It is here – The latest list of America’s Top 100 Golf Courses!

It is here – The latest list of America’s Top 100 Golf Courses!

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Following up on my recent post with Charlie Rose and Ron Whitten, Architectural Editor of Golf Digest magazine, here is the latest 2016 list of Golf Digest’s “America’s Top 100 golf courses!”  I have had the good fortune to play 6 of the top 10, and my goal for 2016 is to add at least one more to that list.  So anyone who is a member who would like to play with me, I will wait with anticipation for your call!

Of course, all thanks go to Ron Whitten of Golf Digest and his staff for all their hard work in putting this together.  And to Dom Furore and Stephen Szurlej for these beautiful photographs!

It is here – The latest list of America’s Top 100 Golf Courses!

1.(2) AUGUSTA NATIONAL G.C.(Parentheses indicate the previous ranking)

Augusta, Ga. / Alister Mackenzie & Bobby Jones (1933) 7,435 yards, Par 72 / Points: 72.1589

No club has tinkered with its golf course as often or as effectively over the decades as has Augusta National Golf Club, mainly to keep it competitive for the annual Master’s Tournament, an event it has conducted since 1934, with time off during WWII. All that tinkering has resulted in an amalgamation of design ideas, with a routing by Alister Mackenzie and Bobby Jones, some Perry Maxwell greens, some Trent Jones water hazards, some Jack Nicklaus mounds and swales and, most recently, extensive bunkering and tree planting by Tom Fazio.

100 Greatest History: Ranked since 1966. Highest ranking: No. 1, 2009-12, present.

2(1) PINE VALLEY G.C.

Pine Valley, N.J. / George Crump & H.S. Colt (1918) 7,057 yards, Par 70 / Points: 71.9818

A genuine original, its unique character forged from the sandy pine barrens of southwest Jersey. Founder George Crump had help from architects H.S. Colt, A.W. Tillinghast, George C. Thomas Jr., and Walter Travis. Hugh Wilson (of Merion fame) and his brother Alan finished the job. Pine Valley blends all three schools of golf design — penal, heroic, and strategic — throughout the course, oftentimes on a single hole.

100 Greatest History: Ranked since 1966. Highest ranking: No. 1, ’85-00, ’03-08 & ’13-14.

3(3) CYPRESS POINT CLUB

Pebble Beach / Alister Mackenzie (1928)
6,524 yards, Par 72 / Points: 69.4448

Glamorous Cypress Point, Alister Mackenzie’s masterpiece woven through cypress, sand dunes, and jagged coastline, wasn’t always the darling of America’s 100 Greatest. Golf Digest demoted it to the Fifth Ten back in the early 1970s, saying, “It’s not surprising that good players might find Cypress Point wanting: it has several easy holes and a weak finisher.” Our panel has since changed its collective opinion. In the 2000s, member Sandy Tatum, the former USGA president who christened Cypress Point as the Sistine Chapel of golf, convinced the club not to combat technology by adding new back tees, but instead make a statement by celebrating its original architecture. So Cypress remains timeless, if short, its charm helped in part by superintendent Jeff Markow, who re-established Mackenzie’s unique bunkering with the help of old photographs.

100 Greatest History: Ranked since 1966. Highest ranking: No. 2, 1987-88.

4(4) SHINNECOCK HILLS G.C.

Southampton, N.Y. / William Flynn (1931) 7,041 yards, Par 70 / Points: 69.2522

Generally considered to be the earliest links in America, heavily remodeled twice by C.B. Macdonald, then replaced (except for three holes) by William S. Flynn in the early 1930s. It’s so sublime that its architecture hasn’t really been fiddled within nearly 50 years, although the team of Bill Coore and Ben Crenshaw have made several changes, including restoration of a massive waste area on the sixth hole, to prepare Shinnecock for the 2018 U.S. Open.

100 Greatest History: Ranked since 1967. Highest ranking: No. 2, 2007-08

5(6) MERION G.C. (EAST)

Ardmore, Pa. / Hugh Wilson (1912) 6,886 yards, Par 70 / Points: 68.2949

What a treat it was to see Merion East, long considered the best course on the tightest acreage in America, host the U.S. Open in 2013. Today’s generation of big hitters couldn’t conquer the little old course, couldn’t consistently hit its twisting fairways, which are edged by creeks, hodge-podge rough, and OB stakes, and couldn’t consistently hit its canted greens edged by bunkers that stare back. It’s a certainty that it won’t take another 32 years for the U.S. Open to return to Merion.

100 Greatest History: Ranked since 1966. Highest ranking: No. 5, 1989-90 1995-96, Present

It is here – The latest list of America’s Top 100 Golf Courses!

6(5) OAKMONT C.C.

Oakmont, Pa. / Henry Fownes (1903) 7,255 yards, Par 71 / Points: 68.1868

Once thousands of trees (planted in the 1960s) were removed, Oakmont’s original penal design was re-established, with the game’s most nasty, notorious bunkers (founder-architect H.C. Fownes staked out bunkers whenever and wherever he saw a player hit an offline shot), deep drainage ditches and ankle-deep rough. Oakmont also has the game’s swiftest putting surfaces, which will likely be slowed down for the upcoming U.S. Open in 2016.

100 Greatest History: Ranked since 1966. Highest ranking: No. 4, 2003-04 & 2011-12

7(7) PEBBLE BEACH G. LINKS

Pebble Beach / Jack Neville & Douglas Grant (1919) 6,828 yards, Par 72 / Points: 67.6226

Not just the greatest meeting of land and sea in American golf, but the most extensive one, too, with nine holes perched immediately above the crashing Pacific surf — the fourth through 10th, plus the 17th and 18th. Pebble’s sixth through eighth are golf’s real Amen Corner, with a few Hail Marys are thrown in over an ocean cove on eight from atop a 75-foot-high bluff. Pebble will host another U.S. Amateur in 2018, and its sixth U.S. Open in 2019.

100 Greatest History: Ranked since 1966. Highest ranking: No. 1, 2001-02

8(11) NATIONAL G. LINKS OF AMERICA

Southampton, N.Y. / C.B. Macdonald (1911) 6,935 yards, Par 72 / Points: 66.9500

This is where Seth Raynor got his start. A civil engineer by training, he surveyed holes for architect C.B. Macdonald, who scientifically designed National Golf Links as a fusion of his favorite features from grand old British golf holes. National Golf Links is a true links containing a marvelous collection of holes. As the 2013 Walker Cup reminded us, Macdonald’s versions are actually superior in strategy to the originals, which is why National’s design is still studied by golf architects today, its holes now replicated elsewhere.

100 Greatest History: Ranked 1967-68 and from 1985. Highest ranking: Present.

9(8) WINGED FOOT G.C. (WEST)

Mamaroneck, N.Y. / A.W. Tillinghast (1923) 7,258 yards, Par 72 / Points: 66.6801

Gone are all the Norway Spruce that once squeezed every fairway of Winged Foot West. It’s now gloriously open and playable, at least until one reaches the putting surfaces, perhaps the finest set of green contours the versatile architect A.W. Tillinghast ever did, soon to be restored to original parameters by architect Gil Hanse. The greens look like giant mushrooms, curled and slumped around the edges, proving that as a course architect, Tillinghast was not a fun guy. Winged Foot West will host the 2020 U.S. Open.

100 Greatest History: Ranked since 1966. Highest ranking: No. 5, 1985-88

10(10) FISHERS ISLAND CLUB

Fishers Island, N.Y. / Seth Raynor & Charles Banks (1926) 6,566 yards, Par 72 / Points: 66.4241

Probably the consummate design of architect Seth Raynor, who died in early 1926, before the course had opened. His steeply-banked bunkers and geometric greens harmonize perfectly with the linear panoramas of the Atlantic Ocean and Long Island Sound. The quality of the holes is also superb, with all Raynor’s usual suspects, including not one but two Redan greens, one on a par 4.

100 Greatest History: Ranked 1969-74 and since ’01. Highest ranking: No. 9, 2009-10

To see the rest of Golf Digest’s 2016 rankings, go here!

Source: Ron Whitten of Golf Digest

Pictures: Dom Furore and Stephen Szurlej

Thanks for reading It is here – The latest list of America’s Top 100 Golf Courses!

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