The post ‘I was blown away’: Mid Ocean restoration aided by surprising discovery appeared first on Golf.

The post ‘I was blown away’: Mid Ocean restoration aided by surprising discovery appeared first on Golf.

In the grainy footage, shot a century ago, a nattily dressed man swings a hickory-shafted club with an easy, practiced motion.

The smooth mechanics aren’t surprising. Charles Blair Macdonald knew how to play the game.

The recently uncovered footage, discovered in the archives of the Smithsonian Institution by Mid Ocean Club member Rick Skelly, is believed to contain the only known moving images of the father of American golf architecture — playing the only course he designed outside the United States, no less.

“I was reviewing a longer film with classic 1920s Bermuda images when it suddenly switched to Mid Ocean and the 1st tee,” Skelly said in a press release. “I see this older gentleman take the club back, and immediately I think, ‘That’s C.B. Macdonald right there.’ I was blown away.”

The film is more than a historical curiosity. It also has become a research tool.

On Thursday, Mid Ocean announced that the design duo of Gil Hanse and Jim Wagner have been commissioned to restore the famed layout, which Macdonald completed in the early 1920s. As part of its work, Hanse’s team has studied the newly unearthed footage, along with other archival material, to help guide a restoration aimed at recapturing Macdonald’s original vision.

That vision includes the club’s celebrated par-4 5th, a dramatic Cape hole that doglegs around Mangrove Lake and which Hanse has called “one of the greatest holes in the world of golf.”

Hanse is no stranger to Macdonald’s work. His firm has restored several of the architect’s most celebrated designs, including Sleepy Hollow, The Creek and Yale, while also compiling an extensive portfolio of high-profile restoration projects at clubs such as Los Angeles Country Club, Seminole and Pinehurst No. 4.

“Ultimately our goal is to be faithful to Macdonald and restore his work,” Hanse said in a statement. “With the archival information and, ultimately, having a presence on site and being on the machinery myself, we will have an opportunity to get in the ground and faithfully restore what Macdonald and Raynor built on the property.”

Ranked among GOLF’s Top 100 Courses You Can Play, Mid Ocean is renowned for the variety of its challenge and the beauty of its views, moving from rugged oceanside cliffs to inland terrain before returning to the coastline, with template holes including the famed Cape 5th and Redan-inspired 17th. Macdonald himself was especially fond of the property, writing in his 1928 autobiography that there were “no more beautiful golfing vistas in the world” than those at National Golf Links of America, his most famous design — “unless it be those from The Mid Ocean Club in Bermuda.”

Those weren’t empty words. Though Macdonald summered at National (he was of a social class that used seasons as verbs), he wintered in a home overlooking the 5th hole at Mid Ocean every year until his death in 1939.

Hanse, too, has a personal connection to Mid Ocean. He first saw the course while on his honeymoon with his wife, Tracey, four decades ago.

Though Mid Ocean is a members club, it sets aside a tranche of tee times for the public. The restoration is scheduled to begin after a separate clubhouse renovation is completed, with the course expected to close for construction in the fall of 2027.

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The post On Georgia’s Golden Isles, a wealth of world-class golf | Destination Golf appeared first on Golf.

The post On Georgia’s Golden Isles, a wealth of world-class golf | Destination Golf appeared first on Golf.

The dynastic families of the Gilded Age had money to vacation wherever they wanted.

Often, where they went was the Georgia coast.

Then, as now, the barriers islands there were known as the Golden Isles, a moniker coined by early Spanish explorers in search of riches, though the name also fit the landscape itself, where the marshes glow gold beneath the coastal sun.

In time, the islands attracted a different kind of wealth. The Vanderbilts. The Rockefellers. The Carnegies. The Morgans. They came to escape winter, dodge the spotlight, fish, sail, bicycle and, naturally, play golf.

More than a century later, the Golden Isles remain one of America’s great golf destinations, with a concentration of standout courses that ranges from Golden Age classics to modern championship tests. The lineup includes acclaimed layouts at Sea Island and St. Simons Island, along with the newly restored Great Dunes on Jekyll Island, a heralded Walter Travis design.

To experience the area firsthand, GOLF.com recently spent a long weekend roaming the islands with the crew from St. Andre Golf — a dynastic clan of the Instagram-era whose comedy sketches have earned them a massive following. Outfitted by Johnnie-O, which supported the trip, we did our best to look the part.

The itinerary carried us from Sea Island Resort and a round on the Plantation Course (it dates to the 1920s but has since been renovated by local boys Davis Love III and his brother, Mark Love), then on to Jekyll Island for a loop at the reborn Great Dunes.

Golf, though, was only part of the story. We also engaged in Gilded Age cosplay, cruising the Intracoastal in search of dolphins, indulging in fresh seafood and, because no visit is complete without it, stopping at Southern Soul, the famed barbecue joint that’s as much a local institution as any golf course.

The Golden Isles still attract their share of wealth, including a leaderboard’s worth of PGA Tour pros. But for all the luxury, the place has retained its laid-back, salt-air spirit.

Watch the video above for a taste of an excursion to one of America’s richest golf destinations — in every sense of the word.

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The post Sam Snead’s favorite getaway has new look. But same old buddies’-trip appeal appeared first on Golf.

The post Sam Snead’s favorite getaway has new look. But same old buddies’-trip appeal appeared first on Golf.

Sam Snead was fond of golf but fonder still of fishing.

He played the former, he once said, so that he could earn enough to enjoy the latter. Lucky him. In the rural Virginia region where he was born and raised, both pursuits were within easy reach.

Worldwide renown awaited Snead, of course. But he retained his ties to the place where he got started: the Omni Homestead Resort & Spa, an historic retreat tucked into the folds of the Allegheny Mountains. In his early 20s, he was hired as the head professional at the Cascades Course, one of the property’s two venerable layouts. It remained his home club throughout his life. In 1983, at age 71, he shot a course-record 60 that still stands.

If Snead were around today, he’d find the spirit of the resort familiar. The mountains haven’t moved. The trout still hold in the same cold streams. And the golf footprint is largely unchanged. But he would also notice an awful lot that’s new. Three years ago, the resort completed a $150 million-plus renovation, a top-to-bottom refresh that touched guest rooms, dining, the spa and the grounds themselves, without disturbing the bones of a luxe getaway that made it a destination in the first place.

Start with the golf. The Old Course’s first tee sits in the same spot it has occupied since 1892, longer than any other continuously operating first tee in America. It’s part of a layout later reworked by two Golden Age giants, William S. Flynn and Donald Ross. A short drive away, the Flynn-design Cascades unspools through the mountains, all compelling angles and elevation changes with a lofty reputation to match. It ranks 35th on GOLF’s list of Top 100 Courses You Can Play, making it the highest-rated public-access course in Virginia. Combined with the Old Course, it’s all the championship-caliber golf that you can ask for, classically designed, ideal for walking, and all the more alluring in the shoulder seasons. In springtime, as nature awakens from its slumber, the trees lining the fairways fill with birdsong. Come autumn, when the weather turns wonderfully crisp, foliage sets the area ablaze with color.

But just as golf was never the whole story for Snead, it’s not the only pull for visitors today. Outdoor activities abound, including guided fly fishing outings in the same waters where Snead loved to cast his line. The surrounding mountains that framed Snead’s boyhood are laced with hiking trails, now easier to access thanks to the resort’s post-renovation trail and outdoors program, offering everything from an easy morning leg-stretcher to a more ambitious ridge hike with stunning panoramas of the mountains. And after the exertion, there’s the spa, one of the oldest in the country, drawing on the same natural mineral springs that gave the surrounding town of Hot Springs its name and that have been pulling visitors, U.S. presidents among them, to this stretch of Virginia since long before Snead picked up a golf club.

That distinctive mix of outdoor adventure and stress-reducing relaxation is by design, in keeping with the theme of Omni’s prestigious and expanding golf portfolio. The Homestead is one of three Omni properties to earn a spot on GOLF’s list of Top 100 Golf Resorts in the World, alongside Omni Barton Creek Resort & Spa in Austin and Omni PGA Frisco Resort & Spa, the new home of the PGA of America outside Dallas. Altogether, the the collection now spans nearly 30 courses across a dozen resorts nationwide, with designs from architects ranging from Donald Ross and A.W. Tillinghast to modern names like Tom Fazio, Gil Hanse, and Bill Coore and Ben Crenshaw.

Like Slammin’ Sammy, people come for the golf and stay for more.

For a buddies’ group, that’s the pitch: an invigorating trip that quickens your pulse but lowers your blood pressure, an active escape that also gives you room to do nothing at all. Test yourself on the same courses where generations of golfers have played before you. Chase Snead’s course record on the Cascades, or at least tell yourself you have a shot. Then close out the day the way Snead might have, rod in hand, mountains going gold at dusk, trading fish stories for golf stories. No need to embellish. At the Omni Homestead, the holds up nicely on its own.

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The post Inside the greatest golf clubhouses in America: a video tour of 5 iconic designs appeared first on Golf.

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It started with Shinnecock Hills.

When the Long Island club opened its clubhouse in 1892, it wasn’t just unveiling a handsome new building. It was opening what is widely regarded as the first golf clubhouse in the United States.

Like the championship course it overlooks, architect Stanford White’s design sits naturally in its surroundings, its wood-shingled exterior and wraparound veranda as graceful as they are understated, framing sweeping views of the links and the Atlantic beyond.

It was the first in its category, but hardly the last.

Over the next century-plus, thousands of clubhouses rose across America. Some were built for little more than function — cinderblock boxes with a pro shop and a snack bar. Others became architectural statements, steeped in history, personality and place.

Over the past year, GOLF.com has stepped inside some of the game’s most memorable clubhouses to see what makes them special.

At Oakmont, our videographers wandered halls lined with priceless memorabilia, passed beneath the watchful portrait of founder Henry Fownes and into a locker room where the wooden benches still bear spike marks from the likes of Ben Hogan and Jack Nicklaus.

At Sleepy Hollow, in New York’s Hudson Valley, we documented the evolution — and Gilded Age elegance — of a clubhouse that began its life as a Vanderbilt mansion.

At the Olympic Club, our cameras captured not one but two iconic homes: the stately clubhouse overlooking the Lake Course on San Francisco’s western edge and the grand downtown athletic club that has been a pillar of the city’s sporting scene for generations.

In Scottsdale, we explored Desert Mountain, where architect Bob Bacon walked us through the thinking behind a masterpiece that beautifully blurs the boundary between indoor and outdoor spaces.

Last but far from least, we turned our lenses on The Bridge, the exclusive Long Island club whose striking modernist clubhouse breaks from convention in all the right ways.

The result is a series of videos that goes beyond standard guided tours, offering an inside look at clubhouses that are as remarkable for their architecture as they are for the stories they inspire.

And though we have yet to produce video devoted exclusively to Shinnecock Hills’ clubhouse, we have filmed the experience of visiting the club, from its landmark clubhouse to its legendary links. You can watch that video here.

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The post The best fried chicken in golf? This muni makes a legitimate claim appeared first on Golf.

The post The best fried chicken in golf? This muni makes a legitimate claim appeared first on Golf.

The course next door.

That’s how Brookline Golf Course has long been known. There is, after all, no ignoring its location. The municipal layout in the Massachusetts town of the same name sits beside a luminous neighbor: The Country Club, a storied venue that has hosted four U.S. Opens.

A chain-link fence divides the two properties, but the distance between them runs far deeper than that — one is a private playground of immense prestige, the other a humble workhorse of public-access golf. During both the 1988 and 2022 U.S. Opens, Brookline Golf Course was pressed into service as a parking lot.

But the muni has an impressive pedigree of its own. Designed by Wayne Stiles and John Van Kleeck, it was the stomping grounds of Francis Ouimet. Best known for winning the 1913 U.S. Open, Ouimet also caddied at this very course back when it went by the name Putterham Meadows. A statue of him and his famous 10-year-old caddie from that Open win, Eddie Lowery, stands outside the clubhouse today.

These days, though, one of the course’s biggest attractions is inside that clubhouse: the food.

The Hemlock Grill has developed a following that extends well beyond golfers, drawing locals who come strictly for the menu. And the menu’s undisputed star is the fried chicken sandwich — named the best fried chicken in Boston by Boston Magazine. Not best at a golf course. Best in the city, period, beating out traditional restaurants across the board.

The creation of chef Alex Saenz — who is of Peruvian descent but grew up steeped in the cooking traditions of the Carolinas — the sandwich starts with a quick dunk in buttermilk. Not a lengthy marinade, just enough to keep the chicken tender. It’s then coated in a boldly seasoned spice blend, fried for precisely seven minutes until deeply crisp, and served on a pillowy potato bun with pickles.

The result is crunchy, juicy, and balanced, with just enough heat to keep you reaching for another bite.

Watch the video above to see how Saenz makes it. Turns out the course next door serves an irresistible main course, too.

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The post Sweetens Cove’s expansion aims to stay true to its cult-favorite roots appeared first on Golf.

The post Sweetens Cove’s expansion aims to stay true to its cult-favorite roots appeared first on Golf.

Sweetens Cove Golf Club, the beloved nine-hole course in rural Tennessee, faces a question familiar to punk-rock bands that hit commercial pay dirt: how to appeal to a growing market without compromising what made you popular in the first place?

It’s a fine line but Sweetens has been straddling it. Born in 2014 as a bootstrapping operation just west of Chattanooga, the course shed its underdog status soon enough. Instagram helped with that, flooding feeds with alluring posts from the game’s nascent influencer set. When, three years later, the New York Times rang in with feature coverage of the Rob Collins/Tad King design, Sweetens’ standing in the mainstream was firmly sealed. Never mind that golfers — and golf writers — continued to refer to it as a “cult favorite.” The course had become a juggernaut.

Today, Sweetens belongs to an ownership group that includes Peyton Manning, Andy Roddick and Reef Capital Partners, a prominent investment and real-estate development firm. It’s a burgeoning business. But its brass seems intent on staying true to the property’s original ethos, as recent expansion plans make clear.

The blueprint, which was rolled out earlier this month, calls for what might sound in broad strokes like familiar stuff: more golf, more amenities, more merch, and so on. Look closer, though, and you see that the line items are very much on brand. Topping the list is a new 13-hole short course, laid out to overlap with the existing 9-holer to allow for pick-your-pleasure cross-country play — a hallmark of the original Sweetens experience.

Other additions include what are described as a “casual” collection of “gathering places.” A restaurant and bar are in the works, along with a bottle shop and micro-distillery, the better to showcase the spirits line that Sweetens launched in 2020.

Ever since it opened, Sweetens has been a day-trip destination. That’s set to change. Plans also call for the property’s first “hospitality experience” — press-release speak for accommodations in the form of one-bedroom cabins with single or double occupancy. Those are slated to open in phases, starting late next year, followed by a putting green, three golf simulator bays, club fitting and retail. Down the line, a fishing dock, a skeet shooting range and an octagon-shaped barn and events space will be constructed, too. You get the picture. Sweetens aims to be a full-fledged stay-and-play. Or, as Collins puts it, “the ultimate 24-hour golf playground.”

What won’t change is the operating model, which is built not on traditional reservations but all-day passes, with no tee times on weekends. In recent years, those passes have been selling out for the season almost the instant they’re released.

Early adopters — whether they discovered a band before anyone else or found a golf course before the Instagram crowd did — tend to be a proprietary bunch. They’re the first to evangelize, and the first to cry sellout when they think that the object of their love has lost the plot. By all appearances, Sweetens ownership understands what it’s sitting on and is proceeding accordingly. The Dead Kennedys managed to build a robust following without softening their edges or alienating their original fans — no small feat for a band that made a point of being uncommercial. Sweetens strikes me as something closer to the Green Day of golf, now more pop than punk but still proud and protective of its roots.

3 things I’m thinking

Holding the line at Bandon: A lot of people build courses for the love of the game. But let’s be real — they’re also in it for the money, and there’s plenty of that in golf travel these days. Given demand at top resorts, a place like Bandon Dunes could raise its rates substantially and still sell out in an instant. Which makes this news especially refreshing. In an era when most marquee properties increase prices every year, Bandon has decided to hold steady. Green fees at the Oregon resort — currently ranging from $130 to $375 depending on the season — will remain unchanged in 2027.

Tiger Funds: Private equity doesn’t really own everything in golf. It just seems that way sometimes. If the name Reef Capital rings familiar, for instance, that’s because it keeps coming up. Aside from Sweetens, the firm’s portfolio includes Black Desert Resort in Utah (where expansion plans are also underway), Cornerstone Club in Colorado and Marcella Club (also in Utah), where a TGR Design course opens in July. Now comes word that Reef Capital’s Tributer Resort in central Virginia has tapped Woods for a second private layout — an 18-hole course that will join the existing Cutalong Golf Club, which is open to members and resort guests.

East Lake and beyond: Tee times are one way to experience special courses. Tournaments are another. On that front, ESPN is reporting that the Tour Championship — long held at East Lake Golf Club in Atlanta — will remain at that venue through 2027 but that the Tour is exploring the possibility of moving the event to more luminous surrounds. Pine Valley, Cypress Point, and Seminole are among the names being tossed around by the fast-moving online rumor mill. Sounds far-fetched. Then again, you would have said the same if we’d told you years ago that Augusta National would someday allow influencers to fling Frisbees around Amen Corner.

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The post Best drink. Best bite. Best locker room. Best range. The superlatives of Long Island golf appeared first on Golf.

The post Best drink. Best bite. Best locker room. Best range. The superlatives of Long Island golf appeared first on Golf.

Of the many acclaimed layouts on golf-rich Long Island, Shinnecock Hills is best, according to the rankings. The host of this week’s U.S. Open rings in at No. 5 on GOLF’s roster of Top 100 Courses in the World, one spot ahead of its next-door neighbor, National.

But the quality of a club is not defined by architecture alone.

A golf club is an ecosystem, and Long Island’s are as varied as Shinnecock is venerable. Some are laidback. Others are uptight. Some memberships insist on delectable cuisine. Others are satisfied with Cheez Wiz on Ritz crackers. Some bars are livelier. Some views more stunning. Some locker rooms more gloriously stuck in time.

To find out which clubs excel at what, and which charge most for the privilege of membership, we surveyed our well-traveled course-ranking panelists. The result is a list of Long Island superlatives.

Coolest historic clubhouse — Shinnecock Hills

Stanford White was shot to death at age 53, but not before establishing himself as a seminal figure in American architecture, with commissions that included the Washington Square Arch, the second building at Madison Square Garden and Shinnecock Hills’ clubhouse, which is regarded as the first purpose-built golf clubhouse in this country. And what a clubhouse it is, with cedar shingles, classical fluted columns, a wrap-around veranda and an understated beauty to match the course it overlooks.

Coolest modern clubhouse — The Bridge

When former USGA honcho David Fay first stepped inside the clubhouse at The Bridge, he is said to have noted how refreshing it was not to be surrounded by a bunch of “fake Scottish crap.” In lieu of hickory clubs and sepia-toned photos of men in tweed, the marvelous modern structure houses a mix of contemporary art and artifacts, many related to the property’s auto racing past. Nor is it a dark and mildewed space. Natural light floods in through floor-to-ceiling windows, which give way to alluring outdoor spaces that in turn provide astounding coastal views.

Most expensive — The Bridge

That stunning modern clubhouse did not come cheap. Neither do memberships at The Bridge, which, according to a well-placed source, command $2 million in initiation dues.

Best food — Atlantic Golf Club

Other clubs are renowned for their lunches, but serious culinarians on our panel —those who know there’s more to life than crudités and club sandwiches — say the finest meals are served at Atlantic, where the menu includes a lobster roll that surpasses even the famous one at National.

Best place for a beer — Bethpage Black

The bar at America’s most heralded muni is wonderfully on brand: buoyant and blue-collar, with a fine selection of suds by the bottle or on tap.

Best place for a cocktail — National Golf Links of America

A classic course calls for a classic post-round cocktail. Specifically, a Southside, sipped on the small porch outside the clubhouse, which overlooks the 18th green and Long Island Sound.

Stuffiest — Maidstone

This rule isn’t always true but it applies here: the more roman numerals at the end of members’ names, the less relaxed the atmosphere is bound to be. Then again, if your club sat on one of the most breathtaking stretches of property in American golf — ocean views, a private beach, a beach club that would make most resorts blush — you might carry yourself with a certain contentment too.

Most fraternal — Garden City Golf Club

Jackets are required inside the clubhouse, which doesn’t make this men’s-only enclave overly formal. “The guy at the bar is going to be wearing a sport coat,” one course rater says. “But he might not be wearing pants.”

Best locker room — The Creek

Just as a round at The Creek is a throwback adventure on a splendid C.B. Macdonald design, a locker room stop is a trip through time. No frills. No fuss. Just spot-on service and trapped-in-amber atmospherics, right down to the metal spike marks on the benches and the old course photos on the walls.

Best practice facility — Friar’s Head

While preparing for the 2018 U.S. Open at Shinnecock, Phil Mickelson would chopper over to Friar’s Head to take advantage of the practice grounds. No wonder. A cart ride from the 1st tee, the facilities feature an expansive driving range running east to west, an elaborate short-game area, a Himalayas-style putting green and three indoor/outdoor Trackman bays that allow you to seek answers in the data no matter the weather.

Best logo — Maidstone

At some tweedy clubs, the most interesting adornments on members’ attire are dandruff flakes and mustard stains. Not so at Maidstone, where the whimsical logo is a cheeky-looking blue whale spouting mist from its blowhole.

Best shower — Friar’s Head

Spacious stalls. Forceful and unfailing water pressure. And a boundless assortment of high-end toiletries. It’s as if Niagara Falls and a luxury spa had a baby.

Most underrated public course — Bethpage Red

All the artistry of A.W. Tillinghast at a scale more manageable — and, some would argue, more entertaining than what’s on offer at Bethpage Black.

Most underrated private course — St. George’s Golf and Country Club

It’s not on the water and has never hosted major national events. But the firm fairways and compelling green complexes at this 1917 Devereaux Emmet design (restored by Gil Hanse and Jim Wagner) delights aficionados for good reason.

Best on-course view — 17th tee at National

With apologies to the walking bridge between the 15th and 16th hole at Friar’s Head, our survey gave the nod to the teeing area on this par-4 Leven template, which sits near National’s windmill, on a high point of the property, and commands a panorama that makes it hard to focus on the shot at hand.

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The post Shinnecock Hills membership price: What it costs to join U.S. Open host appeared first on Golf.

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If you’re in the market for a starter home, you might look somewhere other than Southampton. 

The Long Island township where the U.S. Open gets underway on Thursday ranks among the spendiest zip codes in the country, with median home prices around $2.5 million. Quadrupling that figure gets you closer to the beach.

This is a luxe milieu of fancy cars and private jets, though a cooler mode of transport would be a time machine. Imagine if you had one. You could spin the clock back to the late 1800s, when this week’s national championship host, Shinnecock Hills, was founded. Seaside property was cheaper then. And Shinnecock owns a lot of it — nearly 300 acres, which were paid off long ago with money old enough to merit carbon-dating.

Not that all the fortunes trace back to the Mayflower. Michael Bloomberg, for instance, has his name above a locker at Shinnecock. 

How much would it cost for you to get the same? Fair question.

If you have to ask, it doesn’t necessarily mean you can’t afford it. But if you have to inquire about an invite, you probably aren’t going to get one. Bankrolls matter, but so do bloodlines. It’s not just what you have. It’s who you know.

As at many prestigious private clubs, Shinnecock keeps its inner-workings quiet. Initiation dues aren’t listed on the website. And members aren’t inclined to discuss dollar amounts.

GOLF consulted with half a dozen sources intimately acquainted with the club to arrive at an educated number. That figure? A cool $175,000 on the low end, but reportedly as high as $200,000.

For most people, that’s a lot of money. But it’s modest by the standards of Long Island private clubs, and a mere rounding error if you’ve managed to purchase a nearby manse.

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The post Go inside Riviera Country Club, the most exclusive clubhouse in golf appeared first on Golf.

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Riviera is a Golden Age design with the golden glow of Hollywood about it. Walt Disney, Gregory Peck and Humphrey Bogart were members, just as Larry David, Owen Wilson and Mark Wahlberg are today.

Yet for all the public figures who have walked its grounds — and for all the prominent tournaments it has hosted — the club protects itself from prying eyes.

Beyond its gated entrance in Pacific Palisades, a circular drive leads to an expansive Spanish Revival-style clubhouse that Riviera’s ownership regards as sacred. Cameras are forbidden, with rare exceptions.

One of those occasions came in the run-up to this week’s U.S. Women’s Open, when the club gave GOLF.com permission to film inside.

The guided tour — led by longtime Riviera member Michael Robin, with input from director of golf Todd Yoshitake and other veteran staffers — offered an intimate look at a stately space most golfers never get to see, steeped in history and filled with priceless memorabilia. Arched doorways open to a grand hall, with soaring ceilings and windows that peer out across the storied course. An adjacent room shimmers with glassed-in displays that make up a newly installed exhibition to commemorate the centennial that Riviera marks this year. From a patio outside, the view extends over the 18th hole and its famous amphitheater green to take in the Pacific in the near distance. Ocean breezes are a constant at Riviera, rippling the palm trees and complicating shots.

Downstairs, at ground level on the sloping property, is the terrace dining room and a corridor that leads to the locker room, its walls mounted with portraits of the greats who have won at Riviera, from Hal Sutton and Fred Couples to Phil Mickelson and Sam Snead. No name, though, looms larger at Riviera than Ben Hogan, who captured three titles (two L.A. Opens and the 1948 U.S. Open) in the span of 18 months — a feat that inspired Los Angeles Times columnist and Riviera member Jim Murray to nickname the course “Hogan’s Alley.”

“If you listen carefully and dream a little bit, you can feel the big galas from the Roaring Twenties and you can feel the giant events from the last 100 years here,” Robin told us.

The stories, though, are better heard in person. Watch the video above or below and get them straight from the source.

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The post Why London deserves consideration as the world’s greatest golf city appeared first on Golf.

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Scotland and Ireland own the conversation, and for good reason. St. Andrews, Muirfield, Royal County Down, Royal Portrush and Ballybunion are as good as advertised — possibly better. The difficulty is that everyone knows it. Tee times open 18 months in advance, and the most coveted are gone within hours. A trip that once felt like a rite of passage now requires the planning of a military operation.

The answer is hiding in plain sight. England. Crazy? Stay with me.

London may be the greatest golf city in the world. Melbourne is in the conversation, but no other city comes close. Within 45 minutes of Heathrow are four courses on GOLF’s World Top 100 list, and unlike New York, Chicago or San Fran, where golf of this caliber sits behind private gates, every one is open to the visiting golfer.

Travel

6 best golf resorts in Scotland, England and Wales | GOLF Top 100 Resorts

By: GOLF Editors

On the outskirts of the capital, the Surrey Sandbelt takes five days to play. Settle in and the courses — Sunningdale Old and New, St. George’s Hill, Swinley Forest — are 30 minutes apart. The least celebrated of those is ranked No. 57 on our World list. Walton Heath (Old) sits within an hour, and its sibling New Course rewards those who squeeze it into their itinerary. Six world-class rounds, well within reach of the airport. For the golfer with time to spare, the three W’s —Worplesdon, Woking and West Hill — are must-plays too.

For those traveling as a couple, Central London has it all. The hotels are among the finest anywhere. The restaurant scene has long since earned its place among the world’s best. Globally renowned art galleries, shopping, theater and live sports abound. A non-golfing partner will not be kept wanting while you play England’s best.

Two hours from London, the Southeast coast will reset your preconceptions about English golf. Royal St. George’s, Royal Cinque Ports and Prince’s sit side by side on linksland that belongs in the same conversation as any in the British Isles. Add Rye and, for many, the Southeast becomes the whole reason for the trip.

The South may have the glamour, but it doesn’t have all the golf. Four hours north of London, Royal Liverpool, Royal Lytham and Royal Birkdale need no introduction. Hillside, Wallasey and Formby complete a stretch that would be celebrated the world over were it located almost anywhere else.

The tee sheets are open, the courses are in magnificent shape and the golfer who makes the trip to England leaves asking the same question: What took me so long?

Book your 2027 (and beyond) dream trip with 8AM Golf by contacting discovery@8amtravel.com.

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