar; they certainly augment the difficulty. The mostly small greens at Pebble Beach feature Poa annua, a type of grass that can make for an extremely slick surface. It can also grow quickly, making for slightly bumpy surfaces late in the day, so an early tee time is always advisable. If you stray way off line, you might encounter a sticky substance that looks somewhat like grass but is actually ice plant; the only realistic option from this stuff is a wedge.
Even if Pebble Beach was located next to a nuclear waste dump, disused strip mine, or NASCAR track, intelligent golfers would play it for the quality of the routing and the strategic interest—the golf course is that good. But it’s not located next to something awful. It’s perched on a glorious piece of property. Pebble Beach is the golf course with everything: Looks. Brawn. Beauty. Charm. Brains. You name it. It’s everything a golf course should be.
Just five miles from Pebble Beach is the beautiful offspring, the Links at Spanish Bay. Like Pebble Beach, Spanish Bay is set hard by the sea, but it’s a different type of golf course, an “American” links, if you like, that looks and even plays like the real thing. It’s a feat of modern golf course construction that Robert Trent Jones Jr., Tom Watson, and former U.S. Golf Association president Sandy Tatum designed and built. Even though the site is a former sand quarry, the builders and designers trucked in vast amounts of sand to create the genuine links effect. (Actually, it wasn’t trucked in, it was brought in by conveyor belt.) After shaping the site, the design team sewed mostly fescue grasses—just like those on a typical British links.
Strategy and interest at Spanish Bay comes primarily from rippled and canted fairways, difficult stances, and really horrible pot bunkers just like the ones you might find at Muirfield or Royal Troon in Scotland. Spanish Bay is just a short drive from Pebble Beach, and there’s wind—often—and glorious views of the sea. But Spanish Bay provides the resort guest with a different type of golf that perfectly complements Pebble Beach.
There’s more. A typical golf package at Pebble Beach includes a round at Spyglass Hill—which isn’t exactly chopped liver. In 2003, Golf Digest ranked the course the fifth-best public course in the United States. So while you might be foaming at the mouth to get to the first tee at Pebble Beach or Spanish Bay, Spyglass Hill will be almost as rewarding. And no less difficult—three holes (the sixth, the eighth, and the sixteenth) are among the most difficult on the PGA Tour. If you’re a Robert Louis Stevenson fan, you might recognize the name Spyglass Hill from the novel Treasure Island. When the course opened in 1966, the powers-that-be christened the holes using nomenclature from the novel. Robert Trent Jones Sr., one of the most influential American golf course architects, routed the first five holes through seaside dunes and the remaining holes through pine forest.
The fourth course at Pebble Beach is the Del Monte Golf Course, which holds the distinction of being the oldest continuously operating course west of the Mississippi. Del Monte is inland, just south of Monterey to the east of U.S. Highway 1. It’s a fine golf course in its own right and has hosted significant events, including the California State Amateur Championship. The layout features narrow fairways and smallish greens. If your Pebble Beach stay includes a round at Del Monte, don’t panic. You will likely enjoy the day.
The golf at Pebble Beach is but half of the enjoyment equation. From the day the doors first opened at the resort in 1880, accommodations have been nothing less than sumptuous. Casa Palmero is a Spanish-style enclave located along the first and second fairways at Pebble Beach. With just twenty-four rooms and suites, it’s perfect for the person or group who wants some privacy—although the “Main House” has a living room, library, heated pool, bar, and billiards room. The Inn at Spanish Bay is larger, with more than 250 rooms and suites, many with views of the Pacific. But if you think you might visit Pebble Beach only once and want to push the throttle through the floor, stay at the Lodge. A few days there will make you feel like you have moved to the Monterey Peninsula. Many of the rooms and suites have views of the eighteenth fairway and the Pacific, and most have working fireplaces. There’s nothing cookie-cutter: the furniture for each room is individual, and you’ll have more than enough space to unwind and relax. Why not go for a deluxe, one-bedroom suite that features a guaranteed view, a separate living room, and a whirlpool—among other goodies?
There are no fewer than seven eateries at the Lodge and six at the Inn at Spanish Bay. At the Lodge, Club XIX, open for dinner only, offers the most serious dining with its contemporary American menu. If fowl is your game, try the Maple Leaf Duck Breast roasted in the oven with Sautéed Cherries and Potato Gratin with Leg Confit Orange-Vanilla Jus. The restaurant offers a strong wine list as well. For something more casual, the Tap Room is a long-time favorite—a steak house but also a pub, with several beers on tap and in the bottle. Or try a Del Monte Fizz, a delightful chemistry experiment fusing orange and lemon juice, gin, cream, egg white, vanilla extract, and sugar. At the Inn at Spanish Bay, those looking for a clubby or sports bar feel might visit either Sticks or Traps; Traps has a late-night menu. The most serious restaurant is Peppoli, which features a Tuscan menu, top Italian wines, and long views over the golf course and the ocean.
There’s really no significant need to leave the resort, but if you must, you’ll find some famous restaurants nearby. For fresh fish, try Passion Fish in Monterey; the wine list has a superb selection of local wines. In Carmel, go to Casanova, an intimate and romantic spot with a menu that’s a step beyond eclectic. The lady who owned the building before it became a restaurant apparently used to cook for Charlie Chaplin. The wine cellar has around 30,000 bottles, and the maître d’ will give you a tour if you ask politely.
The marketing people at Pebble Beach like to use the words “links” and “Scotland” and “Scottish,” and there’s often a bagpiper piping away near the main campus or the Inn at Spanish Bay. The weather on the Monterey Peninsula can be just as fickle as in Scotland. The coast often creates its own weather, and while it can be clear as a bell and warm at Spanish Bay, it might be fogged in and damp at Pebble Beach. On your anointed day to play the great course, it could be raining sideways or be almost summer-like—in February. Or July. But it’s highly unlikely that you’ll get any snow; the white stuff falls about once every forty years.
There’s a lot of history at Pebble Beach. The AT&T National Pro-Am is the successor to the Bing Crosby-led “Clam Bake” that started in 1947. There have been some huge moments, such as Tom Watson’s miraculous victory over Jack Nicklaus at the 1982 U.S. Open. Or Tom Kite’s one and only major championship ten years later. And then, in 2000, Tiger Woods brought the course to its knees and won the U.S. Open by a staggering fifteen shots. But even without those important pieces of golf history, Pebble Beach would be just fine. It’s not really about history at Pebble Beach; it’s about the setting and the fact that there’s golf—great golf, perhaps the greatest in America—right in the middle of one of America’s most gloriously beautiful locations.
BANDON DUNES GOLF RESORT
BANDON, OREGON
888.345.6008
WWW.BANDONDUNESGOLF.COM
In 1999, something totally remarkable took place on the remote southern coast of Oregon. A man with a dream, Mike Keiser, opened a golf course called Bandon Dunes. The course was designed by a mostly unknown young Scottish architect, David McLay Kidd, on what initially looked like unusable gorse-scrub but turned out to be genuine linksland—the type of coastal, sandy, dunes-like property rare even in Scotland. After torturous years of clearing, bureaucracy, and sheer grunt work, Keiser and Kidd gave birth to the real thing: a genuine links course. But it wasn’t in the British Isles, it was in America. It was a risk, specifically the type of “if we build it, will they come?” type of risk, for Bandon is (with apologies to all Bandonians) pretty much slap-bang in the middle of nowhere. There isn’t a major city within easy driving distance. The nearest regional airport, thirty minutes away, offers minimal service. For all intents and purposes, it’s a day to get there and a day to get back, even if you have a personal jet at your beck and call. You can get to Portland, which is not that hard, but it’s at least four hours by car from there. Eugene? Almost three hours. At the beginning, Keiser had to wonder if anyone would come—especially in today’s fast-paced world.
They came.
Initially, they came because every golf course architecture writer in every golf magazine got almost teary about the place after his or her initial reconnaissance trip. The first paying visitors got gushy after making the journey; thus by word-of-mouth and through the written word, the word got out that Bandon was something amazingly special and that the trek was worth it. There are three courses now (by Kidd, Tom Doak, and the team of Bill Coore and Ben Crenshaw) and more visitors and even more accolades, but Bandon Dunes has retained its low-key charm. It’s walking only, usually with a caddy. There’s excellent dining now but still without much fanfare. The accommodations are pleasant enough, but it’s not the palatial stuff of upscale travel magazines. At Bandon Dunes, it’s all about the golf. Everything else is pretty much an afterthought or adjunct.
To understand Bandon Dunes fully, it’s important to know something about David McLay Kidd and his background. Kidd was the son of a greenkeeper (nowadays called a golf course superintendent). As a child, Kidd spent his summers on the west coast of Scotland at Machrihanish, home of the Machrihanish Golf Club, which has a highly acclaimed links course right next to the Atlantic Ocean. Kidd remains a member of the club, and while Bandon Dunes isn’t “Machrihanish America,” the influence is clear. If there’s no wind, you can get around mostly in the air, but if it’s windy or slightly inclement, then the ground game is the viable and preferred option. Speaking of options, there are plenty of them from tee to green—just as there are at Machrihanish. And just like its cousin in Scotland, Bandon Dunes has character and charm yet can be moody and capricious.
Off the tee, Bandon Dunes is mostly open. But the best route to attacking most of the holes requires more accuracy than sheer power. The other key to success at Bandon Dunes is avoiding the thoroughly horrible and nasty bunkers. The finest hole? It might be the par-4 sixteenth that, with some help from the prevailing summer wind, might be drivable, even at 366 yards. It’s right by the beach, with some of the course’s best views of the Pacific—and that’s saying something; it’s a hole with some brains to accompany the beauty, because taking on the green with the driver is not without some risk.
Kidd likens the course to a symphony with what he describes as “a strong start, a sense of anticipation, small crescendos, and an incredible finishing sequence along the Pacific.” Most of the top architects in the world must have been begging Mike Keiser for the chance to compose Bandon’s first symphony. His risk with Kidd paid off handsomely, and both Kidd and Bandon Dunes have moved on to greater work. Recently, Kidd got another plum assignment, the newest course at St. Andrews.
Tom Doak designed the next course at Bandon Dunes, which is named Pacific Dunes. If you ever meet a big name (or even a little name) golf course architect, have some fun and mention Tom Doak. It will be amusing for you but will create severe pain for the architect. Doak is the enfant terrible of the industry, primarily because he dared to criticize the work of his fellow architects in his must-read, must-have book, The Confidential Guide to Golf Courses. The book is out of print, and copies fetch close to $300 on eBay. Why? Because it’s brutally honest and is one of the few golf course guides that tells it like it is. Doak has further annoyed the top golf course architects by becoming hugely successful and by being able to do it his way. Exhibit No. 1 is Pacific Dunes, a course that’s every bit the equal of Bandon Dunes and might even be a bit better. Doak and his team have produced a strong portfolio of top courses around the world, yet Pacific Dunes might be his finest work to date. It’s easily a candidate for best new course of the last forty years—and that’s saying something. Much of the success of the course again comes from the site or, to use golf architect lingo, the canvas.
On that canvas, Doak painted eighteen excellent holes. One of the keys to the success of the course is the consistency—one fantastic hole after another. The fourth is a cliff-top hole that any course would love to own, but it’s not the best hole on the course even though it’s tremendously scenic. Candidates for the top spot include the tenth and eleventh, both right by the ocean. The seventeenth, a 210-yard par-3 with a bank of deep gorse behind the hole, might seem intimidating, but there’s a relatively easy way to play the hole for the golfer without the game to take on the left-hand hole locations: just play to the right side of the massive green and let the ball funnel down. The climactic hole is a monster par-5 at almost 600 yards (591, to be exact). To this point, the course has not been silly long, but given the wrong wind direction, this hole might lead to a big number.
By design, Pacific Dunes looks rough around the edges, which might make it look harder than it actually plays. The great thing about Pacific Dunes is that it’s fun to play, even for the mid- to high-handicapper. From the next-to-last tees, the course is around 6,100 yards, and even from the very back tees, it’s a modest 6,633 yards—not a backbreaker by any stretch of the imagination. Plus there are keyholes and shortcuts that you can try to discover for yourself or, better still, let a caddy help you find. A round at Pacific Dunes could be slightly tortuous if you find some of the more unforgiving bunkers (one of them is eighteen feet deep!), but with some sound navigation, Pacific Dunes should be a lot of fun.
For the third course at Bandon Dunes, called Bandon Trails, Keiser hired the golf course architecture team of Ben Crenshaw and Bill Coore, creators of some of the most impressive modern courses in the past fifteen years. Modern might be the wrong word, though. Coore and Crenshaw are part of the “throwback” movement in golf course architecture. The goal has been to incorporate the best aesthetic and strategic elements of early golf course architects such as Donald Ross, H.S. Colt, and Alister MacKenzie. Following Bandon Dunes and Pacific Dunes was always going to be a challenge, so Coore and Crenshaw took a slightly different tack, moving inland and creating what would be a pleasant hike if you did not have your golf bag with you. The course happily boasts a sensational variety of terrain that few, if any courses, can claim; it might even seem a touch schizophrenic. Bill Coore provides some insight in the first pages of the yardage book:
As its name implies, Bandon Trails will take you on a walk, if you will, through windswept dunes, meadows of vegetation framed by indigenous shrubbery, and through woodlands of towering fir and spruce trees. Sometimes the journey and the golf will be wild and tumultuous, sometimes serene.
The course seamlessly integrates the finest architectural features of the finest golf course architects. It uses the natural terrain superbly to produce yet another course at Bandon Dunes that all but the most hackneyed and myopic golfer should thoroughly enjoy; certainly, the intelligent golfer will. At times, you’ll feel like you’re at Pinehurst. At others, you’ll feel like you are west of London at one of the heathland courses. On some holes, the feeling is very much like the Australian sand belt courses. So the trail that is the theme at Bandon Trails feels almost like a world golf tour in eighteen holes. And that’s a good thing: golf at Bandon Trails is the antithesis of U.S. Open golf, where the course and its setup tell where you must go. At Bandon Dunes, each hole on each course offers options galore, and this alone makes the golf a lot more fun.
The resort brochure describes a surprising range of things for the nongolfer to enjoy, but the person who absolutely abhors golf might find very little of interest—aside from whale or bird watching. However, the river fishing is supposed to be excellent.
When it’s finally dark and you have returned from what has likely been thirty-six holes, there’s plenty of sustenance at one of five spots. The most upscale, even though you won’t need to dress up, is the Gallery Restaurant, a chef-driven location quietly building an impressive wine list to complement its seafood and aged beef. McKee’s Pub offers a traditional bar menu, along with a wide selection of microbrews, most from the Northwest, plus single malt scotches; there’s a small and sheltered dining room upstairs. The Tufted Puffin Lounge is a quiet place for a drink with friends or a drink before dinner at the Gallery. Later at night, you may find yourself at the manly enclave known as the Bunker Bar. And those who are playing Bandon Trails will want to stop in Trails End, which overlooks the eighteenth green.
Accommodations at Bandon Dunes are far from spartan but aren’t stratospherically luxurious. As with the general dining setup, everything is geared toward the male golfer: many of the rooms feature large-screen high-definition televisions, which, as any man will tell you, is much, much more important than feather pillows and lavender hand cream. The Grove Cottages are specifically designed for a foursome; there’s a gathering room with a fireplace and four separate bedrooms, each with a king bed and private bath. The Lodge has more variety, anything from single rooms to four-bedroom suites. The powers-that-be determined the golf courses would get the best land, so anyone looking for a beautiful sea view from the Lodge will be disappointed—for all the right reasons.
The intelligent golfer visiting Bandon Dunes can expect just about anything at any time weather-wise, but there’s typically less rain from May through October. The area can receive significant rainfall, around seven inches a month in the winter, although locals believe there’s a window of decent weather in February. The rates at Bandon Dunes clearly reflect the seasonal delineations. For best results, head out there when the chances for a wash-out are minimal.
For such a nascent resort, Bandon Dunes has earned some remarkable accolades and rankings from the golf media. In Golf Magazine, all three courses are currently ranked in the top 100 in the world; Pacific Dunes is ranked No. 13. In the same publication, Pacific Dunes ranked ahead of Pebble Beach in the “Top 100 You Can Play” list, and all three Bandon Dunes courses are in that list’s top ten. Among the golf course architecture cognoscenti, things are moving along pretty well at Bandon Dunes. And Tom Doak designed Old MacDonald, the newest course.
The quality of the design at Bandon Dunes is clearly strong, but there’s more to the success of the resort than solid landscape architecture. What has made Bandon Dunes such a success? The answer lies in the dirt. The soil and the terrain provide the visitor with real links golf—and real links golf is golf in color; everything else is monochromatic. Links golf, as opposed to routine parkland golf, has its quirks, its challenges, and its uncertainties, something the intelligent golfer understands and accepts, but the intelligent golfer also understands and appreciates that true links golf awakens the golf imagination, electrifies the golf senses, and produces a completely new golfer who suddenly starts to think about the many different ways to get the ball from the tee to the hole.
Should I hit it low here? Should I try to bounce it into the green? Can I take on that bunker over there? Should I putt or chip or hit a flop? I think I’ll see if I can slingshot the ball off that mound toward the hole location today. What’s the wind doing? The yardage says 154, but I think I’ll punch a 5-iron. I’m going to ignore the yardage book; my eyes tell me it’s a 135-yard shot. I’ll go with that.
At Bandon Dunes, you’ll find all the key ingredients to true links golf, including plenty of ball-eating gorse, fast and firm playing conditions, and little or no separation between the fairway and the green.
Links golf is forty times more enjoyable than “other” golf, and while a million courses call themselves “a links course,” pretty much the only true way to get the pedal-to-the-metal links effect in the United States is at Bandon Dunes. For that reason alone, it’s the place every intelligent golfer should strive to visit. Remember: even on the most overcast day, links golf is golf in color.
THE AMERICAN CLUB
KOHLER, WISCONSIN
800.344.2838
WWW.DESTINATIONKOHLER.COM
Perhaps the American Club in Kohler, Wisconsin, should be called the Hotel of the American Dream. In 1873, in the middle of an economic recession, John Michael Kohler, a young Austrian who had just moved to the United States, purchased a foundry and started to manufacture farm implements and other items. Ten years later, Kohler invented a new type of bathroom and launched the plumbing side of the business. The rest is history, success, and the stuff of American business legend.
In 1918, the Kohler Company built an attractive dormitory to house immigrant workers. Today, the same building is on the National Register of Historic Places and is now the American Club; just in case there’s some confusion as to the country we’re in, there’s a 100-foot-tall flagpole outside the club—complete with a massive American flag. With its Tudor architectural style and slate roof, it’s a stately building that houses guests from around the world who visit Kohler for a variety of reasons, but often just for the excellent Pete Dye golf. Kohler is a big-time celebration of American business acumen, ingenuity, passion, and drive. It’s a destination that intelligent golfers, as well as nongolfers, can and should enjoy. Most of all, in a wonderfully friendly Midwestern way, Kohler might be the most civilized destination golf resort in the upper-tier states.
There are two places to stay, the American Club (which includes the Carriage House) and the Inn on Woodlake. Kohler has four first-rate golf courses, two at Blackwolf Run and two at Whistling Straits, on the western shore of Lake Michigan. As befits a company that produces some of the world’s finest bathroom fixtures and accessories, the spa is beyond opulent. To complete the package, the dining options offer some of the finest meals in the Midwest—which is saying something when you consider that cities like Chicago, St. Louis, Cincinnati, and Milwaukee are home to some of the most wonderful eateries in the world. The American Club is the only AAA Five-Diamond resort hotel in the Midwest.
The resort is part of the charming village of Kohler, home to about 2,000 residents and headquarters of the Kohler Company. The concierge at the American Club can organize tours of the village. The success of the company and the development of Kohler as a resort destination is the work of Kohler chairman, president, and CEO, Herbert V. Kohler, a serious golfer who has put his personal passion into everything—and it shows.
The American Club is not only an opulent place to stay but is also a way for Kohler to display its finest furniture and bath fittings—all top-of-the-line and state-of-the-art—part of the “Gracious Living” credo that drives much of what happens at Kohler. The Carriage House, part of the American Club compound, houses the spa. And it’s the type of spa that even someone who usually avoids spas should try—because it’s Kohler and it’s where the company gets to strut its stuff. If you want to bring spa-type opulence into your own room, go for one of the Immersion Suites, which includes a Kohler whirlpool bath. The “other” place to stay at Kohler is the Inn at Woodlake, which boasts a more modern look but is just as comfy as the American Club.
Kohler clearly takes its dining seriously—perhaps more so than at other top resorts. There are eleven eateries and restaurants. The flagship among them is the Immigrant Restaurant in the main body of the American Club. The Immigrant serves contemporary cuisine featuring plenty of local fare, and the layout revolves around a series of six rooms with French, Dutch, German, Norman, Danish, and English motifs reflecting the ethnicities of early Wisconsin settlers. There’s a big wine list to complement the serious dining. But plenty at Kohler is less formal, and the pick of these might be the Horse and Plow, a pub that occupies the former site of the tap room when the American Club was the immigrant dormitory. The menu is pub fare (try the Chicken Pot Pie), and the expansive beer menu features some of the world’s best.
Of course, what really matters is the golf, and the golf is so good that Kohler, despite its relative youth, has hosted several major championships, including the U.S. Women’s Open and the PGA Championship.
Pete Dye designed all the courses at Kohler. As previously mentioned, there are two golf campuses at Kohler: Blackwolf Run and Whistling Straits. Let’s start at the latter because that’s the newer spot, and it’s home to the course that most recently hosted a big event, specifically the 2004 PGA Championship. There are two courses at Whistling Straits: the Straits Course and the Irish. At Bandon Dunes, the land was there for pure links golf. At Whistling Straits, there was land along a major body of water but no genuine linksland. No problem. Dye simply created linksland using healthy doses of sand, fescue, and imagination. Not to mention time—and investment. The result is something truly special. Ditto the Irish Course that is less Irish than the Straits course but no less pleasing to the eye and another great walk. It’s inland from the lake yet still has a links look. The main hazards are the four streams that crisscross the routing.
Dye is the golf course architect that every golf course architect wants to be, just like every film director and producer always wanted to be Stanley Kubrick, the guy who could do whatever he wanted and still keep the studios mostly happy. Nobody designs golf courses like Pete Dye, and nobody ever will. Dye’s most famous course, which features an island seventeenth green, is at TPC Sawgrass. Because that course is there to defeat—and that’s the right word—the best professional golfers, Dye has a reputation for building golf courses that are too hard for mere mortals.
But Dye builds reliable golf courses that are entertaining and fun—for everyone. There are bunkers perched on top of mounds and ravines and bunkers fronted by stacked telegraph poles or railroad ties. The general advice to any resort guest applies here; if it’s your first time playing golf at Kohler, play a tee up from your normal tee. You’ll enjoy yourself much more, especially when you come to a green complex that only Pete Dye could have dreamt up, the eighteenth at the Straits Course that is literally shaped like an irregular cross. The name of the hole? Dyeabolical. Thanks, Pete!
The first two courses at Kohler are also Dye creations, but they couldn’t be more different from the Whistling Straits courses. Named for an Indian chief, Blackwolf Run is what the British call “parkland” golf—a catch-all term for pretty much any course that’s not on linksland next to the sea. Blackwolf Run offers two courses, the River Course and the Meadow Valleys Course. River is the star, running adjacent to the Sheboygan River for most of its routing, often with interesting effect. For example, the ninth hole essentially offers the intelligent golfer three fairways from which to choose. It’s a gambler’s hole and a gambler’s course: pull off the shot and you’re sitting pretty; fail and you’re not. Who knew that this bucolic a setting could produce golf this exciting?
Meadow Valleys offers a wider variety of terrain, and instead of the river, lakes provide the water hazards. It’s not as hard as the River Course, but it’s just as interesting and just as much fun. The hole that’s most likely to get the heart of the intelligent golfer racing is the par-3 fifteenth, 227 yards from the back tees and 196 from the regular tees. It’s a “hit me or else” hole with no bailout; thankfully, there’s a huge green.
Kohler clearly operates on a national scale and caters to an international clientele. It’s certainly a must-visit for Midwesterners. The American Club is about two hours from Chicago and about one hour from Milwaukee or Green Bay. It’s also one of the most nongolfer-friendly resorts anywhere, with its opulent spa, the village, and most important, the Kohler Design Center. The Center will get anyone who is thinking about a touch of remodeling very much in the mood for a total home makeover. But most of all, Kohler provides the perfect example of what happens when American pride, American enterprise, American service, American creativity, and American golf collide.
ST. ANDREWS LINKS TRUST
ST. ANDREWS. FIFE, SCOTLAND
+44.0.1334.466666
WWW.STANDREWS.ORG.UK
St. Andrews is not a resort in the traditional American sense. It’s a living, breathing town with a university and a life of its own beyond the golf, a town with an ancient and sometimes tragic history. It’s also the home of golf and the site of the world’s first true links, subtly christened the Old Course. Unlike any other course in the world, the Old Course has no architect and no clear opening date, yet it remains one of the world’s finest golf courses and a worthy test for the intelligent golfer under any conditions.
Nobody really knows whether the Old Course was the first golf course. But it’s certainly the oldest in continuous operation. Something was probably going on as early as 1457, when the Scottish Parliament banned golf. It’s tough to keep people away from their addiction to the game, though both James III (in 1471) and James IV (in 1491) repeated the ban. But James IV saw the light and the error of his previous legislation a few years later in 1502 and bought his first set of golf clubs. In 1552, through the work of Archbishop John Hamilton, a charter confirmed the rights of people who lived in St. Andrews to play golf on the links. Golf continued merrily in what must have been an informal fashion until a group formed the Society of St. Andrews Golfers, the predecessor of the current Royal and Ancient Golf Club.
The original Old Course had twenty-two holes (some say twenty-three), but the new society whittled that down to eighteen—and that’s the reason every full course in the world has eighteen holes. The Society of St. Andrews Golfers established the initial rudimentary rules of golf, and outside the United States and Mexico, the Royal and Ancient (R&A) is the official rules body. The R&A’s stone clubhouse sits just behind the first tee of the Old Course, and the R&A organizes numerous championships in the United Kingdom, including the Open Championship, often called the British Open.
Because golf is a massive part of the fabric of the town, St. Andrews is every intelligent golfer’s second home. It’s one of the most welcoming golf locations anywhere, and while it hosts hundreds of thousands of visitors every year, St. Andrews has avoided becoming too touristy—a remarkable achievement. The official St. Andrews golf portfolio comprises seven courses, including the most recent addition, the Castle Course. David McLay Kidd, who also designed the first course at Bandon Dunes, built St. Andrews’ latest addition.
The Old Course sits on public land. On Sundays, as befits strict Presbyterian traditions, the course is closed unless it’s hosting a championship. Instead of golfers marching through the course, you’ll see “normal” people walking their dogs and simply enjoying a pleasant stroll on and around the links. Because no private entity owns the Old Course or the other courses that are part of the St. Andrews portfolio, they are technically open to everyone. The Old Course, in addition to being the mother and father of all golf courses, is, essentially, a municipal operation. But if you think you can just roll up to the course and walk on, as you might at a typical “muny,” think again. A guaranteed tee time on the Old Course in the summer is gold dust, although, ironically, some golfers roll up and walk on having entered the daily ballot.
The governing entity at St. Andrews is the St. Andrews Links Trust, which comprises two committees—policy and management. In the past fifteen years or so, perhaps bowing to the pressure of supply and demand (mostly the latter), the Links Trust has organized golf at St. Andrews into more of a resort, with packages, more courses, and a more commercial approach. The moves have been controversial, especially among locals and golf tour operators, both hungry for guaranteed tee times. But when every golfer in the world wants to play at the home of golf and there are only so many tee times, a touch of commercial organization is inevitable—and wise. Once you understand the ins and outs, it can also work in your favor.
Even if golf history is not the part of the game that you find most fascinating, it’s useful to understand a bit about the history of this great place. One gentleman you should get to know is Old Tom Morris (1821–1908), who was born in St. Andrews and was one of the instrumental figures in the development of the modern game. Allan Robertson, the first professional golfer, actually hired Morris. Both of these most intelligent golfers lie buried at St. Andrews.
As the professional, Morris was a renaissance man, in charge of everything from making clubs to mowing the greens. Old Tom designed many superb Scottish courses and was an excellent player, winning the Open Championship several times. He still holds the record as the oldest winner, at age forty-six. Morris’s son, Young Tom Morris, was also a champion but died tragically in his twenties. Prestwick, Carnoustie, Muirfield, and Machrihanish are just a few of the courses that owe their success to Old Tom. When you visit St. Andrews, stop by the British Golf Museum just a short walk from the R&A clubhouse. It’s a place that every intelligent golfer should tour, museum fan or not.
A word first about the “other” courses at St. Andrews. The New Course was the second course at St. Andrews and opened next to the Old Course in April 1895. Designed in part by Old Tom Morris, it’s as pure a links course as can be found in Scotland; if it weren’t immediately adjacent to the most famous golf course in the world and was its own entity with its own club, it would be more highly regarded. The New Course has gorse, a shared green, pot bunkers, and fine, tight turf perfect for running golf. The Jubilee Course is strong enough to hold qualifying events for major championships, but when it opened in 1897, it was originally meant to be a course for juniors and ladies. It’s called Jubilee because it celebrates the Diamond Jubilee (sixty years) of the reign of Queen Victoria. In subsequent years, the powers-that-be have extended and modernized the course so that it’s a solid test for any intelligent golfer. The Eden Course is the work of the most unsung of golf course architects, Harry Shapland Colt. It’s less demanding, and thus more fun, than the first three courses at St. Andrews but still has a natural and uncontrived feel.
It would be almost eighty years before a new major course opened at St. Andrews. Named the Strathyrum Course, it is shorter than its sister courses at St. Andrews and has only fifteen bunkers, all of which are cunningly placed. It might seem easier on paper but still requires significant skill to score well. The Balgove Course is the type of course that every community needs: a 1,520-yard, nine-hole course primarily for junior golfers and beginners—a nursery course, if you will. If you have only a few days in town, then you will likely play other courses, but if you have time, then go out and have some fun. The seventh at St. Andrews is the Castle Course. Located on the other side of St. Andrews from the Old Course, the Castle is located on former farmland on some shallow cliffs, providing excellent views and some elevation changes.
Now to the star attraction, the one that everyone wants to see, meet, and get to know, the Old Course at St. Andrews. The first and eighteenth holes are located right in the town, which is superbly cool, but aside from that, the Old Course may seem slightly underwhelming. The views across the estuary are fine but not jaw-dropping, and the land, at first glance, looks Florida flat. The first hole, with its driving range-wide fairway, seems like a total yawner at just 370 yards from the back tees. Yet once the round begins, it becomes clear there’s much more to St. Andrews than meets the eye. There was no golf course architect to move a lot of dirt and try to create something visually appealing. A few architects have tinkered here and there, but the course remains mostly unchanged. For this reason, the Old Course boasts a number of features that few, if any, golf course architects would consider, including a number of large double greens, some of which slope away from the fairway. Sometimes the Old Course might seem unfair: a mound in front of the fourth green will send a straight shot almost sideways; the twelfth has a cluster of nasty bunkers in the middle of the fairway right where a well-struck drive would land; and Jack Nicklaus has repeatedly said that he’s not really sure how to play the approach shot to the seventeenth, the famous Road Hole, where the challenge is to thread the shot between a dismal pot bunker and a narrow road to a shallow green that’s set about ninety degrees to the fairway. At a municipal course, the golfers would likely view the hole as a total abomination. At St. Andrews, it’s brilliant—and rightfully so.
The Road Hole is the most heralded at St. Andrews, with its semi-blind tee shot perilously close to the Old Course Hotel, followed by the exacting approach. But the Old Course is much more than the seventeenth: its hole-to-hole consistency keeps it among the world’s best courses. It helps if the wind is blowing, but even without a fresh breeze, a professional will have to think his way around. The first, with a burn (creek) in front of the green, demands instant respect. The muscular fifth is a well-earned par. The fourteenth, the longest par-5, is brilliant, and the final hole, even though it’s short for a closing hole, always provides drama and the opportunity for a closing birdie. There are names for the key features on the course: Hell Bunker, the Principal’s Nose, the Spectacles. Due to the long, thin, out-and-back routing, many of the bunkers come into play on more than one hole.
Enjoying St. Andrews the first time requires skill and patience, especially when the weather is poor and the wind is up. But most of all, St. Andrews requires a game plan. And the best way to plan is with the help of a St. Andrews caddy—who can, at the very least, tell you where to aim. Follow his (or her) advice, and you’ll enjoy the first time at St. Andrews so much that you’ll want to come back every year.
For many intelligent golfers, a golf trip to Scotland would not be worth the time or money without a round on the Old Course at St. Andrews. And with good reason. Thus a dead certain tee time is vital. There are two ways to get a tee time, but only one is guaranteed. The first is the daily ballot, a lottery, and it is not guaranteed until St. Andrews lets you know the day before your tee time. About 50 percent of all starting times are ballot-based. Your chances of success vary depending on the weather, the time of the year, and the sheer volume of golfers milling around St. Andrews hoping to play the Old Course. The results are available on the St. Andrews Links Trust Web site at around four in the afternoon. The lottery is just that, and thousands of golfers leave St. Andrews every month without the chance to play the world’s first golf course.
Planning ahead for the guaranteed tee time means planning as much as two years in advance, especially if you choose to organize the trip by yourself. By mid-2007, all the available public bookable tee times for 2008 had been snapped up. So without going through the Old Course Experience or a golf tour operator who has not used his or her allotment, the only way to guarantee a tee time would be to book at least a year and a half ahead when those tee times become available. That’s just the way it is.
There is a third option: the Old Course Experience, a program organized by the St. Andrews Links Trust with local hotels and tour operators. Essentially, you purchase a package based around a guaranteed tee time on the Old Course. Everything flows from that day and that time. Packages—and you have to go with a package—include green fees, luxury accommodations, and other sundry items including tee times on other St. Andrews courses. The Old Course Experience is an excellent option if you:
If you are going to Scotland to play the Old Course and you rightfully feel that you want to play other famous Scottish courses (and maybe some Irish ones, too), then the best bet is to find a reputable and experienced golf tour specialist either in Scotland or the United States. There are plenty of reliable operators, and the best way to start is to ask the head golf professional at your course. He or she will probably know at least one specialist who can meet your needs. Many club professionals put together their own trips with members, and this can often be the best way to go because the pro acts as a guide and organizes games and related activities among the group.
In St. Andrews, there are some wonderful places to stay. And there’s a good range of options, as well. The most famous is the Old Course Hotel right next to the Road Hole, the epic seventeenth. In fact, the hotel is so close that it’s part of the hole’s strategy: the best tee shot travels over a corner of the property. It’s a Kohler resort now, part of the Kohler Company that also runs the American Club and its four courses. The Old Course Hotel was never downscale, but it’s even more upscale now that Kohler has taken the reins. Another famous St. Andrews hotel is Rusacks, next to the eighteenth fairway of the Old Course. If you’re a right-hander with a bad slice, you might be visiting it more often than you would like. There are some wonderful country house and estate-style hotels just outside St. Andrews, and these typically offer more space and pampering than hotels in town.
St. Andrews lies in the Kingdom of Fife, which is a somewhat hyperbolic way of saying that it’s in Fife County or the County of Fife. Close to forty non-St. Andrews courses reside in the Kingdom, and many of these are well worth a visit. Crail Golfing Society has two fine links courses. The Duke’s Course near St. Andrews is now part of the Kohler ownership of the Old Course Hotel; the Duke’s is a heathland course not unlike the ones west of London. Kingsbarns is a modern classic just minutes from the Old Course; it has wonderful views of the sea and is a tough test. And Lundin Golf Club is another hidden gem that too many people miss in their mania to play as much golf as possible in St. Andrews itself. A party of touring golfers could quite easily stay in St. Andrews for two weeks and enjoy a ton of wonderful golf without playing the same course twice. In fact, the first-time visitor to Scotland is well advised to stay put in St. Andrews and simply explore the town and the environs.
A visit to Scotland would not be complete without at least one round with a caddy (often spelled caddie in the United Kingdom). There are few callings, professions, or vocations that mix well with adult refreshment. You cannot be a race car driver or a pilot if you like to drink a lot—not just occasionally, but every day. But in Scotland, you can be a caddy and also someone who spends a significant amount of time in the pub. Early in the morning, you may find that the vapors coming from your caddy have a certain malty sweetness. Don’t worry; it’s perfectly normal. It would be unfair to characterize all Scottish caddies as I have just characterized them; however, it’s totally fair to characterize them as recalcitrant yet funny, nimble yet slack, engaging yet disengaged (at times), friendly yet brusque, brutally honest yet heartfelt and helpful.
If you have a caddy, the best thing you can do is to take his or her advice; caddies usually know your game better than you simply by looking at you, looking at your clubs, and watching you warm up. If the caddy says take a 7-iron and hit to the left of the flag, take a 7-iron and hit to the left of the flag. The worst thing you can do is ignore the caddy’s advice. Remember these two things also: (1) your caddy is likely betting on the outcome of your match, and (2) your caddy has not taken a course in customer appreciation or service from a customer service consultant or anyone else. And that is reason No. 243 that I love Scottish caddies.
Unless you spent your formative years in Scotland, you may encounter a bit of a language barrier in St. Andrews, especially with the caddies. They will understand you, but you will not always understand them. The root cause has more to do with phraseology than enunciation. Later in this book, there’s a brief guide to key Scottish phrases, idioms, words, and sayings—at least the printable ones. Once you know these, things will clear up. A bit. Just remember that everything said is in jest: the Scots are probably the funniest, wittiest, and most fun-loving people on the planet. And while they like to send it out, they will happily take it back.
You will never forget your first round at the home of golf. Make sure that you get a photo of you and your friends on the Swilcan Bridge at the eighteenth hole. Whereas most golf courses end up immediately adjacent to a clubhouse, it’s the town that greets you as you finish up at St. Andrews. And that, too, is a welcome you will never forget.
SEA ISLAND/THE CLOISTER
SEA ISLAND, GEORGIA
866.879.6238
WWW.SEAISLAND.COM
It’s no secret that the South has been changing dramatically for the past three decades. Once quiet but now bustling cities such as Charlotte, Nashville, Atlanta, Birmingham, and Raleigh, among others, have been growing rapidly, eagerly welcoming newcomers not just from the United States but from all over the world. Is this the end of southern gentility, southern manners, and southern old-world charm? At Sea Island, the answer is a resounding no. What opened originally as a retreat for hard and true Old South families now attracts a broader range of guests, including many from, get this, the Northeast. Yet, Sea Island has retained its loveliness and its southernness, and there is no clearer proof than the Avenue of Oaks, the archway of coastal trees that leads eager guests to Sea Island’s many and varied attractions. It’s straight out of a movie from the 1920s. After checking in, you almost expect Bobby Jones to greet you in the lobby, in a black tie, ready to meet friends at the bar before going to dinner. If you’re looking for the best of the Old South and the accompanying relaxation of the coast, then there probably isn’t a better place in the United States than Sea Island.
The ownership at Sea Island has not rested on its laurels. Beginning in the mid-1990s, the resort initiated a huge renovation program. One of the results? In December 2006, Golf Digest named Sea Island the top golf resort in North America.
Located on the Georgia coast exactly halfway between Savannah and Jacksonville, Sea Island comprises the Cloister, the Lodge, the Sea Island Cottages (at the beach), and three golf courses with impressive and even rare architectural backgrounds. The golf school boasts an impressive faculty. In addition, there’s a spa plus some fine southern dining in some of the most ornate and unique dining rooms anywhere. For the nongolfer, a wide variety of activities is available—anything from fly fishing to riding.
Sea Island succeeds in part because it can welcome just about any type of guest. It’s perfect for a wedding, for a foursome of hard-core golfers, for couples. It’s perfect for extended families or for serious corporate meetings, for the person who loves golf and for the person who hates the game. But ultimately, Sea Island is perfect for the individual who wants to get away from it all and step back in time to a more civilized era. Hundreds of celebrities have stayed at Sea Island through the decades, mostly to get out of the limelight and kick back.
It all started, from a golf standpoint, in 1927 when the resort hired Walter Travis to design its first nine holes, which he routed through dense oak forest. Travis was the first American to win the British Amateur Championship, and he borrowed numerous architectural features from his links tours and brought them to Sea Island. Two years later, the finest British architects of the time, Harry Shapland Colt and Charles Allison, arrived to build the second nine. At Sea Island, they built some of the finest holes in the South.
Much has changed from a golf standpoint since Travis, Colt, and Allison finished their work. Tom Fazio rebuilt the Seaside Course in the late 1990s; it’s located on the southern tip of St. Simon’s Island and is seriously exposed to ocean winds. This was the course that Colt and Allison had originally designed. Rees Jones, Robert Trent Jones Jr.’s brother, rebuilt and augmented the Travis course. Jones’s course is solid here; the architect clearly resisted the urge to plant his own style on the course, instead deferring to Travis’s more minimalist original work. The newest course is the Retreat Course, which Sea Island resident and University of North Carolina alumnus Davis Love III designed. Most of Love’s work is in the Southeast, and he has quietly built a solid portfolio of top-caliber courses that have more than held their own against top competition.
Sea Island’s courses represent the finest in southeastern coastal golf and collectively provide the best possible introduction to this type of golf. The intelligent golfer will encounter large greens and small greens, plus mostly wide fairways often flanked by water hazards. The hazards vary in size and shape, but they provide key strategic interest in this flat part of the country. There are marshes and wetlands and narrow corridors through dense ancient oak forests. With a cooling breeze toward the end of a warm spring or fall day, it’s almost impossible to beat the quality of this type of golf—especially at Sea Island.
For the walker, Sea Island is paradise. The resort encourages walking, and there are plenty of excellent caddies around. The distances from green to tee are usually minimal; an eager walker can easily play several days of thirty-six holes—especially during the summer months. The dense humidity and intense sun can make summer seem a bit much, but there are plenty of golfers and visitors who clearly enjoy Sea Island from June through August, especially families who head for the cottages and the complementary attractions at the beach. Fall and spring are the best times for golf at Sea Island, and winter is mostly comfortable even though there will be a few days when that thin 4-iron early in the morning will create bad vibrations that will rattle every vertebrae.
The three fine courses at Sea Island provide more than enough quality golf to satiate the serious intelligent golfer. But every golfer who visits Sea Island will benefit from a visit to its expansive Golf Learning Center. It’s not the most imaginative name, perhaps, but the quality of the instruction is among the best of any golf school in the United States. The school boasts not just one Golf Magazine Top 100 Teacher but three. And each of those is a Golf Digest Top 50 Teacher to boot. It’s rare at any golf school to find this level of accomplishment but certainly unusual at a smaller school at a resort destination. Augmenting the instruction are a fitness guru, a putting guru, and a mind guru. The school offers packages, clinics, and private lessons. A wonderful vacation would be to spend three days getting your game in shape then three days indulging in practical application.
After a day at the school or at one of the three courses, dining awaits in one of eight eateries. The big splurge at Sea Island is the private dining, an opportunity to host your own private dinner party in a room specially designed for that purpose. With notice, you get to book the room you want, then choose the menu and the wines. Why not the Georgian Private Dining Room with its handpainted mural and big center table? Or how about the Wine Cellar at the Cloister or the Wine Cellar at the Lodge? Over the years, Sea Island has amassed a significant wine collection that every serious oenophile should sample. There’s fine dining at the Georgian Room, Colt & Alison, and 100 Hudson, but a more relaxed atmosphere at the Oak Room and the Davis Love Grill. Even if the pub is more your line of business, you should certainly enjoy the formality of dinner at one of the top restaurants at Sea Island. It’s jacket and tie for men (and boys over twelve) in the fine dining restaurants.
Getting to Sea Island isn’t difficult—and it’s worth the effort. Jacksonville and Savannah airports have regular flights to airports all over the country; it’s eighty miles from each airport. Those who want to get a little closer should try Brunswick Golden Isles, which is thirty miles to the west. The private McKinnon Airport is on St. Simon’s Island close to the Cloister.
If it’s your first time at Sea Island, the staff will treat you like you’ve been there before. That’s because a significant number of people have been there before. Sea Island has a small army of regulars who return year after year, usually at the same time. In many instances, up to four generations of the same family have spent time at Sea Island. Many of the staff have worked at Sea Island for decades and are like friends. Guests routinely, sometimes not by accident, run into the same guests they have run into for years. It’s a family affair.
Traditions are almost as important as family at Sea Island. There’s bingo on Tuesday and Thursday evenings, and everyone gets dressed up. Guests have been asking for corn muffins and gold brick sundaes for generations. Dancing still takes place. There’s an English certified dance instructor to help you with your steps—if you need to know how to waltz. The resort hosts special celebrations for special times, such as New Year’s, Easter, and Thanksgiving.
Howard Coffin, born in 1873 and the founder of Sea Island, would surely be delighted with the current state of the resort. The recent $500 million total makeover has paid off. The seriously good golf ranks among the finest coastal golf in the country—east or west. The resort has the requisite five-star, five-diamond ratings, and there are now more than 500 guest rooms. But most important, Sea Island has retained its status as an enclave where manners, old-world charm, and the habit of standing when a lady enters the room or approaches the table still matter. For that alone, Sea Island is worth the price of admission.
KAPALUA RESORT
LAHAINA, MAUI, HAWAII
800.527.2582
WWW.KAPALUA.COM
For the past several years, the PGA Tour has started the long and winding road of its season at Kapalua. It’s an invitation-only event featuring just the past winners from the previous season. Thus the field is always stellar, yet the galleries seem like the smallest in all of professional golf, primarily because the part of Maui that Kapalua occupies is extremely rural. For those millions watching the Tour from home, Kapalua must look like paradise with its shirt-sleeve temperatures, balmy breezes, and quiet acres of pineapple farms. Spectators and viewers also get a good look at the Plantation Course at Kapalua, perhaps the finest in all of Hawaii.
Kapalua, sitting on the northwestern tip of Maui, perfectly combines magnificent scenery, wonderful views, fine weather, and top-class golf. The resort offers two golf options: the Plantation Course and the Bay Course, which Arnold Palmer and Frank Duane designed. There’s also the Hale Irwin-designed Kapalua Learning Center, perhaps the most beautiful golf school anywhere. Accommodations vary from the luxurious Ritz-Carlton Kapalua to elegantly appointed villas. For those who like it so much that they want a first or second home, Kapalua can even help you find a permanent property. In addition to golf, the resort’s activities range from climbing to hanging around on one of the three beaches soaking up the sun in the most relaxed fashion possible.
The Plantation Course gets all the attention on television, but the Bay Course isn’t exactly a poor sister. That should certainly be your thinking at the fifth, which has perhaps the best golf view at Kapalua. The preceding hole is a gambler that will tempt the big hitter to go for the green by cutting the dogleg. But it’s tough to think clearly here—such is the intensity of the vista. Farther along, the par-4 sixteenth has a split fairway that offers you a choice between going left or right off the tee; it’s not a long hole at 371 yards, so the more aggressive left-hand fairway will be very tempting even though it requires a career tee ball. The eighteenth is a big Arnold Palmer-style closer at 552 yards from the back tees. Two strong shots set up an approach to a shallow green surrounded by a moat of bunkers. The course recently undertook a restoration and re-grassing of many of the greens to improve playing conditions.
Even though the Bay Course is wonderful, it’s the Plantation Course that’s the star of the show at Kapalua. In addition to hosting the season-opening Mercedes Championship, the Plantation Course has also hosted LPGA events. This course can easily challenge the world’s best, but the genius of its design is that the “average” intelligent golfer can enjoy it, and even if things are going really, really badly with the golf swing, the course has something that few courses offer: views of the sea from every hole.
Kapalua gave Plantation Course designers Bill Coore and Ben Crenshaw a large, natural, yet hilly site. Their main challenge was to incorporate the prevailing winds into the course’s strategy. Coore and Crenshaw easily passed all the examinations, delivering, in 1991, a course that’s very much Hawaiian yet radically different from any course in the state. Off the tee, the other course could not be more wide open. This helps the average intelligent golfer, especially when the trade winds are really howling. Anyone who manages to miss a fairway will lose a ball though; such is the density of the scrub and the length of the long grasses. The original site was large, about 240 acres, and Coore and Crenshaw clearly felt that the site and the routing needed big bunkers and big greens; the putting surfaces are among the largest anywhere.
The ingenious routing avoids ridiculous elevation changes or severely canted fairways while still offering some exciting downhill shots where the typically fast and firm conditions mean some fun. The approach shots to the seventh, eleventh, twelfth, and eighteenth holes are hugely enjoyable, especially the eighteenth, where the ball seems to tumble forever toward the green. It’s one of the most exciting shots on the PGA Tour all year as the pros try to eagle this massively long par-5. Part of the challenge at Kapalua comes from the quirky and capricious greens, which are sewn with Bermuda grass. Most northern-tier courses have bentgrass, which is generally more predictable. Well-maintained Bermuda greens make for excellent putting surfaces, although grain (the direction in which the grass is growing) can grab the ball and send it sideways at the last moment. A downhill putt downgrain can be lightning fast, whereas an uphill putt going into the grain can be extremely slow. And the wind can blow so hard at Kapalua that it starts to affect the putts. There’s nothing quite like standing over a four-footer wondering about the break and the grain while watching the ball oscillate.
If a good hearty walk through wonderful terrain is part of the attraction of golf for you, then you’ll love the Plantation Course. Its hilliness makes for a good, solid, appetite-creating march, but along the way, you will get magnificent views of the ocean and will walk past natural vegetation and deep chasms. It’s one of the most glorious settings for golf in all of Hawaii.
When it comes to pampering and living the good life, Hawaii is the type of place where each resort strives to out-luxuriate the other. At Kapalua, you’ll find the pampering amenities to be among the best in the state. It all starts with where you decide to stay. The villas have one, two, or three bedrooms, and the Kapalua Golf Villas have luxury upgrades. Kapalua is one of the few resorts that offer full-sized homes as lodging options; the secluded luxury homes are located in the resort’s neighborhoods. They would be excellent for a family, a large group, or a company retreat. If you want more of a hotel setting, then you’re in luck. The Ritz-Carlton Kapalua recently finished a $125 million renovation. The hotel has 548 rooms and offers amazing sunset views over Molokai and Lanai—the islands next door. As befits a AAA Five-Diamond property, the hotel has twenty-four-hour concierge service and a host of amenities, including a spa.
The Ritz-Carlton and the main resort offer a wide variety of dining options. High above the resort, try the Plantation House at the Plantation Course Clubhouse. The restaurant, featuring Hawaiian Mediterranean cuisine, has won a number of local awards—try the New Zealand coldwater lobster tail. At the Ritz-Carlton, the top restaurant is the Banyan Tree, which offers what the resort calls “Asian-inspired” cuisine.
Some golf resorts are pretty much geared toward golfers. Some are perfect for couples, even if half of the equation doesn’t play golf. Kapalua, however, is a resort that’s perfect for the whole family. It features a full menu of organized children’s activities ranging from junior golf clinics to snorkeling, art classes, and conservation tours.
Kapalua has three beaches and a host of on-campus and off-campus activities mostly for adults. The truly adventurous should try Kapalua Adventures, which offers all sorts of “extreme” sports such as flying down a zip line and going through a challenge course. It’s guaranteed to get the blood pumping a little faster. That’s ironic because the goal of Kapalua seems to be to get the blood pumping a little more slowly. The golf at Kapalua isn’t do-or-die excitement. It’s about options and strategy and soaking up the majestic views. It’s about relaxing, decompressing, and enjoying the fresh seafood served almost immediately from the Pacific. That’s why the season opener on the PGA Tour is great golf but almost seems anti-climactic. There’s a lot of money on the line, but even the golfers at the top of the leader board seem totally laid-back. That is exactly the point at Kapalua.
CASA DE CAMPO
LA ROMANA, DOMINICAN REPUBLIC
800.877.3643
WWW.CASADECAMPO.COM.DO
The best non-tournament, non-championship TV golf program of all time is, without question, Shell’s Wonderful World of Golf. The show started in the early 1960s, stopped in 1970, then took a long hiatus before returning in the mid-1990s. The show featured two famous golfers who would compete over eighteen holes at some exotic location or famous course. Even if the golfers weren’t on the best form (which was rare), it was worth watching just for the location. For example, one show took place at the ultra-private and mysterious Pine Valley, probably the best golf course in the world. The show’s producers were serious globetrotters. They got as far as New Zealand, Scotland, and Kenya. Several shows took place in the Caribbean, and the golf was always fun to watch, but one thing was always clear: golf isn’t the main attraction in this part of the world. The courses always looked ragged and poorly designed. Golf is an afterthought due to various factors, including lack of suitable land, cost, maintenance, and agronomic issues. Serious intelligent golfers simply seem to gravitate to more golf-centric traditional golf destinations.
But there’s one spot in the Caribbean where golf is taken very, very seriously: Casa de Campo (“house in the country”) in the Dominican Republic. Located on the island of Hispaniola, which it shares with Haiti, the Dominican Republic is easy to reach by air from any of the major airline hubs on the eastern seaboard. You can fly directly to Casa de Campo or to Las Americas International Airport in Santo Domingo, about eighty minutes from the resort. Casa de Campo features three golf courses, plus villas and apartments, fine dining, and a good variety of nongolf activities.
If golf really isn’t your bag and you’re looking for the textbook mega-Caribbean resort with all the fun, frolic, swimming pools, major beaches, and nightlife that lasts until dawn and beyond, look elsewhere. Casa de Campo is much more relaxed and low-key, a family-friendly private and secluded resort. In 2004, Travel + Leisure rated Casa de Campo the best spot for families in the Caribbean. The resort has attracted an avalanche of media over the years, including mid-forties rankings in world golf course “best of” lists; it was No. 42 on the 2009 international ranking in Golf Magazine.
While many of the guests at Casa de Campo are there purely for the sun and lounging around, a significant number are serious intelligent golfers who couldn’t care less for the Caribbean aspect and simply want to test themselves against a great Pete Dye course. The fact that Casa de Campo is in the middle of one of the Caribbean’s finest destinations is simply a bonus. Fellow golf course architect and former Dye associate Tom Doak believes that the Teeth of the Dog Course at Casa de Campo is Dye’s favorite son. Built in 1971, it’s one of his earliest, and while Dye’s current projects are first-rate, it’s his early ones that are the most interesting and entertaining.
All three courses at Casa de Campo are Dye courses. The Dye Fore course (with perhaps the hokiest name in all of golf) is solid and boasts some excellent par-3s. The Links Course might have the most deceiving name in golf—it bears no relation to anything even vaguely linksy, but it’s a fine course nonetheless until you get into the thick rough, which is almost inescapable. The Links Course actually has more of a parkland feel, wandering up above the polo fields and the pastures where the polo ponies graze.
The course that everyone wants to play is Teeth of the Dog, often referred to simply as Casa de Campo. The resort developers made the right decision when they handed over a big chunk of land to Dye and gave him pretty much carte blanche, a big budget, and no fewer than 300 laborers. Few, if any, architects get this sort of freedom and backing today. Dye found a wonderful piece of coastal property with a few miles of low coral cliffs; he even persuaded the ownership to reorient the entire resort around the site—a wise decision. To find the site, Dye scouted by air, boat, and off-road vehicle.
During the construction process, difficult due to the coral at the coastline, the laborers had to get good soil from a mile away from the course. Laborers used oxen to speed up the process. Construction took about eighteen months, and the result features seven holes seemingly right in the middle of the sea. The most photographed hole at Teeth of the Dog is the par-3 fifth, 155 yards from the back tees; it’s the first hole right on the coast. The eighth has a tee built along a causeway so that the drive must be played pretty much from the middle of the water. Only Dye would come up with something that outrageous. The best holes on the course are the three on the back nine, beginning with the fifteenth, which plays along the cliffs. The sixteenth is a long par-3 over the sea to an oddly shaped green. The green on the seventeenth is perched along the coral cliffs. At certain times, on these three holes, the waves break onto golfers as they get ready to tee off.
From the back tees, the course is difficult—even for the best intelligent golfers. Teeth of the Dog, in 1974, hosted the World Amateur Team Championship; of the 590 rounds played, only three were under par. Unless you are a professional or top amateur—or totally crazy—play the course from the correct yardage, or you will soon feel like a dog has bitten you in the rear end, repeatedly. Casa de Campo offers a full cadre of caddies who know the course forwards and backwards. Employ one.
There’s plenty at Casa de Campo for the nongolfer, including tennis, riding, fishing, skeet shooting, and shopping. There’s even a VIP shuttle to a local casino in Santo Domingo. The highlight of the dining at Casa de Campo is an offshoot of New York’s famous Le Cirque, called the Beach Club by Le Cirque. The resort offers several other dining options and also some fun entertainment in the form of a sports bar and a pub. La Cana Bar offers live entertainment with a local flavor.
The Casa de Campo visitor who undoubtedly needed those watering holes the most was a keen golfer from New York who originally planned a three-day visit. But he stayed a fourth day and then a fifth. When the director of golf asked the gentleman how long he was going to stay, the gentleman replied that he was going to stay long enough to hit one of the par-3s at the Teeth of the Dog with his first shot. According to Dye, in his autobiography Bury Me in a Pot Bunker, it took the man six days and a lot of sunburn before he finally bladed a 6-iron that ended up on the back fringe of the thirteenth. The man simply walked off the golf course at that point and headed for home.
Interestingly, when Shell’s Wonderful World of Golf made a welcome return to the airwaves after its hiatus, one of the first matches took place at Casa de Campo. Fred Couples beat his golf mentor Ray Floyd. After the match, Floyd told the commentators that “Teeth of the Dog ranks with the great courses in the world.” So if you want to spend some time in the Caribbean and you want really fine golf in a spot where there’s plenty for the nongolfers to keep themselves occupied, you can’t go wrong with Casa de Campo.
THE BOULDERS RESORT
CAREFREE, ARIZONA
888.579.2631
WWW.THEBOULDERS.COM
Wouldn’t it be fun to awaken Old Tom Morris from the dead and fly him (first class, of course) to Carefree, Arizona, to see the Boulders? What would he think about a place that looks like the surface of the moon, only rockier, and that somehow has two first-rate golf courses and a healthy number of golfers lining up to play them? What would he think about those thin ribbons of desert fairway? About the fortress greens with all their swales and movement? About those strange hut-looking things perched among the scrubby hills? What would Old Tom think about those crystal-clear skies and warm January days? The luxury and chef-driven restaurants nestled in among the silent cacti? A house with a working fireplace—in the desert?
My guess is that Old Tom Morris would love it all and be delighted that the game has grown to the point where serious people with serious money would actually build a golf course slap-bang in the middle of a desert and that serious people would then make the effort to play the course. Arizona would amaze Old Tom, just as it amazes any first-time visitor who cannot believe that grass grows and golf takes place in a world where it hardly ever rains, a world more suited to reptiles and carrion-seeking birds than golfers. The Boulders, like all the desert courses, is a testament to America’s love for the game of golf and its ability to put anything pretty much anywhere, including what could easily pass as the perfect location for a spaghetti western.
The Boulders is located in the Sonoran Desert twenty miles north of Phoenix. While the resort says that it’s in Scottsdale, it’s technically in Carefree. The resort covers roughly 1,400 acres and comprises two golf courses, a school called the Boulders Golf Academy, a full range of luxury accommodations, the Golden Door Spa, tennis, six dining options, and boutique shopping.
Grass will always look strange in the desert, but the main lodge and all accommodations blend amazingly easily into the landscape. The Haciendas and Casitas are beautifully furnished. The intelligent golfer should try the Boulders Suite, with its living area, private patio, fireplace, and adjunctive amenities. If the suite is too much space for you, try a Sonoran Casita, which is perfect for a couple and also has a fireplace—along with wood-beamed ceilings, glazed Mexican tiles, and juniper wood.
There are two golf courses at the Boulders, the North Course and the South Course. Which is better, the North or the South? Both courses are top quality, so it’s difficult to say which is definitively superior. This makes the Boulders something of a rarity. At most resorts, one of the courses is usually much better than the others; thus the resort has to work quite hard at times to persuade their guests to play the “inferior” courses. Though guests end up enjoying the “lesser courses,” they always feel like they should be playing the star attraction. If there’s a difference between the two courses at the Boulders, then the North might be slightly more demanding than the South, especially on the back nine.
How did the Boulders end up with two consistently good golf courses? In the beginning, there were just eighteen holes. When the resort wanted to expand its golf, they split the original eighteen and added new nines to each original nine. The same architect, Jay Morrish, designed both courses. And the resort clearly asked Morrish to make the courses mostly golfer-friendly. The most recent nine on the North Course is a little tougher than the others and perhaps has more visually striking holes than the South, but looks can be deceiving in golf; just because a golf hole looks good in a brochure does not necessarily mean that it’s enjoyable for the average golfer.
The resort considers the fifth on the South Course its signature hole. A rock outcropping shelters the green on this par-5, and the hole offers some of the best views of the surrounding Sonoran Desert. Big hitters hoping to go for the green in two take on some risk as the fairway narrows significantly close to the green, proving that the course has the brains to match the beauty. The fifth on the South Course isn’t the only hole with a fine view; at the Boulders, this remarkable golf environment is omnipresent. In Southern California and Arizona, and even into Nevada and New Mexico, there’s plenty of desert golf, but only the Boulders can boast this remarkable landscape. It’s one of just a few resorts anywhere that has so seamlessly integrated its lodging and amenities into the surroundings.
Local laws allow only a set number of acres for each golf course. In more temperate areas, a course typically needs 150 to 175 acres. The Grove Park Inn in Asheville, North Carolina, has a fine golf course that sits on 125 acres, but that’s a rarity. In the desert, golf courses are usually allowed only about ninety acres of turf. Thus the fairways seem like green targets set among the scrub, rocks, cacti, and desert. What happens if your ball leaves the oasis of green? Local rules vary from course to course. At many desert courses, the desert functions as a lateral hazard, which means you can drop a new ball at the point where the old ball left the green stuff. Penalty: one shot. Leaving the safety of the grass and wandering into the desert has its risks—prickly vegetation, strange creatures, strange biting creatures, difficult footing, dinged-up 5-irons. Courses change their local “desert” rules periodically, so when you get to the Boulders, check with the professionals in the golf shop about the way to treat the desert. The scorecard may provide the definitive answer also.
Mid-handicappers and relative newcomers to the game will want to play from the forward tees at the Boulders. But first-time visitors, if the course is not too busy, should take a few extra moments to take in the views from some of the back tees, one of which is only accessible by a spiral staircase. Many golf courses in excellent locations fail because the architect forgets that golf is supposed to be fun and that a golf course where all the par-3s, par-4s, and par-5s are roughly the same distance is guaranteed to bore the person who has made the effort to get to the excellent location. There’s none of that at the Boulders. The intelligent golfer will find long par-4s and very short ones, long par-3s and some teeny ones, muscular par-5s and some that even a short hitter might think about reaching in two shots. Variety is the spice of life—and the lifeblood of great golf course architecture.
Once the golf adventure through the desert is complete, the Boulders hits an even higher gear. A visit to the Golden Door Spa (33,000 square feet) will soothe aches and pains. The menu at the spa goes well beyond what many other spas offer. There’s a “Movement Studio” for the practice of yoga and Pilates (both good ideas for the intelligent golfer). Spa experts at the Boulders describe “The Labyrinth” as “a path to tranquility inspired by ancient Hopi medicine wheels.” If that’s not enough, try the Watsu, which promises an underwater “back-to-the-womb” experience. All this can happen before the more familiar visits to steam rooms, saunas, and Japanese baths. And if you want or need a basic massage or mud exfoliation, it’s all here.
Service at the Boulders is top-notch, all the way from the expansive and well-stocked golf shop to the concierge staff, who can organize a good variety of off-campus activities, ranging from shopping to a cattle drive, Grand Canyon air tours, hot air balloon flights, rock climbing, and horseback riding. If there’s a private course in the Phoenix area that you would like to play, the professionals in the golf shop might be able to help you get a tee time. A short hike from the resort leads to a rock shelf 400 feet above the golf courses that provides wonderful views not just of the resort but of the entire Phoenix area.
Donald Crawley, a Golf Magazine Top 100 instructor, is in charge at the Boulders Golf Academy. The school offers a full range of programs based around Crawley’s “Golf Simplified” technique. With two courses at his disposal, Crawley and the staff of PGA and LPGA professionals can instruct on the course, which is always a bonus. The “Women to the Fore” program is a plan that all golf schools should offer; providing a lot of personal attention, it’s specifically designed to help women who are new to the game feel at home on the golf course.
As long as the nongolfers in your party have survived the day intact and as long as the golfers in the group have not hit too many wild and crazy shots into the Sonoran Desert, you can all gather for the evening at one of the six watering holes and restaurants. For all-out mega indulgence, opt for Rusty’s at the Boulders Club, which features steaks, fish, and pastas. For pre- or post-dinner drinks, head for the Discovery Lounge, with its fireplace and piano player Thursday through Saturday; there’s a fine view of the waterfall, too. That’s right—a waterfall in the desert. What would Old Tom think about that?
For those intelligent golfers from the northern-tier states who want golf instead of ice fishing in the cold and dark winter months, a golf trip in January, February, March, or April is a must. Many opt for South Florida, as the next section details, but why not head for the desert instead? Winter temperatures are mild, the sun shines almost incessantly, golf options are broad, and the scenery is sublime. If your golf travels take you to the Valley of the Sun, then spend a few days at the Boulders, where the golf is friendly and the setting is rare.
Most states or regions have a definitive No. 1 golf resort. In Oregon, it’s now Bandon Dunes. In Wisconsin, it’s Kohler. In North Carolina, it’s Pinehurst. In South Carolina, it’s Kiawah Island. But in Florida, which has close to 1,000 golf courses, there are plenty of candidates but no outright victor. So this section introduces several sumptuous resort destinations in South Florida that will provide the intelligent golfer with a home away from home.
When it comes to winter golf in the United States, the country is mostly split. Snowed-in golfers west of the Mississippi tend to head for the desert Southwest, while golfers east of the Mississippi tend to head for the Southeast. The big groups of pure golf maniacs often head for the neon and bawdiness of Myrtle Beach (and there’s absolutely nothing wrong with that), while those in search of a more upscale, pampered, and relaxed atmosphere head for one of South Florida’s epic golf enclaves. Of course, many of these are ultra-private and almost impossible for the nonmember to enjoy. Thankfully, there are plenty of options for the intelligent golfer who wants that type of privacy, service, and golf without necessarily moving to South Florida for the entire winter.
After a few days, though, you’ll be sorely tempted to relocate for good. From Thanksgiving to Mother’s Day, typically, the sullen humidity seemingly evaporates, the daily thunderstorms of the summer months are rare, and calm breezes float in from the Atlantic and Gulf of Mexico. There’s a reason that so many people from Connecticut, Vermont, Boston, Philadelphia, New York, and Philadelphia migrate to Florida for the winter.
So let’s take a tour, shall we? We’ll start on the Gulf Coast and end up on the Atlantic, but we’ll take a purposefully circuitous route south, then east across the Everglades, then north from Miami. Got your golf gear? Got your eating and drinking boots? Let’s go.
THE RITZ-CARLTON SARASOTA
SARASOTA, FLORIDA
941.309.2000
WWW.RITZCARLTON.COM
Situated on the highly grand North Tamiami Trail near downtown Sarasota facing Sarasota Bay, the Ritz-Carlton Sarasota is one of those larger-than-life hotels that would seem right at home in Miami, Los Angeles, or New York City. Reaching seemingly endlessly into the azure sky and built with plenty of marble and exotic materials, the hotel has a pinkish hue inside and out that highlights its luxuriance and style. It’s relatively new, but inside you will feel like you’re stepping into something straight from The Great Gatsby. It’s that resplendent.
The Ritz-Carlton Sarasota is actually half residences and half luxury hotel rooms. All the rooms have wonderful views of Sarasota Bay, and all have a balcony. People who live on the property are essentially members of a club, which gives them access to such amenities as the spa, the beach club, and the golf course. The last two are off-campus. The Ritz-Carlton also organizes children’s activities and offers several dining options, including one of the few Mobil Four-Star restaurants in South Florida, the Verona. Even the modest rooms are well appointed, and each includes a wonderful touch: an elegant writing table complete with hotel stationery. Now that’s a throwback.
The Member’s Golf Club at the Ritz-Carlton is a new course that Tom Fazio built on a former tomato farm and cattle ranch—typically flat Florida land. With this completely raw property, Fazio also created a somewhat typical Florida golf course with plenty of mounding and lots of water. But with a bigger budget and more time, Fazio created more undulation, and this provides the course with more character and interest than 95 percent of the other courses in the Sunshine State. At one point, the course reaches sixty-five feet. Hotel guests are automatically members of the golf course during their stay. You can take a cart if you’d like, or you can take a caddy. Or you can take a caddy and a cart. Whatever you choose, you’ll find that the level of service and pampering is routinely wonderful. Everyone seems to know who you are as soon as you arrive.
Golf at the Ritz-Carlton Sarasota is a lot of fun. The fairways are wide, and there’s no need to hit anything except the driver from all the par-4s and par-5s. Many of the holes have mounding that will steer a slightly off-line drive back to the middle. There’s no need to worry too much about heavy rough; it’s not part of the agenda. Remember, this is a resort course, and the intelligent golfer is there to have some fun. The greens are similarly large but have a lot of movement through subtle dips, swales, and ledges. Listen to your caddy to find the right portion of the green so that you minimize the chances of a three-putt, and maybe you can even make a birdie or two.
The longer holes are solid, yet it’s the collection of par-3s that are the most impressive. The shortest from the regular tees is a modest 151 yards, but while the others are longer, they’re not necessarily any harder. To help the mid-handicapper or novice golfer, most of the longer holes are open in front, which means that it’s possible to run or bounce the ball in, an architectural feature that’s somewhat rare on modern courses. Also rare is the self-containment; the course is a stand-alone with no houses or any sort of development—probably one of the many reasons that the course got into Golf Magazine’s Top Ten new courses the year it opened.
The new clubhouse is so opulent that it might keep you from rushing back to the mother ship. Sitting on one of the highest points of the property, the clubhouse overlooks the first, ninth, tenth, and eighteenth holes. The locker rooms have attendants, and there’s outdoor seating under the trellises. There’s also a grill, which serves a decent menu of golf favorites.
At the hotel, make a dinner reservation for Vernona, the aforementioned Mobil Four-Star restaurant. The cuisine is “regional organic,” and the menu includes Key West Shrimp Ceviche with Heirloom Tomatoes, Avocado, and Baby Corn as an appetizer and Peanut-Chile Rubbed Australian Rack of Lamb for a main course. Featuring bright colors, plush seats, and big cutlery, Vernona’s ambiance is old-school Florida.
Tampa Bay International Airport is well to the north of the Ritz-Carlton International, but Sarasota-Bradenton is a mere fifteen minutes from the property and has decent regional service to most eastern hub airports. The golf course is good enough to play it every day for a week without getting bored, but the Ritz-Carlton Sarasota is perhaps best for a quick hit-and-run extended weekend with some friends. If privacy, service, and ambiance are important to you, then you’ll find them in spades at the Ritz-Carlton Sarasota.
THE RITZ-CARLTON GOLF RESORT, NAPLES
NAPLES, FLORIDA
239.593.2000
WWW.RITZCARLTON.COM
An easy drive down the coast from Sarasota, the original Gulf Coast Ritz-Carlton golf enclave is the Ritz-Carlton Golf Resort, Naples. Its sister property is the palatial Ritz-Carlton Naples just a few miles away, right next to the shore near downtown Naples. The setup provides plenty of options. You can stay at the Ritz-Carlton Naples and enjoy the golf at the golf resort, you can stay at the golf resort and enjoy the amenities of the hotel, or you can stay at the golf resort and totally ignore the Ritz-Carlton Naples. If someone in your party abhors golf, that person can hang out at the beach and enjoy the amenities while you enjoy the golf. Whatever your choice, you will find a highly relaxing golf break at the Ritz-Carlton and a superb level of pampering.
Let’s go straight to the golf at the Ritz-Carlton Golf Resort, also known as the Tiburon Golf Club. In December 2007, the club hosted the Merrill Lynch Shootout, a postseason, two-person, betterball event that attracts many of the top players in the world. There are two courses, the Gold and the Black, both the work of Greg Norman and his design team. Norman hasn’t built a vast number of golf courses, but the ones he has built have been solid architectural successes that have easily set themselves apart from the crowd. The reason? Norman has brought a number of the architectural features from the best Australian courses to America and added liberal doses of a Scottish theme—the stacked sod wall bunker. Instead of sand in the face of the bunker, there’s grass or stacked layers of sod. Norman courses typically have generous fairways and no rough (you read that one correctly), yet a departure from the fairway usually means complete disaster as your ball will end up in thick overgrowth or swamp. It’s a great combination that makes for enjoyable golf.
Tiburon Golf Club is a fully functioning golf club in its own right. The Gold and Black courses are open for resort play on alternate days. It might sound a hair complicated, but upon arrival at either the golf resort or the main resort, everything becomes much clearer; the friendly staff will orient you and get everything organized so that you should not have to lift a finger.
The front nine on the Black Course features the fascinating par-4 eighth, just 282 yards from the regular tees; it’s followed by another great gambling hole, the par-5 ninth. The fourteenth is the most beautifully framed hole, but the hole that you’ll remember the most, hopefully for all the right reasons, is the par-5 eighteenth, which features water running down the entire right-hand side. At 500 yards from the regular tees, it provides the opportunity for a closing birdie.
The Black Course ends with a par-5, and the Gold Course begins with one. A modest 475 yards from the regular tees, the hole provides an excellent birdie opportunity if you can navigate the interesting angles of attack. On the front nine, holes four and five hug a lake and are the most scenic holes on the course. On the back, the short par-4 thirteenth has beautifully designed waste areas flanking both sides of the fairway, but it’s wide enough to tempt a smash with the driver to try to get it close to a green that’s a mere 320 yards away. The seventeenth is an excellent example of a Greg Norman par-5 that presents a fascinating range of options; at just under 500 yards, it’s the last realistic chance for a birdie before the tough eighteenth.
The Ritz-Carlton Golf Resort, Naples, does not have as many golf courses in its quiver as some resorts, but the two that it can access are as strong as any pair in Florida. Couple this with the service and the dining at both the golf resort and the main hotel, and it’s a tough combination to beat. But just in case you want more golf during a longer trip, the concierge and the golf shop can help you get a tee time at some of the better private golf courses in the area—and there are plenty in the Naples area. Try Old Collier, a Tom Fazio design that hired caddies directly from Scotland.
If you’re looking for quality instruction, the Ritz-Carlton Golf Resort, Naples, is the winter base of the Rick Smith Golf Academy. Smith is one of the top swing gurus in the country, and his staff includes numerous accomplished and experienced teachers. For group instruction, the school has a 2:1 student-to-teacher ratio, which is one of the lowest in the business.
Both Ritz-Carlton Naples properties offer a wealth of nongolf amenities and excellent dining. At the clubhouse of the golf resort, try Lemonia with its Tuscan cuisine and excellent views of the closing holes; if the weather is pleasant, there’s alfresco dining. At the beach, try Artisans at the Beach, with its seafood bent; it’s the only AAA Five-Diamond restaurant in southwest Florida. If you’re more in the mood for a steakhouse, try the Grill, which offers the clubby feel of a classic steak house and features an excellent wine list.
The best gateway to the area is Southwest Florida International Airport, although Naples Municipal can handle most private aircraft. But why not take in both the Ritz-Carlton Naples and the Ritz-Carlton Sarasota? That’s a week’s worth of excellent golf, pampering, relaxation, and dining that a small golf group or a couple of couples would enjoy as part of a well-deserved winter break.
Now it’s time to take the famous Alligator Alley across the Florida Everglades to Miami and its environs.
DORAL GOLF RESORT & SPA
MIAMI, FLORIDA
800.713.6725
WWW.DORALRESORT.COM
Doral is probably the most famous golf resort in Florida, for several reasons. First, it’s been the home of a PGA Tour event for what seems like 900 years. Millions of viewers over the decades have tuned into to watch the drama at the eighteenth hole of its top course, the Blue Monster. Second, it has a golf course called … the Blue Monster. Third, Doral is the home of the flagship location of the top golf teaching institution in the country, the Jim McLean Golf School. That means Doral is on the Golf Channel at least once a month. And fourth, the resort and its five courses have hosted thousands of visitors since it first opened in 1962.
Now associated with Marriott, Doral is benefiting from a reinvestment program that is helping the resort maintain its status as one of Florida’s top destinations. In addition to the golf courses, Doral has a spa and dining. But it’s the meeting spaces that are the main attraction at the resort, with companies of all sizes coming to Doral for meetings and conferences. It’s the lifeblood of the property, but not to the point where individuals, couples, and groups feel uncomfortable or unwanted if they are not wearing a nametag.
Part of the attraction for meeting planners is the proximity to Miami International Airport, the gateway to the Caribbean and South America for millions of travelers. At times, the proximity to MIA is all too apparent, especially when planes are landing on runway thirty. But that’s Miami for you, and Doral is very much a Miami destination. This becomes evident as soon as you hop in a cab for the short drive to the resort. The driver will likely originate from Haiti or Cuba or another Caribbean country, and the language on the radio will be French or Spanish. Welcome to America’s greatest multicultural city. Even the drive through the airport hinterlands and then through suburban and semi-industrial sprawl to the muted front gates of Doral pulsates with the vibrancy and power of this fascinating place. Once you reach that front entrance, everything becomes quieter and a bit more serene, which is exactly the goal, but at Doral, you are very much a part of this kaleidoscopic city.
Doral sits on a big piece of land, enough for its five courses. The Silver Course is slightly narrower than the other Doral courses and has an island green, the fourteenth. In 1999, it hosted the PGA Tour Qualifying School, generally a benchmark for quality and challenge. The Red Course requires brain more than brawn, especially with water on fourteen holes. It, too, is strong enough for professional play, having hosted the 2001 Office Depot Championship, an LPGA event. Raymond Floyd lives in the Miami area and has designed several courses in South Florida. You can see his work at Doral’s Gold Course. It’s tight and narrow in spots, and the holes farthest from the clubhouse border tidy homes and apartments. Water comes into play on sixteen holes, and the mandatory island green is at the eighteenth, far and away the best hole on the course.
Greg Norman designed one of the most popular courses, the Great White, which has a completely different feel and look—a total departure for Doral. Flashy and bold, the Great White offers a tremendous test from the back tees on a windy day. In 2005, Doral tweaked the design, reorganizing the sixth and fifteenth, and planting native grasses. The course almost looks like it belongs in the Arizona desert. Instead of rough, Norman and his design team opted for tightly packed crushed coquina sand between the fairways. Norman also used pot bunkers throughout the property for strategic interest. And there’s a triple green for the eleventh, thirteenth, and seventeenth. Whereas Doral’s original courses have a little bit of a sameness to them, the Great White stands out—visually, as well as in play. The other courses are green; the Great White is just that—white. It’s worth the trip to Doral for this course alone.
But the most famous course at this most famous resort in South Florida is the Blue Monster, the textbook big-time inland Florida golf course. The property could not be any flatter, so the interest comes from the water, the strategically placed bunkers, and the greens. The eighteenth is a long par-4 with water along the entire length of the left-hand side; the green is almost a peninsula and provides excellent entertainment for the spectators and the television viewers during the professional tournaments. The eighteenth is the best-known (most often featured on SportsCenter), but the Blue Monster has several other wonderful Florida holes. The par-5 tenth doglegs slowly around the lake that flanks the eighteenth and provides numerous permutations and angles of attack. The fourth is one of two long par-3s, and the twelfth is another excellent par-5 that seems to go on forever.
There are caddies at Doral, and you should certainly take one for the Blue Monster, which you will not enjoy if you end up in the seemingly light rough off the tee or choose the wrong set of tees for your ability. When you get to the eighteenth, check out the many and varied plaques commemorating the many and varied acts of golf heroism that have taken place on this storied course. Even if it’s slightly beyond your ability, it’s always fun to play a course that you have seen, or will see, on television.
A number of guests head off-campus for dining—many making the trek to super-trendy South Beach. But if you are unfamiliar with the area, you’ll be fine at Doral, which offers plenty of dining. The most relaxing spot is Champions Bar and Grill, which has excellent bar food to complement the views of the Blue Monster’s eighteenth hole. It’s a great place for a group of intelligent golfers to relax.
Right next to the resort is the range, and at the far end of the range is the Jim McLean Golf School. At first appearance, it’s not the most impressive-looking range, and there are plenty of golf schools in the United States with better facilities. But it’s tough to find a golf school with a better and more accomplished faculty, headed by one of the world’s top instructors, Jim McLean. One of the best reasons to visit Doral is to spend time with McLean and his staff. The school offers a palette of options, and you’re highly likely to run into one of the numerous professional golfers who come to Doral for instruction. Unless you book a private session with McLean or take one of the six-day schools, you won’t get a lesson with McLean himself, but don’t worry—his top associates, called Lead Master Instructors, are first-rate.
Now that we’re in the Miami area, it’s time to head toward the beach, specifically Turnberry Isle.
THE FAIRMONT TURNBERRY ISLE
MIAMI, FLORIDA
866.840.8069
WWW.FAIRMONT.COM/TURNBERRYISLE
Located halfway between Miami Beach and Fort Lauderdale, the Fairmont Turnberry Isle Resort and Club is the type of property where movie stars and A-list celebrities will feel right at home. The broad, elegant, and expansive lobby features marble everywhere, and the adjoining rooms and lounges are beyond opulent. In a lounge, you might see Jack Nicholson, Billy Crystal, Burt Bacharach, Sir Ben Kingsley, or Whitney Houston, all of whom have stayed at Turnberry Isle. Located in Aventura, the resort occupies 300 acres. The property opened in 1970 but looks like it’s been there a lot longer. That’s because the centerpiece of Turnberry Isle, the Mediterranean-style hotel, has a turn-of-the-century feel and look that perfectly meshes with the older Miami hotels in and around South Beach.
Developer Dan Soffer was the creator of Turnberry Isle. He built the resort primarily as a business venture but also as a way to entertain his celebrity guests. He wanted to offer them privacy, as well as all the requisite amenities—including space for yachts. After the recent redesign of the golf courses, the powers-that-be renamed one of the golf courses after Soffer, a keen golfer.
The Fairmont portfolio of hotels and resorts includes some of the most palatial and luxurious properties in the world, including the Savoy in London, the Fairmont San Francisco, and the Plaza in New York City. Fairmont recently invested $100 million in Turnberry Isle, with clear results. The guest rooms and expansive suites are among the most sumptuous anywhere, and each room has a private balcony with wonderful views of what is, essentially, a quiet retreat in the middle of the hustle and bustle of Miami’s northern reaches.
Some of that $100 million went into a total renovation of the two golf courses, the Soffer and the Miller. Ray Floyd essentially blew up the old courses to start again and reorganized the driving range and practice facilities. The work also included extensive landscaping—so the courses have the classic South Florida look, with palm trees and deep green Bermuda grass. Few people think of waterfalls and Miami in the same sentence, but the courses feature several of the former, including one that cascades a full sixty-four feet. Turnberry Isle hosts a postseason professional skills challenge and an LPGA event, the Stanford International Pro Am.
The professional events take place on the Soffer Course, which was formerly the South Course. The former Robert Trent Jones Sr. courses at Turnberry Isle weren’t exactly lower-tier courses, but they were mostly flat, and one of Floyd’s goals was to give the fairway some movement and undulation. Ditto with the greens. The other goals were to improve the playability for the resort guest by widening the fairways and to improve the fun for the intelligent golfer by providing options and different angles of attack. The par-71 Soffer Course is longer and more challenging than the par-70 Miller course. The one holdover from the original design is the long and wonderful eighteenth, with its island green in full view of the hotel.
The Miller Course is slightly shorter; its defining feature is the Boros, a large body of water named for Julius Boros, the famous golfer who loved nothing more than golf and fishing. In the middle of the lake is a new “Flamingo Island” that’s home to the resort’s pink birds; it’s a safe spot for them to nest. There’s even space set aside for a bird refuge.
With all the temptations in and around Turnberry Isle, especially those a little farther south, it seems almost mandatory to head off-campus for some extracurricular fun and frolicking. Nevertheless, the resort has worked hard to keep you near the comfort and sanctuary of your room or suite—first with the wonderful Ocean Club Bar after golf, where the intelligent golfer will appreciate that a resort this upscale does not think itself too haughty to serve a hamburger. For drinks before dinner, head for the Cascata Grille and Bar or simply enjoy a drink in the resort’s lounge. The former is formal enough for that pre-dinner drink yet relaxed enough to enjoy a sporting event on the television. Fairmont has also invested in its dining, specifically its Cascata Grille, whose Mediterranean cuisine primarily uses local seafood and seasonal produce.
At any eatery or watering hole you choose at Turnberry Isle, you might not necessarily be sitting next to a movie star, sports star, captain of industry, or television personality, but you will certainly experience the luxury, privacy, and old-school Miami-ness that keeps the resort’s loyal guests coming back. For pure opulence with some fine golf, all recently restored and rejuvenated, it’s tough to beat Turnberry Isle.
But let’s head a little farther up the coast to the grandmother of them all, Boca Raton Resort.
BOCA RATON RESORT AND CLUB
BOCA RATON, FLORIDA
888.543.1277
WWW.BOCARESORT.COM
In the travel and leisure industry, perhaps the most overused word is iconic. Even a modern hotel of no great stature, interest, or substance can be iconic, and so too can its spa, golf courses, and sports bar. But one resort that absolutely and definitely qualifies as iconic is the Boca Raton Resort and Club a few miles north of Fort Lauderdale.
The resort comprises two golf courses, the main hotel (the Cloister), the Yacht Club, the aptly named Tower, the Boca Bungalows, dining, extensive conference facilities, a spa, thirty tennis courts, six swimming pools, fishing, plus a half-mile of private beach. Given all that, you know that Boca Raton isn’t exactly a retreat or quiet enclave, but it’s a wonderful spot nonetheless—and perfect if you are looking for a more energetic golf getaway that an entire family, from the youngest toddler to the oldest grandmother, could enjoy. A new ownership group took over in 2005 and has been reinvigorating the resort with a massive reinvestment and improvement program. One of the goals is to attract a younger, upscale family crowd, which will only add to the vibrancy of the resort. Boca Raton is also a prime conference and meetings facility, so the intelligent golfer is highly likely to run into clusters of people wearing nametags that begin, “Hello, my name is …” Corporate groups are the lifeblood of places such as Boca Raton Resort, and those groups add to the ambiance once their business is over and it’s time for some pleasure.
Everything began at Boca Raton Resort when architect Addison Mizner eyed a piece of property well to the south of a development in Palm Beach. Mizner and his group eventually acquired a whopping 17,500 acres with the goal of creating the greatest resort in the world. When the main hotel property, the Cloister, opened in 1926, it quickly attracted royalty and corporate titans. The glory lasted only a season, though, as the resort’s economic backing began to falter. But Mizner had succeeded in building one of the most remarkable pieces of pre-war Florida decadence, and today the Cloister stands as a testament to his vision and architectural eccentricities.
Since the Roaring Twenties, the resort has weathered both hurricanes and a number of different owners, most of whom, to be fair, have been dedicated to preserving the resort’s status as one of Florida’s top vacation destinations. It’s certainly one of the largest now, with more than 1,000 rooms, suites, and bungalows. But the intelligent golfer should still try to stay at the Cloister if at all possible, especially if he or she is traveling with a group of fellow intelligent golfers. The drive to the original hotel down Camino Real is one of the greatest resort entrances in the United States.
If you are with the family, opt for a suite or one of the bungalows. The children will want to take advantage of the beach, but if they want a more structured environment or if you want to get to the golf courses feeling that the little ones will be happy all day, Boca Raton offers Camp Boca, which is split into two groups: Boca Tots for ages three to five and Boca Bunch for ages six to eleven. If the teenagers have been watching Caddyshack, you can tell them that the producers shot the Fourth of July dinner-dance scene at the resort.
Part of the golf lore at Boca Raton includes legendary professional and teacher Tommy Armour, who worked with his pupils from beneath the shade of an umbrella. They were in the sun, he was in the shade, and the story is that Armour almost always had libation within easy reach. There is surely many a professional golf instructor today who would love to emulate the Scot in this regard. Sam Snead, who won several major tournaments in his excellent career, was Boca Raton’s director of golf from 1955 to 1969.
The two golf courses are called the Resort Course and the Country Club Course. The former is right next to the Cloister and has a large clubhouse that includes a steakhouse restaurant. The latter is off-campus but only a short drive away. The Resort Course, originally built by William Flynn in 1926, is one of the oldest courses in Florida. It’s not a long course by modern standards, and it boasts tons of character. The Country Club Course opened in 1984. This longer and more modern course is home to short-game schools organized by short-game specialist instructor Dave Pelz. The Country Club’s best hole, with its island green, might be the eighteenth.
After golf, yachting, pampering at the spa, or hanging out at the beach, the resort offers plenty of dining options. The Homestead, a steak house, unashamedly serves huge portions of everything. Chef Angela Hartnett is the guiding force behind Cielo, on the top floor of the resort’s tower. Hartnett describes the cuisine as “continental with an Italian flair.” For a true indulgence, reserve the Chef’s Table for six to ten people; the private area overlooks the kitchen, and guests get a seven-course meal with Hartnett herself describing each course. The Chef’s Table option proves that Boca Raton is able to remain civilized while still catering to a large number of guests. Further proof comes in, or at, the Cathedral in the Cloister. Open for breakfast only, it provides a glimpse of the past at Boca Raton with its vaulted ceilings, picture windows, and intricate stonework. It’s a great place to start the day.
Boca Raton strives to offer the service and attention of a much smaller hotel within the framework of this magnificent and storied property. As such, it has a certain elasticity that other resorts cannot offer: you can go to Boca Raton Resort as a family, a company group, a group of golf buddies, or just as a couple. In each instance, you’ll likely find a way to enjoy yourself in an intelligent fashion on or off the golf course. But will you find it to be iconic? That’s up to you and your sense of history.
Our tour is nearly complete. It’s time to head to perhaps the most famous and infamous of all Florida cities, Palm Beach. It’s time to investigate another Florida property, the Breakers. Believe it or not, it predates Boca Raton.
THE BREAKERS PALM BEACH
PALM BEACH, FLORIDA
888.273.2537
WWW.THEBREAKERS.COM
The first incarnation of the Breakers opened in 1895. It burned to the ground. The second incarnation of the Breakers opened around 1904; it, too, burned to the ground. It took less than a year to build the Breakers that you see today, a massive but elegant and beautiful—and mostly self-contained—hotel right on the beach. In fact, the Breakers seems to be located right in the middle of the azure Atlantic. Architect Leonard Schultze had obviously been to Italy a few times. The Breakers is an Italian building on steroids, maxed out with every conceivable Italian architectural feature. The lobby and entrance areas are reminiscent of the Great Hall of the Palazzo Carega (circa 1560) in Genoa. The exterior and its surroundings are impressive enough, but the interior is even more jaw-dropping.
Like the other resorts on our tour, the Breakers has all the requisite amenities: golf, restaurants, rooms (550 of them), a long list of accolades and awards, children’s activities, a spa, and the beach club. But the Breakers goes one step beyond with a mini-shopping village featuring top retailers. The Breakers also has AAA Five-Diamond status. Its staff of 2,300 is fluent in more than fifty languages. Floors six and seven are part of a special club where the already mega-pampered guests get even more pampering, including afternoon tea. The fitness center has ocean views. The top restaurant has one of the top wine cellars in Florida. The resort even runs an off-site restaurant in the heart of Palm Beach. At the beginning of this section, I said that there might not be a definitive resort in South Florida. If I had to correct that statement, under some type of duress, my nod would go to the Breakers—truly, the ultimate luxury resort.
But let’s get to the hard-core details for the hard-core intelligent golfer. The off-campus golf course is the Breakers Rees Jones Course, just a short ride from the main hotel. Originally designed by Willard Byrd and updated by Joe Lee, who designed a vast number of Florida golf courses, the Breakers contracted, as the name of the course indicates, Rees Jones to redesign the course. Consistent with Jones’s courses elsewhere, the Breakers Rees Jones Course is generous for the most part off the tee, which is fair given the breezes that frequent the area. The par-5 sixth, however, narrows toward the peninsula green that juts precariously out into the water. This course often requires heroism, especially on the par-3s where shots that don’t make it all the way to the green complex will find a watery grave. Is it as friendly to the resort guest as other Florida resort courses? You’ll have to be the judge.
Thankfully, the Ocean Course is different. Whereas original Rees Jones courses are modern with a capital M, the Ocean Course is old-school. In fact, it’s the oldest eighteen-hole golf course in Florida that’s still in use. But today’s Ocean Course bears no relation to the one that opened in 1897. For starters, Donald Ross redesigned it in the 1920s. In 2000, Brian Silva, who has successfully updated several Ross courses, gave the Ocean Course a much-needed facial. The big hitter may want to head to the Rees Jones course, though; the Ocean Course is much more about fun than muscularity.
Several par-4s are short-ish, and most intelligent golfers will approach these holes with a wedge or short iron. The key to scoring well is avoiding the ornery bunkers that flank the fairways. Once safely organized off the tee, club selection is particularly important. Water quarters into some of the greens, so anything short might find the hazard; putts from above the hole are no picnic, especially when the greens are fast. Ross believed in lengthy par-3s, and the course provides a couple of good examples, especially on the back nine: the thirteenth is 221 yards from the back tees, and the sixteenth is 212 yards, this time with water to the right of the green. The eighteenth is right next to the front entrance, and the hotel, with its two towers, is always in view on any of the holes.
If your round has gone really well at the Ocean Course, you’ll be thinking about a way to celebrate in the hotel. The flagship restaurant at the Breakers is L’Escalier; this most formal of the eateries serves contemporary French cuisine with highly stylized presentation. There’s also a champagne trolley. The less-formal Brasserie L’Escalier offers French bistro fare. Both restaurants have a superb wine list, easily one of the best in Florida, with more than 1,400 selections from a wine cellar with around 25,000 bottles. The resort has a Master Sommelier, Virginia Philip, to assist with the selections. Philip is one of the top wine experts in the country. Perhaps the most intriguing restaurant at the Breakers is Echo, which lies off-campus in the center of Palm Beach. Echo specializes in contemporary Asian cuisine. For Sunday brunch, try the Circle, with its ornate frescos on the ceiling. For pre-dinner drinks, the Tapestry Bar is a must. Fifteenth-century tapestries frame the room, and antique mirrors give it a grandeur that befits the resort. The menu is cocktails and caviar.
The Breakers isn’t a yuk-it-up place with sawdust and peanuts on the floor; thus it’s not the best destination for golfers who want to golf hard and play even harder. But for four to eight golfers looking for the ultimate in Palm Beach-ness, the Breakers is the perfect location, especially if you have connections at some of the ultra-private courses in the vicinity. While the golf at the Breakers is fine, it’s even better at certain spots well away from the compound.
With on-site organized activities, the child-friendly Breakers is perfect for a family. But perhaps where this resort works best is for a couple, a couple of couples, or a small group of friends, some of whom play golf, some of whom enjoy spas and serious shopping.
Whatever the size or inclination of you and your group, you’ll find that the Breakers is one of the most beautiful resorts in America and the perfect spot for a well-deserved few days of subtle indulgence.
Most intelligent golfers from North America who visit the British Isles to golf opt for Scotland or Ireland. Sometimes it’s heritage. Sometimes it’s a desire to see and play the courses that routinely hold the Open Championship—wonderful and historic places such as Royal Troon, Muirfield, and Carnoustie. Sometimes it’s the totally understandable desire to get to the birthplace of golf and experience the pure joy (and the sheer penury) of links golf. Every intelligent golfer should make the effort to play at least a few of the early links courses in Scotland or Ireland at least once. Think of it as a sacred responsibility.
Which country is better, Scotland or Ireland? Heritage, again, may play a part in this debate. If your name is Iain Campbell, then you’ll lean toward Scotland. If your name is Shamus Daley, you’ll lean toward Ireland. Maybe. Those who have been to both countries extensively but have no firm roots in either are somewhat split. If you are one of the fortunate few who has played golf in Scotland and Ireland, or even if you aren’t yet, let me suggest a third possibility that you should definitely consider: London.
In the mid-1700s, when golf started to become slightly more popular in Scotland and early golf clubs began to formulate the rules of the game, golf began its global emigration by slowly moving into the common areas around London. There’s evidence of golf in London before Victorian times, but it was during the mid- to late nineteenth century that golf started to take root permanently. Coastal sites to the south and east of London were the first candidates for expansion—until the first serious golfers discovered a sandy belt of soil extending for several miles in a wide crescent roughly from what is now Heathrow Airport, directly west of London, to Gatwick Airport, directly south of London. Geologists call this anomaly bagshot sand. But it’s better known to intelligent golfers as heathland, and the best courses around London are called neither links courses nor parkland courses. They are called heathland courses, and collectively, they comprise some of the finest golf courses anywhere.
Let me go out on a limb here. If you placed Pinehurst No. 2 in the middle of the heathland courses, nobody would pay it much attention. Conversely, if you plucked one of the heathland courses and plopped it down, foliage and all, somewhere near New York City, it would likely be one of the very best courses, if not the best. And if you think I’m crazy, look at the world rankings in the big golf magazines and you’ll see some of the courses I’m about to mention. Many are already right up there, and others are finally getting on the radar screen and ascending the rankings—primarily through word of mouth. If any of the major heathland courses were on television more or made an effort to attract the golf course raters and the golf writers, then you would know a lot more about them. But these are private clubs, not resorts striving to fill rooms and tee sheets. The members at these clubs know what they have, and they don’t need a magazine ranking to tell them that their course is something seriously special.
A large part of the appeal comes from the beauty and uniqueness of heathland. The sandy soil makes for near-perfect turf year-round; it’s often playable in winter and even after significant rain. Other courses in London, situated on thick clay, are typically too muddy from November to late April for serious golf. And if the summer is dry, the clay-based courses become rock hard and almost too bouncy—sort of like playing golf with a superball. Heathland is often wooded, usually with beautiful birch, horse chestnut, oaks, and sometimes fir and pine. Bright green ferns also grow in abundance, and many courses, in lieu of thick grass, have stands of heather defining the fairways. Add to this just a hint of wildness plus the perfect topography, and you have the best possible land for inland golf in the United Kingdom.
When the serious clubs began to establish golf courses in the early years of the twentieth century, they were extremely fortunate to have the services of some world-renowned architects at their disposal. Chief among these was Harry Shapland Colt. He remains not particularly well-known in North America even though one of his few designs in the United States happens to be Pine Valley, generally thought of as America’s best course, or at least one of its top three. And Pine Valley wasn’t even his best work. So when you think of the heathland courses, think of something even better than America’s best. Yes, these courses are that good.
Other architects active in this period were Alister MacKenzie, who designed Cypress Point, and James Braid, who designed many of England’s finest courses. Sir Guy Campbell, another prolific golf architect, was also around at the time. Colt and the others could not move much dirt or land when they were building these courses. Since they had to go with the land as it lay for the most part, each of the heathland courses has its blind or semi-blind shots, its quirks, and the occasional hole that looks or feels awkward or even slightly out of place. A golf architect today wouldn’t tolerate this, yet the “black sheep” holes add character and interest and only make the golf that much better. Don’t expect the “standard” par-72 configuration with four par-3s, four par-5s, and ten par-4s. Again, going with the land and the available space, one heathland course might be a par-69 with just one par-5, while another might have five par-3s, including a pair back to back. There might be a string of eight par-4s in a row, or there might be a par-5 that’s just a fraction longer than a par-4. There’s nothing cookie cutter about English golf.
A trip to the heathland courses is best suited to a small and fast-moving group of two to four golfers. The beauty of a trip to London is that nongolfers will never be able to complain. You should choose a hotel in a location central to the heathland courses (Windsor would be perfect), yet close to a railway station. In the morning, while you and your group head for the golf course, the others can catch a train into London.
The London area has its resorts, many of which offer excellent golf, with top-notch hotels and amenities very much in the American mold. But none of them offers the heathland option or anything really close. And few golf tour specialists really know the situation in and around London; even when they do, their itineraries miss some of the true gems. To get to some of these top courses, the intelligent golfer must go it alone—and write some of the most charming letters ever written. Yes, it’s old-fashioned, but that’s the way it is, even in the age of e-mail and satellites. More on how to write those letters follow in this chapter. First, however, here are the courses you should target.
SWINLEY FOREST GOLF CLUB
SOUTH ASCOT, BERKSHIRE, ENGLAND
+44.0.1344.874.979
E-MAIL: SWINLEYFGC@AOL.COM
Colt described this as “his least bad course,” which means that it’s the best that Colt ever designed—there are quite a few golf architecture critics, armchair and otherwise, who think the same. The first hole and the last hole, both visible from the beautiful clubhouse, are not of the highest quality, and this can be hugely misleading. But once you’re in the forest beginning at the second hole, it’s one great shot after another, all in the most idyllic, peaceful, and majestic setting imaginable, with massive rhododendron bushes often providing beauty and hazard in equal measure. The course hosts company days (small corporate outings) periodically, but there’s a strong likelihood that you’ll have the whole place to yourselves. The course might well have the best set of par-3s of any of the heathland courses, and that’s saying something. If there is just one course in this magical area that you play, play this one.
THE BERKSHIRE GOLF CLUB
ASCOT, BERKSHIRE, ENGLAND
+44.0.1344.622.351
WWW.THEBERKSHIRE.CO.UK
The two courses at the Berkshire Golf Club include plenty of holes by Harry Shapland Colt, and there’s also the work of Herbert Fowler and Tom Simpson, both of whom were excellent architects in their own right. The Red Course is the stronger of the two, with six par-3s, six par-4s, and six par-5s. The Blue Course begins with a soul-searching long par-3 that will wake you up if you have stayed too long at lunch and had one too many pints.
ROYAL ASHDOWN FOREST GOLF CLUB
FOREST ROW, EAST SUSSEX, ENGLAND
+44.0.1342.822.247
WWW.ROYALASHDOWN.CO.UK
A true lay-of-the-land course built in 1891 and mostly unchanged, this hilly course offers lovely, peaceful views from the higher holes. By law, because the course lies in the middle of Crown Property, there can be no bunkers. But there’s plenty of heather and other natural obstacles. Because the architect did not move anything at Royal Ashdown, the course has its quirks, like the crossover at the first and the eighteenth.
The best way for any intelligent golfer to beat jet lag is to get straight off the plane and play golf. Royal Ashdown is about twenty minutes by car from Gatwick. And after that, visit the simple but very welcoming bar, just a few benches around the exterior of a small room.
ST. GEORGE’S HILL GOLF CLUB
WEYBRIDGE, SURREY, ENGLAND
+44.0.1932.847.758
WWW.STGEORGESHILLGOLFCLUB.CO.UK
With twenty-seven excellent holes, St. George’s Hill provides the textbook example of first-rate heathland golf. The clubhouse, perched seemingly impossibly on a hillside, is one of the most imposing you’ll see anywhere. Inside, it’s pure English golf, with gilded names on boards listing the winners of past tournaments and hardwood paneling everywhere. As at Swinley, the first hole is not the best, but the quality of the course improves significantly and stays that way all the way around. Even the additional nine is rock solid.
SUNNINGDALE GOLF CLUB
SUNNINGDALE, BERKSHIRE, ENGLAND
+44.0.1344.621.681
WWW.SUNNINGDALE-GOLFCLUB.CO.UK
There are two courses here, the Old and the New, even though the New isn’t really new anymore: it dates to 1922. Harry Colt designed this one and revised the Old. Both courses are so strong, yet different, that it’s impossible to say which is better. Both occupy prime heathland near Windsor. Several of the big boys of European golf play here regularly. And Sunningdale’s membership includes some of the most successful businessmen in the United Kingdom, in addition to several members whose families began the club. The membership is welcoming, and the best way to enjoy Sunningdale is golf in the morning, lunch in the clubhouse, then golf in the afternoon. There isn’t a better thirty-six-hole day anywhere. And the best part of the day will likely be the halfway hut at the only point in the middle of the property where the two nines meet. There, you will find the most perfect English sausages. Take a minute to view the gallery of famous people who have visited this little piece of heaven.
Perhaps the greens on the New are more difficult, and the Old offers a bit more width off the tee, but both courses are among the very best not just in England but in the world. Late in the day, on a warm, sunny afternoon, the view from the seventeenth fairway on the Old Course—toward the broad open expanse of land in front of the clubhouse and the large specimen tree that shelters the eighteenth green—is a sight you will never forget.
WALTON HEATH GOLF CLUB
TADWORTH, SURREY, ENGLAND
+44.0.1737.812.060
WWW.WALTONHEATH.COM
Like Sunningdale, Walton Heath has an Old Course and a New Course, both of which are almost 100 years old. The Old is a fine course with a number of serious holes; it has some of the toughest heather of any heathland course. The problem with the wiry heather is that a good lie is really a bad lie, and what looks like a bad lie is often a good lie. So admire the heather, but avoid it at all costs; it can turn a good golfer into a hacker very quickly. Perhaps the New Course isn’t as good as the Old Course, but the two still make for a great day. Both courses are more than 7,000 yards from the tips and thus provide a test for the longer hitter, who might find some of the other heathland courses a hair too short. Walton Heath is also a former Ryder Cup venue.
WOKING GOLF CLUB
WOKING, SURREY, ENGLAND
+44.0.1483.760.053
WWW.WOKINGGOLFCLUB.CO.UK
A quiet and venerable club with a wonderful history that dates to 1893, Woking is not a long course, but there are still some long and testing holes, including the par-3 second at 200 yards and the par-5 fourteenth that, given some fast and firm conditions, could be reached in two shots. The green is directly in front of the part of the clubhouse where members tend to congregate for refreshment; thus, it’s the perfect spot to showcase your talents to a small gallery.
WENTWORTH CLUB
VIRGINIAWATER, SURREY, ENGLAND
+44.0.1344.842.201
WWW.WENTWORTHCLUB.COM
If you have ever watched the World Match Play Championship, an event that’s had a variety of sponsors over the years, then you might have seen golf at Wentworth, perhaps the most corporate of all the heathland clubs. The West Course, called “The Burma Road” due to its length, is a good test for the professional yet still fun for the average player. The East Course is more endearing and friendlier than its austere sibling. Wentworth is generally busier than the other heathland courses. Note the white and ivy-colored clubhouse, which looks like a small castle. There’s a newer course, the Edinburgh, that could also be part of your itinerary.
WEST SUSSEX GOLF CLUB
PULBOROUGH, WEST SUSSEX, ENGLAND
+44.0.1798.872.563
WWW.WESTSUSSEXGOLF.CO.UK
The most southerly, perhaps, of the heathland courses, West Sussex is also the most charming, with a welcoming membership and beautiful property. Like many British clubs, West Sussex is best known by the name of the adjacent town, in this case, Pulborough. The course has three distinct sections. The first is elegant yet challenging without being too draconian. The par-3 sixth is one of the best and longest downhill risk-reward holes you will ever play; give the left side of the hole a wide berth. The middle third of the course is the business end, with less scenery and a strong set of par-4s. The charming closing third finishes with the slightly uphill eighteenth that’s a fitting end to a really fine course.
The members are justifiably proud of their course and its low-key clubhouse. Public footpaths and bridleways crisscross the course, so don’t be surprised if, suddenly, a horse gallops along while you are trying to play a shot.