Cape Kidnappers

Founded
Tom Doak, 2004

Drone shots of this course are evocative, showing holes located on fingers of land hundreds of feet above the Pacific Ocean. But golf is played from the ground, not the air, and that’s just fine here as the tumbling landforms are ideal for golf. The course’s most famous hole is also its most feared, the 650-yard, par-5 15th, which falls away on both sides of the fairway and sports a horizon green perched precariously on a bluff overlooking the ocean. Architecture buffs are likely to be just as captivated by the playing angles at the preceding hole, a short two-shotter with a Road Hole green complex. (Photo: Gary Lisbon)