10 Great but relatively unknown golf courses to visit!

10 Great but relatively unknown golf courses to visit!

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There are so many great golf courses around the world that we have never heard of.  

As a young pro, I played Henry Chapman Golf Club in Rhodesia ( now Zimbabwe) and Reading Country Club, a little gem just outside Johannesburg, South Africa.  How I wish I had the time (and the money) to go back and play those courses.  Here is a list of great unknown courses by GOLF.com that fires up my travel lust to see more courses like these. 

Glen Oaks Club, Old Westbury, N.Y.

Lacking the luster of other Long Island gems such as Bethpage, Shinnecock and National, this 27-hole, 1971 Joe Finger design earned unwanted publicity.  In 2009 it was the club where Bernie Madoff’s brother, Peter, was a member. Now it’s garnered kudos for its superior conditioning.  After hiring former Bethpage superintendent Craig Currier in 2009, for a renovation by Joel Weiman. And also as the recently announced host for the 2017 Barclays.

Vineyard Golf Club, Edgartown, Mass.

A quiet, moneyed enclave two miles inland on Martha’s Vineyard.  It enjoyed status on the social register immediately after its 2002 debut, but its Donald Steel design never quite captured critical acclaim. Today, following a complete makeover by Gil Hanse/Jim Wagner, it resembles an authentic links, with massive sand features, firm-and-fast fairways and expansive, beguilingly contoured greens.

Yas Links, Abu Dhabi, UAE

It doesn’t host a European Tour event, so we haven’t seen it on television.  But this 2010 Kyle Phillips design was a game-changer in the Middle East. Said Graeme McDowell after a pro-am here in 2011, “Kyle Phillips created a genuine links course in the desert. Sometimes you can close your eyes and think you’re on Kingsbarns.” With its tight, linksy lies and five of the final six holes along the Arabian Gulf, McDowell isn’t far off.

Tara Iti, Te Arai, New Zealand

Already drawing comparisons to Royal Dornoch and Cypress Point, this private, low-key club opened in October 2015. Still, its enviable location in the dunes along the Pacific Ocean has its architect, Tom Doak, proclaiming, “Top 50 or bust!” Seaside breezes, swift-running fairways and multiple options around the greens lend an honest Scottish feel, despite being less than 100 km from Auckland on New Zealand’s North Island.

Askernish, South Uist, Outer Hebrides, Scotland

The ultimate cult course among course cognoscenti, this once-abandoned 1891 Old Tom Morris/Horace Hutchinson design had been virtually abandoned until 2005. Its remote island location, a hindrance to some and a powerful enticement for others attracted architect Martin Ebert and superintendent Gordon Irvine, who restored what they could and recreated elsewhere, with the result being a lay-of-the-land links as natural as anything in golf.

To see the rest of these fabulous but unknown golf courses, go here.

Source: GOLF.com

Pictures: GOLF.com

Thanks for reading 10 Great but relatively unknown golf courses to visit!

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