The post These obstacles make their Top 100 Courses in the UK & Ireland even more special appeared first on Golf.

The post These obstacles make their Top 100 Courses in the UK & Ireland even more special appeared first on Golf.

Timeless designs, beautiful views, and… brick walls? Scotland is known for many things to American golfers, but perhaps some of the best stories involve these two holes. GOLF architecture editor Ran Morrissett and senior writer Josh Sens discuss.

The post These obstacles make their Top 100 Courses in the UK & Ireland even more special appeared first on Golf.

The post InsideGOLF Exclusive: Behind the Top 100 Courses curtain with our expert course raters appeared first on Golf.

The post InsideGOLF Exclusive: Behind the Top 100 Courses curtain with our expert course raters appeared first on Golf.

Curious about how GOLF’s Top 100 Courses in the World list comes together? This behind-the-scenes conversation with our expert course raters shines a light on the process. The group discusses the most important trends and surprises from this year’s list. Which course just missed the cut? How did the pandemic impact the rating process? Will another course ever challenge Pine Valley for the top spot? GOLF Architecture Editor Ran Morrissett, course raters Thomas Brown and Simon Holt, and GOLF Senior Editor Sean Zak share their insights.

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The post The best hole I ever played: The quirky par-4 13th at North Berwick is a linksland gem appeared first on Golf.

The post The best hole I ever played: The quirky par-4 13th at North Berwick is a linksland gem appeared first on Golf.

Our knowledgeable crew of course raters have stuck pegs in the ground just about everywhere. But which holes stand out as the greatest they’ve ever played? We asked them, and they replied with love letters about their faves. This offering comes from course architect Brian Curley.

I would imagine that one’s favorite anything would be a combination of comfort, inspiration, admiration and joy, be it a book, movie, song or golf hole.

That said, I’m going to add another requirement and insist that it be a “true” golf hole (not one of those pretty boy, garden-variety parkland holes) and, therefore, a links hole where the ball tumbles along the terrain, falling victim to or benefiting from the effects of gravity.

There are many to choose from but one of the best is the 13th at North Berwick,“The Pit.”

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This short, quirky par-4 plays along the shoreline and features an ancient stone wall that runs on a straight line for most of the hole, dividing the fairway from the green.

Avoiding a couple of pot bunkers and playing close to the wall leaves the best angle of approach but also can impede the shot. Play away from the wall and you are left with a precarious drop shot over the wall to a tiny green set into a punchbowl backed by gorse.

The green surface is within a footstep of touching the stone wall. It’s one of those holes you think about and look forward to while standing on the first tee.

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The post No limits: Why golf course design should embrace variety appeared first on Golf.

The post No limits: Why golf course design should embrace variety appeared first on Golf.

These days, social media is crowded with shouters convinced there’s just one right way in course design. But what makes our sport so meaningful for traveling golfers is the infinite variety of our playing fields. Rather than homing in on one “right” kind of design, embrace them all. Don’t knock Harbour Town because its tree-menaced fairways and tiny greens are poker-table flat. Many of us love it because it calls for precision over power and, as with few other courses, asks you to flight and bend the ball.

To the critics gleeful to see Firestone Country Club’s South course exit the Tour schedule after nearly 60 years, tsk-tsk. Are its many parallel fairways and elevated greens repetitive? Perhaps. Does it embody a graceful style, with gimmick-free shot values that players enjoy? Absolutely.

Naysayers nitpick the artificial features that fortify hazards or greens (like the rocks at Bay Hill or PGA West) but fawn over the stone wall at the 13th green at Scotland’s North Berwick. Absurd.

Then there’s the “natural” vs. “manufactured” debate. It’s often said there are no straight lines in nature. As my favorite Golden Age architect, Alister MacKenzie, put it, “The chief object of every golf architect…worth his salt is to imitate the beauties of nature so closely as to make his work indistinguishable from nature itself.” Yet there’s today’s trendy hero worship of 1920s greats C.B. Macdonald and Seth Raynor, with their straight lines and sharp edges.

To MacKenzie’s salt, I say pepper is okay. There’s no single correct design template. As my brother-in-law likes to say about courses, “It’s all ice cream. It’s all good. Some people just like chocolate more than vanilla and strawberry, and there are different kinds of chocolate out there.” So savor every flavor you can.

The post No limits: Why golf course design should embrace variety appeared first on Golf.