Architect Steve Smyers is one of golf’s top designers. His credits include Old Memorial in Florida, Maridoe in Dallas and the Pfau Course at Indiana University. Smyers also has been a nationally competitive amateur player and was a member of the 1973 University of Florida National Championship team with Andy Bean, Gary Koch and current Read more…
Hitting and holding greens at Pinehurst #2 is one of the most befuddling challenges in the game of golf. Whether it’s a resort guest or a professional tour player, finding a way to get second and often third or fourth shots to settle on the putting surface will determine success. The elevated greens have sloping shoulders Read more…
Architect Robert Trent Jones Jr. fields our question about the importance of trees on golf courses. Jones Jr. began designing courses with his father, Robert Trent Jones, in the 1960s and has built more than 200 in countries around the world, including Chambers Bay in Washington and Hogs Head in County Kerry, Ireland. Question: In Read more…
Alister MacKenzie has been departed for 100 years, but his architectural concepts and design philosophies live on. In fact, you could say they’ve taken on a life of their own. Each year since 1998, except for 2004 and 2020, hundreds of aspiring architects and dreamy designers have conjured the spirit of MacKenzie when putting pen Read more…
It should be no surprise that our 2024 ranking of America’s 100 Greatest Golf Holes, the first of its kind since 1999, is heavily populated with representatives from the America’s 100 Greatest Golf Courses ranking. These holes are why those courses are considered great. To formulate this ranking, Golf Digest compiled a list of more Read more…
Let’s be frank: the merits of Pinehurst No. 2 can fly right past most golfers. Everyone who visits the resort wants to play the fabled No. 2, ranked 29th on America’s 100 Greatest Courses, but many who do leave thinking either it’s too brutally difficult, or they don’t get the fuss. There are no long-range Read more…
The PGA Championship returns to Valhalla Golf Club this week for the fourth time. Valhalla might not have the history or gravitas of other PGA Championship venues like Oak Hill, Southern Hills, Baltusrol or Medinah #3, but what it lacks in prestige it more than makes up for with its knack for producing dramatic finishes. Read more…
Leading up to the 1953 U.S. Open at Oakmont Country Club, the USGA and club officials clashed over Oakmont’s use of its heavy, wide-tined bunker rakes. The governing body, as well as many U.S. Open participants, complained that the deep furrows the rakes made were overly penal and inconsistent—one player’s ball, for example, might sit Read more…
Sweetens Cove Golf Club, the nine-hole course in South Pittsburg, Tenn., beloved by a devoted group of golf adventurists, announced that it will be closing for three months at the end of May to repair turf damage suffered over the winter. A stretch of severe weather destroyed grass on the course’s fairways and greens. The Read more…
Since TPC Craig Ranch was added to the PGA Tour schedule in 2021 as the new host of the CJ Cup Byron Nelson (previously the AT&T Byron Nelson), it’s been a hitters’ ballpark. In the three tournaments played here, the field is averaging a score of 69.23, one of the lowest aggregate scores on the Read more…
Augusta National’s 18th hole rises about 70 feet from the base of the fairway to the green. The elevation is one of the hole’s defenses as drives don’t roll much and uphill second shots are blind and must cover the front bunker. Uphill shots don’t bother professionals, but they can cause imprecision, and slight imprecisions Read more…
The par-4 11th was named “Dogwood” for the 155 white dogwood trees that lined the fairway when the course opened in 1933. Along with holes 10 and 12, the 11th was cut through the pines on the lowest, most forested section of the property to the south. Augusta National’s seventh and 11th are the most Read more…
The seventh hole is called “Pampas” after a grassy bush indigenous to South America, setting it apart from the course’s hole names that are generally tree and shrub-oriented and more associated with Georgia. It’s an apt departure—the seventh has always been the black sheep of Augusta National, a hole that never quite fit in with Read more…
Augusta National’s par-5 13th is routinely considered one of the greatest holes in golf, and who can argue? The tee has been moved back in recent years and the rear of the green and quartet of bunkers have seen upgrades, but the hole is largely as MacKenzie and Jones found and designed it in 1931. Read more…
As much as any course in the world, Augusta National tailors its architecture to the demands presented one week a year. Virtually every decision the club makes, including each physical alteration, is done in response to how 80-some professional players (and a few amateurs) are playing the holes each April, and patrons are moving about Read more…
Pinehurst never stands still for long. The history of the North Carolina resort is one of continual expansion and evolution, and the last 15 years have been especially consequential, culminating with the opening of the newest course, Pinehurst #10, this month. Around 2010, the resort approached Bill Coore and Ben Crenshaw about reviving the indigenous Read more…
Australian Golf Digest
