I didn’t get a chance to play many new courses in 2024. Most of the new courses that I played were on a hiking trip that I took through Indiana, Missouri, Arkansas, and Tennessee in November. Those courses—the Pfau Course at Indiana University, Ozarks National, and the Highland Course at Primland were probably half of the new courses that I played. The Pfau Course was the best new course that I played in 2024.
But I also had an open weekend to myself back in May and took the opportunity to head down to Williamsburg, Virginia to play two courses that had been on my radar for awhile: the Gold Course at Golden Horseshoe, a Robert Trent Jones Sr. design and Royal New Kent, a Mike Strantz design. Golden Horseshoe seems to have always been considered one of the best of Robert Trent Jones Sr.’s courses and while his style of design is definitely out-of-favor at the moment, I’ve written with admiration about some of his other highly regarded courses, namely the Heather Course at Boyne Highlands and the Dunes in Myrtle Beach. These are two stern, solid tests of golf which good ball strikers will appreciate. They’re well-routed, with very short green-to-tee walks and only one poor hole between them (18 at Boyne Highlands), although there also aren’t too many great ones (13 at the Dunes is a very notable exception).
While it shares some of the strengths of those courses, Golden Horseshoe has a different feel. It’s shorter, tighter, and club choice from the tee requires a lot of thought. That’s because the property here was, I think, much more challenging than what Jones had either at Boyne or the Dunes. Both of those courses wander around broad properties over modest terrain. This property is narrow (the widest part is 400 yards but most is around 250), long, and bisected by a ravine/lake, the sides of which are too steep to route anything but a par 3. The result is a set of ravine/lake-hopping par 3s for which the course is famous, but also several short, doglegging par 4s and a few awkward par 5s.
That may not sound like the most appealing description. But like Boyne and the Dunes, there’s a lot to appreciate here. Courses that either take driver out of your hands or make you think twice before hitting it are not in favor today, but this one illustrates why it’s not always a bad thing. There are several short par 4s here where if you can just temper your ego and go no further than 200-215 yards, you can save yourself a lot of trouble. On some of these, there’s a reasonable option to hit it a bit further, but you’ll have to shape your drive. Trees (also out-of-favor to an excessive degree), doglegs, and, to a lesser extent, fairway slope affect play off the tee here significantly. Very rarely can you stand on a tee and confidently bomb away. You can still probably hit driver on most longer holes but on almost every one of them, you should look around, check some yardages, and think before you do. I found myself having to think more standing on the tee here than usual, even more than some of our modern courses so highly touted for their strategic nature.
The ~400 yard first hole is a good example of this, although, perhaps appropriately so, to a lesser degree given that it’s the first hole. It doglegs right well short of 300 yards and there appears to be junk up the left side of the fairway. Indeed there is—it was probably only about 275 to reach it from where I played. Not a hard driving hole, but one where you need to be careful.
But I also had an open weekend to myself back in May and took the opportunity to head down to Williamsburg, Virginia to play two courses that had been on my radar for awhile: the Gold Course at Golden Horseshoe, a Robert Trent Jones Sr. design and Royal New Kent, a Mike Strantz design. Golden Horseshoe seems to have always been considered one of the best of Robert Trent Jones Sr.’s courses and while his style of design is definitely out-of-favor at the moment, I’ve written with admiration about some of his other highly regarded courses, namely the Heather Course at Boyne Highlands and the Dunes in Myrtle Beach. These are two stern, solid tests of golf which good ball strikers will appreciate. They’re well-routed, with very short green-to-tee walks and only one poor hole between them (18 at Boyne Highlands), although there also aren’t too many great ones (13 at the Dunes is a very notable exception).
While it shares some of the strengths of those courses, Golden Horseshoe has a different feel. It’s shorter, tighter, and club choice from the tee requires a lot of thought. That’s because the property here was, I think, much more challenging than what Jones had either at Boyne or the Dunes. Both of those courses wander around broad properties over modest terrain. This property is narrow (the widest part is 400 yards but most is around 250), long, and bisected by a ravine/lake, the sides of which are too steep to route anything but a par 3. The result is a set of ravine/lake-hopping par 3s for which the course is famous, but also several short, doglegging par 4s and a few awkward par 5s.
That may not sound like the most appealing description. But like Boyne and the Dunes, there’s a lot to appreciate here. Courses that either take driver out of your hands or make you think twice before hitting it are not in favor today, but this one illustrates why it’s not always a bad thing. There are several short par 4s here where if you can just temper your ego and go no further than 200-215 yards, you can save yourself a lot of trouble. On some of these, there’s a reasonable option to hit it a bit further, but you’ll have to shape your drive. Trees (also out-of-favor to an excessive degree), doglegs, and, to a lesser extent, fairway slope affect play off the tee here significantly. Very rarely can you stand on a tee and confidently bomb away. You can still probably hit driver on most longer holes but on almost every one of them, you should look around, check some yardages, and think before you do. I found myself having to think more standing on the tee here than usual, even more than some of our modern courses so highly touted for their strategic nature.
The ~400 yard first hole is a good example of this, although, perhaps appropriately so, to a lesser degree given that it’s the first hole. It doglegs right well short of 300 yards and there appears to be junk up the left side of the fairway. Indeed there is—it was probably only about 275 to reach it from where I played. Not a hard driving hole, but one where you need to be careful.
This drive isn't too hard but turns just soon enough that you either have to lay back a bit or hit a fade.
The approach is straightforward but beware: left and long are no good.
There’s a tee right behind the first green that plays over a valley to a very narrow fairway. This is not the second hole. It’s the eleventh hole. Like I would do at the Pfau Course later in the year, I accidentally hit a drive here (although didn’t play two holes like I did there) before realizing it. This tee is so close to the first green and the second tee is so close to the tenth green however that I think once upon a time, this was the sequence of holes. This course is very tightly routed and this is the only clunky spot, which makes me think it wasn’t Jones’s idea.
The (current) actual second is a very short par 5, maybe 480 and all downhill after the drive. But it’s a very tough drive. The fairway gradually turns left around a bunker and if you pull it left of the pine tree in the distance at all, you’ll probably run into the trees on the left. If there were ever a par 5 where you might want to club down off the tee, it’s this one.
The (current) actual second is a very short par 5, maybe 480 and all downhill after the drive. But it’s a very tough drive. The fairway gradually turns left around a bunker and if you pull it left of the pine tree in the distance at all, you’ll probably run into the trees on the left. If there were ever a par 5 where you might want to club down off the tee, it’s this one.
The first green is in the bottom left. We might think that the tee over the cart path behind it is the second. It isn't; that's the eleventh. You need to go about 100 yards down the cart path to the left of the eleventh. That's the second, right behind the tenth green. I suspect that at one point the current second followed the current tenth.
Another drive that turns right a bit short of where you'd like it to. This one's also a bit narrower than the first.
If you pull off a good drive, you should be able to reach the green in two and it’s a very dramatic shot if so—over a pond to a shallow green with bunkers at its flanks. It’s about as exacting an approach into a par 5 as I can think of, although it’s fair given how short the hole is. The pond starts maybe 75 yards from the green and the ground slopes toward it so if you’re laying up, lay well back.
It's an incredibly tough shot if going for the green in two, but also a pretty exciting one. Unfortunately I drove it into the trees on the left, so I didn't get to experience it.
It’s a steep but short uphill climb to the first of four noteworthy par 3s. This is the only one that doesn’t play across the ravine/lake that we crossed to get to the second green, but it does play over a small pond (which shouldn’t be in play). The green sits in an amphitheater and angles from front-left to back-right. You don’t want to miss left here.
This is both a good-looking and good par 3. Just don't miss long left.
Four is a longer (~420 yards) par 4 in the broader back part of the property. Although it feels like there’s more room here, the bunker on the right probably takes 250 to carry and it’s possible to run into trees on the left. This hole also turns right and the green is well-defended by two bunkers, with back-left pins (like ours!) especially tough to reach. A very good Trent Jones Sr. longer par 4.
This drive feels a bit more open, but you can still run into trouble if you pull it a bit.
Especially for back-left pins such as this, you'll be in better position if you hug the right fairway bunker. The green angles from front-right to back-left and space gets a bit tight at the back.
Five is the first of three short par 4s at the end of the front nine, all of which require you to be very careful with your drive. This one probably presents the greatest opportunity of the three because it’s straight away. But the landing area is also blind from the tee and you can’t tell what’s short and left of the green. It looks like you might run out of space there.
If you’re a straight driver, it’s probably worth taking driver here. But there isn’t that much room to miss, especially up the left. The green, moreover, is narrow but deep. So it rewards a shot coming from the middle of the hole.
If you’re a straight driver, it’s probably worth taking driver here. But there isn’t that much room to miss, especially up the left. The green, moreover, is narrow but deep. So it rewards a shot coming from the middle of the hole.
Another issue with this drive is that you need to hit it probably at least 210 to reach the top of the hill and not have a blind approach. So it's still a bit tricky if you lay up; you need to hit it longer than 210 but longer than 230 and you bring the right bunker into play.
The green is narrow and deep, so you'll also want to get it close enough to the green to reduce the likely dispersion on your approach.
If there’s one hole I didn’t care for at Golden Horseshoe, it’s the par 5 sixth. It’s an even shorter par 5 than two, but also narrower and much more awkward. You drive over the crest of a hill that’s only about 230 out and then the hole turns right. Unless you hit a very accurate, gentle fade, it’s easy to run into junk left of the fairway. And the right side runs off into the woods. So yes, it’s a par 5. But again, if there were ever a par 5 where you might want to club down off the tee, it’s this one.
I'd probably recommend to myself not to hit driver on this hole if I play here again. Or at least hit a fairway finder.
There's just a lot of trouble on both sides and it isn't particularly wide. The lay up is also a bit tricky if you're well back because there's a pretty significant dip in front of the green.
Looking back on this awkward hole from the green.
Seven is the next par 3, which means we’re crossing the lake again. The green is well up the hill and there’s no danger of getting wet, but it’s about 200 yards and a very tough target. There really isn’t any good place to miss around this green so hopefully you’re hitting your long irons or hybrids well.
While pretty, this is a very tough par 3. If you miss left, your ball can kick almost all the way down to the second fairway.
The view back to the tee.
Eight is another short par 4, doglegging sharply to the left around some large trees and with bunker up the right starting at 215. If there were ever a par 4 to just go straight to your 5-iron, it’s this one. There’s no reason to get aggressive here. There simply isn’t enough room.
The best play here is 200-210 yards at the right edge of the bunkers. The further left you are, the further you'll need to go or you can be blocked by trees up the left.
While you'll probably just have some kind of gap wedge into the green, the green is narrow and deep. A degree of precision is required. The green also wraps behind the bunker on the right.
Nine is another narrow, doglegging par 4, a bit longer than the previous two at about 370. Again, driver is a very poor choice here with bunkers starting on the right at 230 and thick trees (but not forest—you can find your ball here) up the left. I don’t think you should lay back as far here as on eight—220-230 is better here to shorten the approach.
While I’d recommend laying up on all the short par 4s on the front, you might end up choosing three different clubs to do so because the bunkers start and/or holes turn at different distances. I haven’t seen a course that makes me think so much about how to lay up off the tee in a while. It’s actually a very good way to combat distance off the tee yet still keep interest in the tee shots.
While I’d recommend laying up on all the short par 4s on the front, you might end up choosing three different clubs to do so because the bunkers start and/or holes turn at different distances. I haven’t seen a course that makes me think so much about how to lay up off the tee in a while. It’s actually a very good way to combat distance off the tee yet still keep interest in the tee shots.
Another uncomfortable drive. This time, it's best to pick something you can hit around 230.
The approach is less demanding than most on the front nine.
One thing that’s been missing so far is a tough long par 4. Well, we get that on ten. At 465 yards, this is one of the toughest par 4s that I’ve played, primarily because of how difficult the drive is. The hole turns gently right around some pretty large trees and again, if you go up the left side, your drive can run straight into the trees with a drive of about 230 yards. You almost have to hit a fade here.
On a course that's quite demanding off the tee, I think that the drive on ten is the toughest of all. This drive strongly favors a soft fade.
I actually like the design of this green quite a bit. You can run the ball in up the left side and use the slope to feed it to back-right hole locations such as this one.
The (real) eleventh hole is very intimidating off the tee, with trees encroaching from the right and poor visibility (but more trees) up the left. It’s clear by this point that the principal difficulty with this course is driving. But this green is elevated, well-protected by bunkers, and runs off hard at the left and back. So unless you’ve hit a good drive, the approach to this mid-length par 4 isn’t easy either.
This drive presents a pretty good challenge to that on ten for toughest on the course. But this hole is also 60 yards shorter, so it's ok to give up a few yards for accuracy.
This is one of the more challenging greens to hit. So maybe it would have been a good idea to have gotten a few extra yards off the tee. You don't really want a 7-iron into this green.
Twelve may not be as famous as the final par 3, but it might be the most demanding of the set. It’s about 160 downhill and the wind can wreak havoc on your shot (as I know all too well). The green has pretty good back-left to front-right slope, so the safer you play away from the water, the tougher your next shot will be.
The green is large, but there's trouble everywhere. I liked this hole. And all the other par 3s for that matter.
Thirteen brings us back to the broader part of the property. The drive is a bit awkward again, with the fairway mostly hidden from view and turning left (there’s more room right than you think). The approach is one of the best-looking on the course, to a green surrounded by well-sculpted bunkers.
A fine-looking approach.
Fourteen is the second long par 4 and is probably the easiest drive so far, doglegging right around a bunker that takes 250-260 to carry. These bunker distances off the tee seem very 1960 but for most of us, they still work well! Bombers could carry all of them easily…the only problem with that being that the holes almost all also turn around trees and unless you pick just the right line, you’d bomb it into trees on one side or the other.
I’d challenge any of today’s 340 yard driving kids to hit driver off every tee here. They’d shoot a worse score than I did!
I’d challenge any of today’s 340 yard driving kids to hit driver off every tee here. They’d shoot a worse score than I did!
This drive is similar to that on four, just to the left.
Drive placement isn't so important here as the green is wide open in front.
One hole that distancewise would still stand up to the kids is the fifteenth, a par 5 that takes up about 10% of the course’s total yardage. From the tips, this hole is 635 and not much wider than most of what we’ve seen so far, with bunkers up both sides of the fairway to about 280 and the forest encroaching past that on the left.
This hole has one of the Trent Jones Sr. trademark 'runway tees.' Hopefully the greenskeeper has placed your tees well down the runway because this hole is almost long enough to require a flight to reach the green. The second is pretty simple but beware of a small bunker about 90 yards short of the green on the right. Apart from that, the rest of the hole is pretty simple.
There doesn't appear to be much trouble other than a bit of narrowness. But there is a bunker on the right and it's close to the ideal lay up spot.
Here's that bunker. It's probably the smallest on the course and in just the right spot, given the angle of the green off to the back left.
If there’s one hole at Golden Horseshoe that’s well-known, it’s the par 3 sixteenth, which plays to a very wide island green. Actually it isn’t much of an island, with plenty of space around the margins and just a few feet of marsh at the back side before you return to dry land. But it is a very pretty hole and an interesting one tee. The green is large but the green is shallow at the sides, giving reason for pause on shots to most pins…except perhaps those in the middle of the green like ours (but don’t go long!).
This hole is both photogenic and interesting, although center and back pins like this one are probably the least interesting.
Seventeen is another narrow, longer par 4 but it doesn’t play quite as narrow as it looks because a miss right will kick off a hill back into the fairway. This hole is more notable for the approach, which is one of the toughest on the course—about 30 feet uphill to a tabletop green that’s narrow in front and flanked by bunkers. There’s significant danger in going at any front pins because the green has a pretty good false front and the bunkers are deep.
This drive looks narrow but plays much wider because a push will kick left back into the fairway.
The approach is much tougher; substantially uphill to a narrow green with a pretty nasty false front and deep bunkers on both sides.
But as we can see from the nearby eighteenth tee, there's more room at the back of the green. So it's best to hedge long to any pins other than those in the back.
Eighteen is the classic tough par 4 finishing hole. I hit an excellent drive, my best drive of the day…which was really unfortunate because the right fairway bunker is about 300 yards from the tee and I reached it after thinking I couldn’t. But you still need a long drive here because the hole doglegs pretty far out from the tee and if you’re up the left side and not at least 275, you might still be blocked. It’s better to play up the right, but the tree line also encroaches on this side. Despite the yardage (~445), it might be best to club down or at least gear down your driver here.
The best play here is at the distant fairway bunker, but no further than about 280.
A nice downhill approach to finish. But do not miss left, which is a pond.
I really enjoyed Golden Horseshoe. It’s a very good test of golf and poses a greater variety of challenges off the tee than most courses I’ve seen. It’s a type of test of golf that we really don’t see anymore. And that’s in large part because new courses eschew lines and clumps of trees as valued elements of a golf course. Yet these create situations that can’t be easily replicated without them. Nothing requires you to shape the ball and control the trajectory of your shots like trees. The professed alternatives—firm ground, heavy contour—make you consider what the ball will do when it hits the ground, but they don’t place as great a demand on shaping and trajectory. Adding wind to the mix gets closer, but it can’t knock your ball straight to the ground, off into the woods…or maybe back into the fairway. And the narrowness that trees can create adds an intimidation factor that as a playing golfer I hate, but as a judge of golf and golf courses cannot deny is an good testing element of the game, at least when used in moderation.
What makes Golden Horseshoe such a good test of driving is the way that it mixes elements. Some holes are narrow. Some fairways are flat, but some slope left and some slope right. Several holes dogleg, but at different distances and in different directions. The bunkers are placed at different distances off the tee. All of this creates a course that pushes you toward hitting a greater variety of clubs and shots off the tee than just about any other that I’ve seen. And Jones Sr. managed to get this variety while still creating a very tightly routed and walkable course. That’s an impressive accomplishment, especially given the challenging nature of the property.
So this is one of my favorite public courses then, right? Well, not quite. I’ve said a lot about this course as a test of driving, but not so much about the approach shots or the greens. And that’s because there’s less interest here. I liked the look of the green side bunkering, but there isn’t a lot of creativity in the placement. The green contours are solid, but nothing special. I do think that there’s a nice mix of green sites and shapes. Some are on flatter ground, some are built into hills. Some are deep and narrow, some are wide and shallow. Some are in between. So I think that there’s very good variety in the approach play required here, but less in the short game.
All of that adds up to a lot. It adds up to more than the overall vibes I got from the course, which is that it’s very good, but not a top 100 public course. To be honest, while I probably wouldn’t vote for it for such a list (although maybe I’m convincing myself as I type…), I’m not sure that I can come up with a good enough set of reasons not to. Yeah maybe I’d like a little more short grass around some of the greens, more variety in the green side bunkering, and some more interesting green contours. But if the driving and variety of green sizes and shapes is so good, isn’t that enough? Maybe it is. Plus, I like the par 3s. And it’s well-routed under challenging circumstances.
So maybe this course is better than my gut feeling about it. After all, my gut feeling has been developed from 25 years of reading Tom Doak and 20 years of reading Golf Club Atlas, so the current ‘approved’ style of golf architecture is completely engrained in me. And this isn’t it. But there’s also been pushback against elements of this school recently, which my review echoes and tries to expand on. And the one thing that’s novel about this course, how it makes you constantly shift gears off the tee, is a good antidote to the modern game and a welcome change of pace from modern courses, where there isn’t enough disincentive to bombing away off the tee. As I tell my students, it’s always worth thinking hard about the gut feeling that you have. And when you do, you often find that it's missing something.
However anyone, including myself, would rate Golden Horseshoe or place it on a list, it’s certainly a course worth playing if you’re anywhere near Williamsburg, Virginia.
What makes Golden Horseshoe such a good test of driving is the way that it mixes elements. Some holes are narrow. Some fairways are flat, but some slope left and some slope right. Several holes dogleg, but at different distances and in different directions. The bunkers are placed at different distances off the tee. All of this creates a course that pushes you toward hitting a greater variety of clubs and shots off the tee than just about any other that I’ve seen. And Jones Sr. managed to get this variety while still creating a very tightly routed and walkable course. That’s an impressive accomplishment, especially given the challenging nature of the property.
So this is one of my favorite public courses then, right? Well, not quite. I’ve said a lot about this course as a test of driving, but not so much about the approach shots or the greens. And that’s because there’s less interest here. I liked the look of the green side bunkering, but there isn’t a lot of creativity in the placement. The green contours are solid, but nothing special. I do think that there’s a nice mix of green sites and shapes. Some are on flatter ground, some are built into hills. Some are deep and narrow, some are wide and shallow. Some are in between. So I think that there’s very good variety in the approach play required here, but less in the short game.
All of that adds up to a lot. It adds up to more than the overall vibes I got from the course, which is that it’s very good, but not a top 100 public course. To be honest, while I probably wouldn’t vote for it for such a list (although maybe I’m convincing myself as I type…), I’m not sure that I can come up with a good enough set of reasons not to. Yeah maybe I’d like a little more short grass around some of the greens, more variety in the green side bunkering, and some more interesting green contours. But if the driving and variety of green sizes and shapes is so good, isn’t that enough? Maybe it is. Plus, I like the par 3s. And it’s well-routed under challenging circumstances.
So maybe this course is better than my gut feeling about it. After all, my gut feeling has been developed from 25 years of reading Tom Doak and 20 years of reading Golf Club Atlas, so the current ‘approved’ style of golf architecture is completely engrained in me. And this isn’t it. But there’s also been pushback against elements of this school recently, which my review echoes and tries to expand on. And the one thing that’s novel about this course, how it makes you constantly shift gears off the tee, is a good antidote to the modern game and a welcome change of pace from modern courses, where there isn’t enough disincentive to bombing away off the tee. As I tell my students, it’s always worth thinking hard about the gut feeling that you have. And when you do, you often find that it's missing something.
However anyone, including myself, would rate Golden Horseshoe or place it on a list, it’s certainly a course worth playing if you’re anywhere near Williamsburg, Virginia.
RSS Feed