Of every course that I’ve played, there probably isn’t one that would elicit stronger opinions from golfers than Mike Strantz’s Tobacco Road. It has to be one of the boldest courses ever designed, with fairways winding through 40 foot high mounds, greens located in 15X100 ft. trenches, and bunkers that look like they must have been shaped by the air force. In addition to being completely original, some of these holes are absolutely brilliant. Among well-traveled people, I wouldn’t be surprised if there’s pretty good agreement that the best 3 or 4 holes here would hang with the best 3 or 4 holes on almost any course in the world.

But Tobacco Road also has some of the worst holes that I’ve ever played. Several greens are extremely shallow (like 15-20 ft.) and very wide (in some cases 60-80 yards) with junk short and long. In addition to being, in my opinion, aesthetically ugly, these shots are almost impossible to play for higher handicap golfers. Even if part of the green is a bit deeper, if you successfully play to it, you’ll have a 70 or 80 ft. putt where you can’t go at the hole. If they go at the hole unsuccessfully, the next few shots are likely to be back-and-forth across the green from unforgiving hardpan sand (all of the course’s bunkers are waste bunkers). This, plus blindness and narrowness on the way to several greens (but usually not in the driving zone) makes Tobacco Road one of the hardest courses for high handicap golfers that I’ve seen.

Low handicap golfers, however, are likely to tear this place up. The landing areas for good drives are all very wide and you’ll be playing a short iron to all these wide, shallow greens. As long and the course isn’t wet or you pick your irons clean (even though it’s on pure sand, there are a lot of soggy catchment basins), the low handicapper should shoot well because the course isn’t very long. Especially given their proximity, I see this course as sort-of an anti-Pinehurst no.2; extremely hard for the high handicapper, but easy for the low handicapper. Lots of trouble in front, but usually less to the sides. Often no reasonable place for a high handicapper to miss and if there is, it usually isn’t somewhere in front of the green.


We find another of the course’s anti-Pinehurst no. 2—in fact anti-Donald Ross—aspects at the first hole: a long, difficult par 5 with potentially several blind shots. More a kick in the balls than a gentle handshake. And also a very good example of a hole that’s tough for high handicappers but not for low handicappers. It’s a pretty noteworthy drive—between two 40 ft. tall dunes. It’s only about 210 yards to get past the first dune on the right from near the tips. But if you only carry the ball 150 yards, you’re going to have to navigate the probably 20 ft. wide opening between them.

If you’ve hit a good drive up the left, you’ll have a partial view through a cleft in another dune ridge that crosses the fairway about 120 yards short of the green. Although you have to have played the course or taken a look over the ridge, it’s a great second shot for good players because the fairway on the other side is wide, but there’s a huge advantage to being up the left side. The left side of the green is open while the right side is obscured by another ridge with bunkers. I thought that the green was the most beautiful on the course; it sits gently on the land and runs front-to-back with the general slope. Despite the difficulties for higher handicappers, I thought that this was a great hole and I was really excited to see what comes next.

The second hole continues with the visual confusion. You drive over a huge waste bunker, which depending on which of the back tees you play, is a 220-240 yard carry. If you can’t carry it (in which case, you should move up a set of tees), you have to play way out to the right and will have a completely blind shot. But this drive is one of many examples of something that I don’t really like: if you can make a carry, the fairway is unmissably wide. If you can’t, either the shot’s unplayable or you have to take some bizarre alternative route.

The third is probably my favorite par 3 on the course. The green is almost 60 yards deep but it’s very interesting, with a large swale in the middle third and a ridge on the right that enables you to work the ball to back hole locations. You have to be accurate, but the fact that the whole green is accessible and the interesting contours make this one of the better, and less controversial holes on the course.

Another one of the best and least controversial holes is the dogleg left, short par 5 fourth. It’s just a great hole. The dominant feature here is the huge waste bunker that runs from the landing area to the green. The closer you keep your ball to it, the easier it will be to reach the green in two. But the bunker cuts into the lay-up zone so if you drive it out to the right, you’ll have to figure out how much of the bunker you can carry. The further right you go, the blinder the shot (but it’s wide open) and the more awkward the angle for the approach. If you’re too far right, an oak tree right of the green will partially block a shot to the back of the green. If you go for it in two, you can use the slopes short and right of the green to run your ball onto the green. It’s a great hole that works for everyone.

I think that the short par 4 fifth is also a great hole, but there’s some serious danger out there. You can go straight for the green to the left with only about a 210-230 yard carry over the sand. Again, the fairway to the right is very wide and you only need to go about 200-215 if you lay-up. But the green is severe; shallow from the lay-up area, with a false front that’ll take your ball 25 yards back off the front of the green. There’s a reasonable amount of room up there, but make sure that you take enough club and err a bit right.

After the first five holes, I thought that I might be playing one of the small handful of best courses that I’ve played. My view started to change at the short par 3 sixth. It starts with the routing--the sixth green and seventh tees are right behind the fifth green, but we must walk ~150 yards back to get to the sixth tees. Then the hole features one of the course’s unfortunate signature features: a green that’s about 15 ft. deep in many places and 60 yards wide. And there are about 2 acres of tee boxes. A lot of people might like the flexibility that this brings, but it just strikes me as an architect not being sure about what hole he wanted to design, so he tried to incorporate every design into one. In any case, if you’re unsure about your distances, play to the deeper left side of the green.

The par 4 seventh isn’t a bad hole, but not my favorite. The fairway is blind, but it’s about 75 yards wide. The objective is to drive it as far as you can, so maybe the idea was ‘let’s see how hard you can swing and how solid of contact you can make under uncertainty.’ The green is large and undulating and while a long drive is probably the most important thing, being up the left side is good too.

I’m also not a fan of the long par 3 eighth. The green is hook shaped from shot left to long right around a bunker. There’s a huge tier in the left side and the back right is very shallow over a bunker. Back left pins aren’t bad, but you pretty much either get the distance right or you have a very hard second shot.

I’ve heard about and read a lot of complaining concerning the par 4 ninth. And it’s completely justified. The hole bottlenecks right where the high handicapper is going to land their drive but beyond that, it’s wide open. But the real trouble is on the approach; the green is up a waste bunker-covered hill and sits in a saddle about 30 feet wide and 40 yards deep. There’s effectively zero width to the green but the area is concave so if you can get your ball up there, you’ll have a decent shot. But that’s the problem—it’s very difficult to get up there. The lay-up area short-left is too small for higher handicappers to hit with any consistency. I would imagine that a pretty high percentage of golfers don’t finish this hole.

The long par 4 tenth is more straight-forward, doglegging right along a massive waste bunker. The green is open from the front-left, so it’s actually best to hit a long drive to the outside of the dogleg. The green is large and one of the more interesting on the course.

The par 5 eleventh hole seems to be a lot of people’s favorite at Tobacco Road and I think that there’s good reason for that. The drive is wide open with a waste bunker running down its right side. It’s natural to assume that it’s best to keep your drive close to this bunker and that’s correct. The approach to the green from here is quite something. The bunker on the approach to the green looks like it was shaped by a few B-52s. If you go for it, you’d better hit it solid (although I was able to get out of the bunker…).

The lay-up is really interesting because there are a few options. The safest is to keep it about 90-100 yards short of the green. If you go further, you have to carry part of the bomb crater bunker. It looks like there isn’t a lot of room up there, but there is. And if you go a bit further right, you can run the ball onto the front left of the green. It’s a great hole because there’s a lot of drama and there are a lot of reasonable but interesting options for everyone from the low to the high handicapper.

The par 4 twelfth gives lower handicappers a taste of what higher handicappers have been experiencing throughout: the fairway narrows right where you want to land your drive. Unless you lay up, you need to be very accurate or be able to carry it 250-270. The green has a huge waste bunker and ridge on its left and it’s very important to approach from the right side. Because that’s impossible unless you’ve driven it 300 or are approaching from a waste bunker, play to the front right.

Despite the severity so far, Tobacco Road doesn’t start to get weird until the par 5 thirteenth. The drive is diagonal along a bunker on the right, but you always need to keep it under about 280 because on any line, the ball can run through the fairway. The second is blind and confusing, but just pick a club that gets you 100-140 yards from the green—it’s wide open at this distance. If you lay up closer, you’ll have to keep it left of the bunker that you can see on the right (you can’t see it, but there’s room there).

The green is in a trench that, continuing the war analogies, looks like something out of WWI. And your score is about as likely to get slaughtered here. It’s maybe 20 ft. deep, 60 feet wide, and except for about a 15 ft. wide slice on the right, completely blind. It’s very difficult to judge distance here; I hit what I though was a great shot and it got stuck on one of the mounds short of the green. Oh well.

The downhill par 3 fourteenth over a pond is really pretty—but tough. It’s quite short if the flag is in the front left, but the green becomes a very small target for the ~170 yard shot if the flag is in the back.

After playing the fourteenth hole, I had one of my more special experiences on a golf course: I got completely lost trying to find the fifteenth hole. If you follow the cart path, the next hole you come to is the eighteenth…and to be honest, it might be best if you just continued on, played it, and finished with a 15 hole round. Because once you do find the fifteenth hole, you’re at the beginning of probably the worst three hole stretch that I’ve played.

Actually, it starts well. The drive on fifteen is one of the most attractive on the course. You can only see part of the fairway, but enough so that it isn’t too intimidating (there’s also plenty of room over the trees on the right). Then things go completely wrong. Again, the culprit is a green that’s about 25 ft. deep and this time, about 70 yards wide. But the real problem here is that it isn’t just a wide strip—it’s sort-of S-shaped. And it’s fronted by a variety of bunkers, mounds, and tufts of grass. So you have absolutely no idea where you can hit the ball. It’s impossible to get a yardage because the distance to the middle of the green gives you no sense of the distance to the far wings. And even if you did know the distance, you wouldn’t have any sense of where you can miss and what the distances are to hit the green if you miss slightly left or right.

To be fair, when I played, the flag was on the left, which is probably the most confusing part of the green to hit to. If the flag is on the right, it might be a little bit more comprehensible, especially if you’re in the left side of the fairway. But—and I’m generally a huge defender of blind shots—there’s too much uncertainty in playing to any flag and nowhere to play safe. You can play to a more open area, but the next shot might be impossible.

A peculiar amenity tells you quite a bit about the short par 4 sixteenth—a course-appointed ball spotter on a dune on the corner of the dogleg left who comes and tells you where to hit the ball. And you’ll need him, probably even if you’ve played the course before, because it looks like you’re hitting into a sea of rough and bunkers. The best line is the left edge of the nearest line of trees in the distance. There’s about 60 yards deep of fairway to hit to here but if you go right, you can run out of fairway if you go more than about 220 yards. But you’ve got to carry it about 160 even from the forward tees to carry the junk and that can lead to some unpleasant surprised as I learned from one of my playing partners.

Even if you hit the fairway and have a perfect yardage, you have a variety of problems. The fairway is full of collection areas and drains and there’s a good chance that your ball is in a divot and if it’s wet, that your lie is really soggy. And the green is one of the silliest that I’ve ever seen. It has a false front that takes your ball 30 yards back off the front of the green. But it has another tier in the middle that’s so steep that if you hit it, your ball will roll back off the front of the green, 30 yards down the fairway. You need to be very precise with your distance and spin control here, or the shot to the green is basically unplayable.

The short downhill par 3 seventeenth is about 3 or 4 pretty good holes, but one bad one because Strantz decided that it would be all of them at the same time. Actually to this pin on the left side of the green, it’s a perfectly good downhill par 3 to a small green. But the green runs another 85 yards to the right, with distinct left, middle, and right sections. The teeing grounds are about 100 yards wide. And the eighteenth tee is actually right behind the sixteenth green, so the routing is a mess, especially if the flag is on the left side.

​I’d have been interested to play the left tee/right pin combination, which would have been an interesting semi-blind shot over a mound. But as we can see in the second picture, this area is probably too small and slopes away from the angle of play into junk. So I’m not sure that that iteration of the hole would work, although it would make the routing more coherent.

I don’t think that the long par 4 eighteenth is a bad hole in it’s own right, but it’s too hard for most golfers. And given all that we’ve just been through, that makes it a bad hole because it just piles on. It’s an almost impossible drive for weaker players because even though the carry to the fairway from the forward tees is about 130 yards, it’s at least 20 feet uphill over another sandy bomb crater. Again, the hole greatly favors long hitters because the further you go, the wider it is. The green is deep but narrow, with severe fall offs on both sides. It’s a very difficult shot for a low handicapper. If you’re a higher handicapper, you’ll break your record for the amount of times that you pick up in a round…if you haven’t already.

Tobacco Road is a very tough course to rate because it has more variance in the quality of the holes than any course that I’ve played. Some of the holes (1,4,11) are among the best that I’ve played. Most of the rest are good to very good, even if sometimes a bit questionable (i.e. 13). But six holes (6,9,15-18) are questionable-in-a-bad-way to simply horrible. And the routing of the latter is a mess too. I think that there’s a trade-off between good/bad routings and good/bad holes where at least if you’re going to sacrifice routing coherence, you should at least use that to build better holes. Here, the worst parts of the routing (5-7, 15-17) also produce the worst holes (6,15-17). I can’t believe that even if the property were awkward, such a lose-lose situation couldn’t have been avoided.

There were probably a lot of ways to solve these problems. One would be to put a par 3 in the 180 yard walk between 12 and 13 and get rid of the par 3 seventeenth. Then 15 and 16 could be a simple out and back starting from the 16th green. That would solve two routing problems and three bad hole problems.

And then you’d have what this course should be: not only one of the most original public golf courses in the country, but one of the best. The course does pretty well in the rankings as it is but it’s very controversial and I think that much of this was just unnecessary. I suspect that it would do a lot better if it had been toned down. A few quirks like the thirteenth green can be great, but there has to be balance. And that’s just lacking at Tobacco Road. And again, opposite to the spirit of Pinehurst no. 2, a lot of these quirks are manageable for good players but just kill high handicappers, especially those who struggle to carry the ball more than 150 yards off the tee…which is a lot of people.

Now you might say ‘well, isn’t the fact that it’s unique in the world of golf justification enough? Just like there’s nothing like Pinehurst no. 2, doesn’t it count in favor of Tobacco Road that there’s nothing like Tobacco Road?’ But that supposes that you couldn’t keep the essential Tobacco Roadyness if you changed a few holes. I think that you could. The four par 5s wouldn’t change and those are the holes that most people remember for the better. I’m not saying that they should get rid of some of the bold green contours or the wild waste bunkers. But fewer wide, skinny greens and a more cohesive routing wouldn’t cost this course much of what people see as special. It’d be a little more like Caledonia, which I find to be a superior Strantz course, but it’d keep the wildness that rightly makes Tobacco Road a noteworthy course.

Pine Needles appears to have gone through a few iterations over the past few decades but I think that with the latest version, a 2018 restoration by Kyle Franz (who also did Mid Pines across the street), they can stop and be completely satisfied with what they have. This is an excellent golf course; unlike the other Ross courses in the area, it wanders over a very large piece of property and has great variety of terrain. There’s also a bit more variety in the design than at Mid Pines or no. 2. Some of the fairways are wide, some narrow. Some of the greens are quite large, some smaller. Most holes are hilly, but some are flat. I think that the greens have more interesting surface contours than no. 2 or Mid Pines and some of the complexes have edges reminiscent of no. 2. The variety gives this course the edge for me over Mid Pines as the second-best of the courses that I’ve played in the area (no. 2, no. 4, no. 8, Mid Pines, Tobacco Road).
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The par 5 first in one of my favorite par 5s in the area and is a strong competitor with the opener at no. 2 for best opening hole. There are staggered left and right fairway bunkers and the aggressive drive will challenge the right one. You’ll be able to go for the green off a good drive but again, staggered bunkers on the approach demand accuracy. The green is excellent—very reminiscent of something you’d find on no. 2.

The long par 4 second is another beauty. You’ll want to skirt the bunkers on the right because you can run out of room if you go down the left. Also, the green and its approach slope left to right, so it’ll be easier to control your approach from the right side. The green is larger than what you’ll find at no. 2 and Mid Pines.

The short par 3 third over a small pond has always been the course’s signature hole. It’s a very nice par 3, but even with the restoration, I wouldn’t identify it as a standout beauty-wise.

The par 4 fourth reminds me a little bit of the fourth across the street at Mid Pines, but with the tee moved about 80 yards to the left. That means that instead of playing into the slope as you do there, you’re playing along it. The hole curves left and the fairway slopes right, making this a tough driving hole. There’s room out to the right, but for not a long par 4, your (uphill) approach can be quite long if you hit a weak one to the right. The angle and size of the green aren’t as exacting as its counterpart across the street.

Five is a medium-long par 3 to a very steep, back-to-front pitched green. The pin was in the front and from six feet past the hole, I putted off the front of the green. While that’s silly, I wouldn’t blame Donald Ross for it—they either shouldn’t put the pin there or they should keep the greens a bit slower.

Six is a nice up-and-over long par 4, where you drive over the crest of a hill. Drive placement isn’t so important, but it is important to hit a long drive to leave a shorter approach to this large and challenging green.

The medium length par 4 seventh is an easier driving hole than it appears. If you can get it past the bunker on the right, the fairway is wide open. But it’s best to go over the edge of the left fairway bunker because the hole bends left. Again, the green is large and has a lot of interior contour—I think that this might green might have the most interior contour of any of the Ross courses that I’ve played in the area.

Eight exemplifies the variety at Pine Needles. After several holes of playing up and over broad slopes, here we drive into a fairly narrow valley. This time, accuracy is more important than distance. The green is smaller and the setting more intimate than what we’ve encountered so far.

The variety continues at the ninth, which isn’t a particularly interesting driving hole, but has one of the most interesting greens on the course. It’s large, heavily contoured, and has a large trench starting in the front right, running along the right side and to the back.

The par 5 tenth is one of two sharp doglegs to the left (seventeen is the other). It’s a simple drive if you don’t mind playing it as a three shot hole. But if you want to try for the green in two, you’ll have to skirt or carry the left fairway bunkers. The lay up is a challenge because the fairway slopes left and there are staggered bunkers, first right then left.

The par 4 eleventh is downhill to the widest fairway on the course. The fairway does come in a bit on the right at about 250 yards, so long hitters should aim left. But it’s all about the green, which is small and elevated. Anything short or right will run off.

Twelve features another of my favorite features, the up-and-over blind drive. The bunker off the tee shouldn’t come into play and the fairway is pretty wide over the hill. The approach traverses and the green hangs on a right-to-left slope, a bit like the fifth green on no. 2. Left pins are very dangerous because if you go at one, there’s a good chance that the slope of the ground will carry your ball left down a slope or into a bunker.

Whatever its playing virtues, the downhill par 3 thirteenth is a beautiful piece of landscape architecture. The green slopes right-to-left and there are some interesting ridges in the left side of the green that’ll mess with your pitch if you pull it left. If there must be a signature hole, I’d vote for this one.

Fourteen is a very tough par 4 that doglegs right around the twelfth and thirteenth holes (fortunately there’s good tree protection). Although the fairway bunkers are on the right side, you want to drive to the outside of the dogleg on the left—the front left of the green is open and there’s a green side bunker front right.

Fifteen is a par 5 with bunkers staggered seemingly down its entire length. There’s plenty of room off the tee but the hole narrows on the approach, with a bunker cutting in on the right about 100 yards short of the green. The green is open in front and fairly flat, but there’s a tricky little dip behind it if you go long.

Sixteen is another very nice par 3. This section of the course is flat, but Franz has roughed up the area between the tee and green, so it’s very pretty. The green has a no. 2 edge in the back that will carry your ball at least 25 feet away from the green if you go long.

Seventeen is the other sharp dogleg left and is the most awkward hole on the course. It’s only about a 235 yard carry over the bunker on the corner, but it’s easy to catch the trees if you pull it just slightly on this line. This would be a good hole to hit a big hook, if you’re capable of that. If you’re in the right side of the fairway, it’s going to be very difficult to reach the green. The green is big and flat, but with interesting no. 2 edges right and long.

Apparently the final hole at Pine Needles was originally the first, which makes sense because it’s a medium-length par 4 of the type that Ross liked to start with. It looks like the left fairway bunker is new (you can see the Franz version on Google Maps and the previous version on Google Earth) and if you skirt or carry it, you can get pretty close to the green. The downhill approach to the green is very attractive and not too strenuous.

As with neighboring Mid Pines, I think that my expectations coming in were a little bit lower than they should have been, but that only made me enjoy it more. Pine Needles is a very good golf course. As with both no. 2 and Mid Pines, it’s an excellent challenge for the good player, but still very playable for the higher handicap. And I think that there’s quite a bit more variety here than on either no. 2 or Mid Pines.

In fact, a good way to describe Pine Needles is as a cross between no. 2 and Mid Pines. Many greens are reminiscent of those on no. 2, but the green surfaces are more varied in terms of size and undulating. I can imagine a lot of people preferring these greens to no. 2, although I definitely wouldn’t count myself among them. The rolling terrain creates some of the variety off the tee that you find at Mid Pines. But there’s greater variety of width off the tee here than at Mid Pines and a few semi-blind drives, which that course doesn’t really have. But regardless of how you assess its relative merits, Pine Needles is a must-play and is worth the trip to the North Carolina sandhills in its own right.

When I last came to the Pinehurst area in 2002, no one seemed to consider Mid Pines to be a course worth visiting. That’s changed with the recent restoration (redesign?) by Kyle Franz which, following Coore and Crenshaw’s lead at Pinehurst no. 2, removed the bermuda rough and replaced it with sandy hardpan, pine needles, and tufts of grass/pine saplings. While I can’t compare the current look of Mid Pines to its former, the current version has a classic, pleasing look.

And it plays even better than it looks. While I had heard very good things about the restoration and saw that the course was climbing some of the lists, I wasn’t expecting it to be as good as it is. The property is rolling-to-hilly and the routing makes excellent use of the terrain to create a variety of driving challenges and opportunities. Sometimes you need to curve the ball into slopes, sometimes you need to curve it with them, and sometimes you just need to carry them. The bunkering is not excessive, but you’ll often find one near where you’ll want to land your drive.
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This combination of variety in the terrain and routing plus the excellent bunkering make Mid Pines probably the most interesting driving course that I’ve played in the Pinehurst area—although Pine Needles across the street shares a lot of these same virtues (that Donald Ross knew what he was doing). The green complexes aren’t as interesting as no. 2 and I don’t think that the green surface contours are as interesting as Pine Needles, but shapes of the greens and the green side bunkering reinforce the premium on good driving—it’s important to be approaching many of these greens from a certain part of the fairway. That’s part of what makes Mid Pines such a good driving course and, of course, it also makes it an excellent approach shot course.


Number one is the standard Donald Ross opening hole—a medium length par 4 that isn’t too difficult if you don’t get too aggressive. While the fairway isn’t narrow, it narrows at about 225 from the regular tees and there really isn’t much reason to go past that. Don’t start your day playing from the waste area on the left—like I did…twice.

The second is a lovely medium-long par 3 over a pond. There’s a bit more room up there than it looks, but it’s important to keep the ball short of the hole; the green is pretty steep from back to front.

The long par 4 third is probably the weakest hole on the course because the fairway goes through a low-lying, swampy area. The approach to the green is open, but flanking front left and right bunkers demand accuracy.

Mid Pines really gets going at the fourth, which is one of the best short par 4s that I’ve seen. If you’re paying attention, you can figure out what you need to do from the tee: the green has a bunker at its front right and appears to angle from front-left to back-right along it. Its left side is open, so you should try to drive up the left side. This turns out to be more important than you might realize because the green is also very narrow and there’s a bunker in the back left. Moreover, there’s a tree in the right side of the fairway and it’ll mess with your approach if you drive it too far. In short, if you hit a good drive up the left, you can be aggressive. If you drive it up the right, you should play to the front left of the green.

The par 5 fifth shouldn’t be too difficult…unless you hit a bad drive. If you do, carrying the pond on the second might be a challenge and the fairway to its right is not that wide. But if you hit a good drive (which you should aim over the edge of the right fairway bunker), you should have a good shot at the green in two.

The sixth is another fairly short par 5. As at the fifth, aim you drive over the left edge of the right fairway bunker, which shouldn’t come into play. The fairway is quite wide, so bomb away. You’ll need to have to go for the green in two because it’s fronted by a deep bunker and you’ll have to carry it on. There, however, is an opening in the front right and if you lay up, it’s important to do it out to the right so that you can play into this open aspect of the green.

The medium-length par 4 seventh is one of my favorite holes at Mid Pines. Like at the fourth, looking at the green and its surroundings tells you what’s better and worse off the tee. Again, it’s open at the front left. But go too far either left or right off the tee and trees come into play. So left-center is good—and there’s a bunker right there, a few yards away.

This was also one of my favorite greens at Mid Pines. It has probably the most interesting interior contours and the slopes at the right and back are reminiscent of no. 2.

After an attractive downhill par 3 where going long leaves you in the only spot in the Pinehurst area that might be worse than over the back of the eighth green on no. 2, we come to a short, dogleg right par 4. Some people might find it awkward, but I like it. Some will be tempted to cut the dogleg, but that’s a fairly stupid thing to try to do. What you want to do is get your drive as far out to the corner of the dogleg as you can, just short of the fairway bunker through it. This will give you the best angle to a small, well-defended green.

The par 5 tenth requires a 240-260 yard drive to reach the top of the hill and you’ll need to be reasonably accurate because there are fairway bunkers on both side. The landing area for the lay up is generous and right of center is probably best, but placement isn’t that important. The main feature on the green is a false front.

I like the downhill short par 3 eleventh, which is very attractive and has some of the course’s best green contours.

The medium length, dogleg left par 4 twelfth is one of the course’s best holes. The fairway slopes right-to-left and there’s a bunker in the corner of the dogleg. While you can’t really see the green, what you can see from the tee suggests that you should try to drive up the left side. This is more important than you might realize—I don’t think that I’ve ever seen a green where the angle on your approach is as important as this one. It angles from front-left to back-right and is very narrow.

Of all of the pictures that I’ve taken, I failed to get one of this approach shot, but you can see the narrowness of the green and the lip of the front-right bunker guarding an approach from the right side of the fairway in this shot from behind the green.

The thirteenth is an excellent example of a type of hole that I love—a long par 3 where you can run the ball onto the green. That’s important here because this one is about 225 yards. Keep your shot up the right and it’ll feed left into the middle of the green.

The medium-short par 4 fourteenth is a great example of using the slope of the ground and some simple design elements to make a hole interesting. The entire fairway slopes left to right and the green is deep, but narrow, with bunkers on both sides. An approach from the left side of the fairway plays into its deepest aspect. If you hit a weak drive out to the right, you have to play over the right green side bunkers into a narrower aspect of the green and you might have tree trouble. It’s a great example of how even though there aren’t a lot of driving hazards, good driving is still very important on this course.

While you wanted to work your drive into the slope on fourteen, you want to work with it on the par 5 fifteenth. This hole plays in the opposite direction next to number fourteen, so now the fairway slopes right-to-left. The key element here is the bunker on the hill, just right of the fairway. If you carry this, your ball will kick forward and you’ll have a good shot at the green in two. Past this, the fairway slopes as much forward as right-to-left. But in line with or short of the bunker, the pitch is just right-to-left, so your drive just kicks left rather than forward and left.

The long, dogleg left par 4 sixteenth is probably the toughest hole on the course. It’s tough to carry the bunker on the left unless you’re a very long hitter. But otherwise, you’ll want to skirt its edge or hit a draw because it’s important to leave your drive in the left side of the fairway. The green is fairly small, elevated, and well-defended by bunkers—you don’t want to be hitting into it with a long iron. And if you don’t hit a long drive up the left, that’s what you’ll have.

The seventeenth is, along with seven and twelve, part of set of excellent medium-length par 4s. This one bends left-to-right, with the primary driving hazard on the right. You should be able to carry this and it’s important to keep your drive up the right side because you can run out of room on the left. A fade is very helpful here. The green opens from the right side but more important, slopes pretty good from left to right. So a drive up the right side will play into the primary slope. Unless you can control your spin, it’s easy for a shot from the left side of the fairway to slide away and miss the green right.

The long par 4 finisher is simply excellent. You drive downhill and the fairway turns left. Unless you hug the left tree line or hit a draw, your uphill approach will be quite long. But it’s also better for your ball to end up center or right-center because the green is protected by a bunker front left. The green site, with the 100 year old hotel in the background, must be one of the game’s most elegant.

The feeling that I had while finishing up my first round at Mid Pines was “perhaps more than any other course that I’ve played, this is where’d I’d like to be a member and play all my golf.” It’s the perfect member’s course; it’s walkable, there are several shorter loops of holes that you could play (like 1-6-17-18 or 1-6-7-12-17-18), and it’s an excellent test for a good golfer while still being playable for everyone. This last point is particularly important; this course might strike the best balance of being challenging for good golfers and playable for higher handicap golfers than any other that I’ve seen. It’s not as difficult as no. 2, but it would still be a good challenge to all short of the pros. Overall, it’s close between Mid Pines and Pine Needles, but I preferred Mid Pines to Pinehurst no. 4. I’d imagine that there’s a strong argument for Mid Pines being the second-best course in the area, although I haven’t played Dormie Club or the Forest Creek courses.

N.B.: if it’s likely to be cold and wet when you go, stay in the rustic Mid Pines hotel. While most would agree that it could use a bit of a freshening (but I liked the uneven, creaky steps—gives the place character), the rooms are equipped with some of the best radiators that I’ve ever seen. I was able to dry several loads of soaked clothes, including a winter jacket, in a few hours.

Before my November 2019 visit, I had played Pinehurst no. 2 one time: in late June 2002. Both times it was 40 degrees…the first time celsius, the second time fahrenheit. Plus this time, there was a light drizzle from about the ninth tee to the twelfth green. Even with two layers of gloves, I could barely grip my 9-iron when I was standing on the ninth tee.

Despite the differences in playing conditions plus the removal of the rough and restoration of the pine needley-wire grassey-scrub along the fairways, Pinehurst no. 2 was fundamentally the same course that I remembered. The main feature, the fairly small, convex greens, hasn’t changed at all. What stuck in my mind last time about the greens was that for the most part, they weren’t that severe. Most of the green edges are only 3 or 4 feet high and the slopes will only carry your ball 10-15 ft. away from the green. Several areas off the edge of greens don’t have any slopes (but it’s still all short grass). I didn’t think that the greens were severe at all—they were more tricky than severe.

This time around, I noticed a bit more severity in the green complexes than I had last time. The one that had stood out to me before was long and left on the eighth green—the shot from there is impossible. It’s where John Daly had his famous meltdown where he hit a shot that was coming back to his feet and whacked it across the other side of the green while it was still in motion. While I still think that that’s the worst spot on the golf course, there are several others (left on five, anywhere but short on six, long on 14) that also leave nearly impossible recoveries.

Another thing that I had remembered from last time that I absolutely confirmed this time is that even though many of the green surroundings aren’t that severe, some of the shots to them are very intimidating. Many of the greens have false fronts and because you can’t see the rest of the surface of the green from the fairway, it looks like the green surface is minuscule, even if it isn’t. This is an issue on 1, 2, and especially 15.

But what became clearer to me this time is how well all of the pieces of this course fit together. It’s actually a very playable course for higher handicap golfers. There isn’t much directly in the way between the tee and the green on most holes and if you can avoid the bunker chokepoints, the fairways are fairly wide as well. Most greens give you an opportunity to roll the ball on from somewhere in front, although not necessarily the front middle. And the greens, while small, are modestly contoured. If you can convince yourself that the most difficult looking approaches are easier than they are and play conservatively, you should be able to get around this course.

So Pinehurst no. 2 is, by far more than any other course I’ve played, one where you need to know where you can’t miss and where it’s ok to miss. If you split the approach to each green in half left to right, at least one of the two halves will leave a playable next shot. But as I mentioned above, several greens have places where you absolutely cannot miss. Of course your first time around the course, you’re not going to know where these places are. The most unfortunate thing about Pinehurst no. 2 is that requires a few playings and a lot of attention to details to understand the hierarchy of misses around the green. That’s what makes it such an outstanding major tournament venue. But the general public isn’t going to have that option. But a good general rule is ‘err short rather than long and aim for the open areas in front of the greens.’ You’ll do just fine here most of the time if you leave your approaches a little short of the green.


The medium length par 4 first is one of the best opening holes that I’ve played. It’s wide-open until about 250, where there’s a fairway bunker on the left. There’s no need to go past this point as you’ll still have about 150 in. But this is one of the most visually intimidating approaches on the course—there’s a false front and the left side of the green is probably 5 or 6 feet above the base of the false front. The surroundings are closer to the level of the green on the right, but the green angles slightly from front right to back left along the bunker. If you aim at the right side, you’ll probably miss right.

But the pitch from the bottom of the steepest part of the false front isn’t bad—5 or 6 feet uphill to a deep aspect of the green. And the run-off if you miss short-right or right is very mild; the green is elevated only 1-2 ft. above the surroundings on this side (same for the bad). Thinking back to the tee, it’s best to come in from the right-center of the fairway but as will be the case on many holes to come, most misses around this green aren’t that bad. Just don’t go left.

The long par 4 second is one of the toughest holes on the course. Again, bunkers encroach into the fairway on the left side at the length of a good drive. It’s best to be in the left side of the fairway but unless you’ve bombed your drive, you should play conservatively here—pitches from the front-left are fairly easy and every other miss leaves a very hard shot. I pushed my approach, ended up in the bunker short, and was very happy to make 5.

Three is a short par 4 that they like to convert into a drivable par 4 for big tournaments. The rest of us should lay up short of the bunker that comes into the fairway on the right. It’s always a little bit better to be on the right side of the fairway because if you miss short, the right side of the green is open. Both times that I played it, I missed the fairway right. If you avoid one of the clumps of grass (a big if), the packed sand is a good playing surface, but it still gives like a bunker if you hit the ball fat. You need to hit the ball cleanly from here.

Numbers four and five used to be a par 5 and par 4 respectively, now it’s reversed. I was worried about this change, but I think that it’s actually made both holes better. Four is an awkward driving hole—a slight dogleg left with a left-to-right sloping fairway. It’s important to shape your drive a bit from right to left. There’s an opening to the green between front-left and front-right bunkers. There’s a bit of a false front, but otherwise this is one of the simpler green complexes. Unless you short side yourself, any miss is ok.

Number 5 has always been one of the holes on Pinehurst no. 2 most likely to appear on great holes lists. So it was surprising to me that they would turn it into a par 5. But I think that this has substantially improved the hole. Whereas before it was easy to carry the bunkers up the left and have your ball run well down the fairway, now the bunkers encroach right where a good drive will land. Long hitters will still be able to carry them (although maybe not from the tips), but everyone else has to either play short or skirt/shape it around the trees on the right.

I think that the approach to the green also works better now. The bunkers short and right have always come into play if you didn’t hit a good drive, but now you have to carry them if you want to go for the green in two or play near them. The green is deep but narrow and its deepest aspect is in line with the edge of the encroaching bunkers. A lay-up to the right leaves an awkward angle and you’ll be aiming right at one of the pits of doom: the swale left of the green. This is another intimidating green to hit to, but short and right won’t get you into trouble (your lack of skills still might).

The long par 3 sixth is probably the only hole that I liked less than I had remembered. I think that the green here is just too severe—which you saw on display if you watched any of the US Amateur. Like the first, the false front is probably 5 or 6 ft. high and short is not a bad miss. But the green is severely pitched from back right to front left and any miss right or long creates a risk of knocking it off the other side of the green. I think that this hole would be better if all but the front of the green were about a foot lower but again, if you play conservatively, you should be ok.

While the bones of the medium-length par 4 seventh are the same as before, this is probably one of the most-improved holes with the Coore-Crenshaw restoration. The inside corner used to have a mess of bunkers, kind of like the old Fazio version of no. 4. The outside of the dogleg had some very ugly mounds with bunkers cut into them. That’s all gone. The waste bunker on the corner of the dogleg looks terrific and while the green is one of the least severe on the course, it’s important that you drive near the corner of the dogleg to shorten the approach.

The short par 5 eighth was and is one of my favorite holes on no. 2. A big part of this is the topography; the fairway slopes gradually forward for about the first 250 yards but then slopes left-to-right. The longer you drive it, the more you have to shape the ball. The approach is uphill and wide open. Whatever you do, don’t go long on the approach. Long and especially long left are the worst spots on the course. If you hit it over there, you’ll already be halfway down the ninth hole. You may want to consider just continuing on and playing the ninth from there.

The par 3 ninth is very tough, especially if you can’t feel your hands. The green is pretty shallow and there isn’t a lot of room to miss short or long. A safe shot is to the middle of the green but if the pin is on the left, this leaves a tough putt up a tier.

Ten is one of the toughest par 5s that I’ve ever played. The waste area encroaches on the right in the driving zone from the back sets of tees but even if you’ve hit a good drive, it’s one of the toughest lay-ups that I’ve ever seen. There are three staggered bunkers in the lay-up area. The one closest to the green is about 120 from the middle and unless you’ve killed your drive, you should play short of it.

But the green is shallow and wide and if the pin is on the left side (as it was on this day), it’s best to lay-up to the right side of the fairway. This means that you’ll have to skirt or carry the second lay-up bunker. I hit a good lay-up but still had an 8-iron to the green. I played to the middle and two-putted from 40 ft. If the flag is on the left and you have anything more than a wedge, I’d suggest that you do the same. Over the green is no good.

The par 4s eleven and twelve are not stand-out holes…which just goes to show how good this course is. The drive on eleven is semi-blind and again, the junk on the left cuts in right where your good drive would go (funny how that keeps being true). In any case, if the flag is anywhere other than the front-right, the right side of the fairway is better as you play into the deepest aspect of the green from here. If the flag is front-right, a little more to the left is optimal as the front-right bunker obscures the front-right of the green from the right side of the fairway.

Pretty much anywhere in the fairway on twelve is fine but the further you go, the more the bunkers encroach on the right. As long as you carry the bunker about 10 yards short of the green, a miss short is fine. This is also the rare occasion where a miss long is fine. The green is large and fairly flat, with only weakly convex edges.

The short par 4 thirteenth is not a difficult driving hole, but it’s important to drive it to a yardage that you like because the approach is uphill and has probably the steepest false front on the course. This hole feels more conventional to me than a lot of the others on no. 2 because of the natural green site on the ridge. Most of the greens here are built up on relatively flat land and what makes them brilliant and unusual is how they were built up on flat land. But this green site does bring some variety to the course, which is no bad thing.

The long par 4 fourteenth is another of my favorite holes. The concept on the drive is the same (the further you go, the narrower it becomes), but the approach to the green and the green itself are beauties. A bunker crosses into the middle of the fairway from the right about 15 yards short of the green and there’s a swale between this and the green that continues up the right side. But the approach from the front-left is completely open and flat. A miss in the front-left quadrant leaves a simple pitch.

But here’s an interesting thing to notice: the green appears to rise in the back while the surroundings appear to slope away in this directions. That suggests that the deeper you play into the green, the more severe an offline miss is. And this is absolutely correct. Anything wide further than halfway into the green is trouble. And over this green is in the running with over the eighth for worst spot on the course.

The par 3 fifteenth is one of the most intimidating holes that I’ve ever played. It looks like you’re playing to the top of a globe, where pretty much anything but a perfect shot will roll off. The intimidation factor caused me to chunk my tee shot in 2002 and miss short left. This time, it was so cold that I couldn’t even reach the green for 180 yards with a well struck 4-iron (normally goes about 205). But despite the intimidation, a pitch (or putt) from just short of the green isn’t that hard. Still, this was the hardest hole in the stroke play portion of the 2019 US Amateur, averaging 3.66! So I’m beating the average in my two rounds (4 in 2002, 3 in 2019).

The short par 5 sixteenth is a very good driving hole, with a diagonal bunker up the left side. The more of this bunker that you carry, the better chance you have of having your ball bound down the fairway. If I were to make one criticism of no. 2, it’s that there aren’t enough drives with hazard set at an angle to the tee where a good drive on an aggressive line makes the hole easier. Most of the driving hazards here come in the form of fairway pinched by waste area/bunkers in the driving zone. The approach is slightly downhill to a green which has a false front, but is fairly open in front. If you’re laying up, be aware that there’s a hidden bunker on the left about 100 yards short of the green.

Seventeen is a fairly straight-forward downhill par 3. The green is narrow in the front, but fairly deep. Long here is less trouble than on most other holes.

Which brings us to the final hole, one of the best finishing holes that I’ve played. As I mentioned in my review of no. 4, there’s pretty stiff competition in this area for best finishing hole between no. 4, no. 2, and Mid Pines. They’re all tough, but no. 2’s is probably the toughest. While there’s more room off this tee than on most holes, you’ll want to keep your drive near the bunker on the left. That’s because the green is deep but narrow and from the right side of the fairway, you play to the deepest aspect of the green. It’s a very awkward shot from the left side of the fairway because in addition to shooting across the green, you have a bunker in your way on the left side and you’re playing directly at another through the green on the right.

Wherever you drive it, you have 10-15 yards between the front bunker and the front of the green and while you’ll be in a swale, it isn’t that hard a shot. As with the rest of the course, if you manage your misses, you’ll have a chance. I came up a little bit short, pitched to about 8 ft. from the back-left hole location, and made the putt for a 79—which made me pretty damn happy because I could barely hit the ball in the middle of the round.

I think that Pinehurst no. 2 is deserving of all of the accolades that it gets. The concept of the greens is so simple, yet I’ve never seen another course that comes even close to pulling it off—even though architects are putting chipping areas around their greens all the time now. The genius is in the subtlety and the balance; many of the green edges are only 3 or 4 ft. high and the slopes only take your ball 10-15 feet away from the green. This shot is tricky (because you’re probably not used to playing it), but it’s not ‘hard.’ A few places are more severe but there isn’t a single green on this course that doesn’t give you ample room to have a fairly simple next shot. This means that the course is very playable for a weaker player who’s trying to run the ball into the green, but very difficult for the better player who’s used to attacking pins and making birdies. Unless the course is very soft (not common considering it’s on pure sand), the aggressive approach is likely to result in a lot of bogies and doubles—to which the 77.09 scoring average (!) in the two stroke play rounds of the 2019 US Amateur attests.

If I had one criticism of the course, it’s that there isn’t enough variety off the tee. It’s a very tough driving course, but the difficulty is mainly for longer hitters in squeezing their drives past choke points. There are very few holes with diagonal driving hazards. Others have pointed to the lack of undulation on the green surfaces as a weakness but I don’t agree—given the size of the greens and the intricacies of their surroundings, undulating greens would be overkill. You could make the argument that there could be more variety in the size of the greens and that if there were a few larger ones, those could have more undulation. That’s a fair point.

But the concept of this course is so original and well-executed that I think it’s fine just the way it is. Changing some of the greens, even if it would add a bit more variety, would change the concept of the course. It’s all about managing your approach shots—knowing where not to hit it around the greens and which pins allow you to be more aggressive. Approaches could still be exacting if some of the greens larger and more undulating, but it would change how this course is exacting.

See that’s one of the nice things about golf courses—there are a lot of them. And because there are a lot of them, they can be interesting in different ways. But in the thousands of golf courses in the world, I doubt that there is another course that has the same consistent concept as no. 2 and even if there is, it probably isn’t nearly as good. So even if some of these changes would ‘improve’ the course, they wouldn’t actually improve it because the course would start to lose what makes it unique.
In addition to being probably the most original course that I’ve played, Pinehurst no. 2 is clearly the best. Admittedly, I haven’t played many great courses in the US, but I’ve played all of the London area heathland courses and the England/Wales links courses like Royal St. George’s and Rye. While the best of those courses all have several great holes, Pinehurst no. 2 has no weak ones. There isn’t a single hole here that is less than very good and several which are great (at least 1, 2, 5, 8, 14, 18, maybe a few more). The weakness of the London area heathland courses is the greens and obviously, that’s not the case with no. 2.   Throw in the fact that it’s a great course for both tournaments and every day play and I can hardly imagine a more effective golf course. It’s just a shame that the prohibitive cost makes it unlikely that most golfers will be able to familiarize themselves with it.

Pinehurst no. 4 appears to be the resort’s architectural weathervane: whichever architect is popular at the moment, they’re going to get an opportunity to reshape no. 4 in their image. So the Donald Ross course has been the subject of a lot of cosmetic surgery over the years, first by Robert Trent Jones, then by Rees. In 1999, the resort brought Tom Fazio in to redo the whole thing and he produced something very odd both for himself and generally—a course with a few hundred small, round bunkers scattered everywhere. I guess that this was still the end of the era of ‘Scottish-style’ courses that were anything but, and this was his take on that style. I’d imagine that this was the resort’s idea rather than his because it looked unlike anything I’ve seen from Fazio.

I played the Fazio version of no. 4 back in the summer of 2002 when it was relatively new. I hadn’t seen many great courses at the time (mainly just no. 2 the day before) and I thought that while is was a bit odd, it was pretty good. I liked it more than no. 8, which I played the next day and which is a very typical 90s Fazio course. Part of this was just that the land was interesting and I thought that the holes flowed nicely over it. Bunkers aside, it was a pretty good golf course.

Since it had been less than 20 years since the Fazio redo, I was surprised to hear a few years ago that the resort had hired Gil Hanse to completely redo no. 4. Surprised, but very excited. The trend in golf course architecture has changed for the better since then and I was sure that Hanse would be able to do better with the Pinehurst no. 4 property. Simply put, he has. While most of the holes follow the same routing as the Fazio version, the bunker style is almost the complete opposite, large and ragged as opposite to small and round and with many open sand and grass waste areas. I think that almost everyone could agree, it’s a much more natural and better-looking course now.

The greens have also changed quite a bit. From what I can remember, the greens on the Fazio version were pretty typical for Fazio, with a lot of broad slopes. But these are more intricate, with a lot of small bumps and ridges. While the biggest improvement is the bunkering, the greens are also a huge improvement. And Hanse changed some of the holes as well. He built a new par 3 fourth, added a par 3 eleventh to remove the awkward dogleg on the old eleventh, removed the old par 3 twelfth, and shortened the par 4 sixteenth to make it drivable and, again, to remove an awkward dogleg.

All of these are substantial improvements. I think that no. 4 still falls short of no. 2, which has the best green complexes that I’ve seen. But Hanse does a better job of mimicking some of their shaping than any other new course with which I'm familiar. I think that the course compares very favorably to Mid Pines and Pine Needles. It feels a bit more modern than both of those courses and it’s probably a bit less demanding off the tee. But I don’t see these as weaknesses—I like the rugged look here and while it is a bit more wide open, it’s very balanced off the tee. Some holes demand length but give you the width to swing away while others require more precision. The strategy off the tee is dictated a bit more by contours around the greens than bunkers. That’s not to say that I think that no. 4 is a better course than those, but it’s certainly in the same league.


The nuts and bolts of the par 4 first are similar to the Fazio version: drive out into an open area, but one that’s been fashioned into a dogleg right by a mess of sand on the inside of the dogleg. It’s and awkward drive because the fairway is much narrower than the area that you’re hitting into. The hole isn’t long, so I’d suggest playing conservatively off the tee. The green is open in front and it’s easy to run the ball on.

We walk around the twelfth tee and eleventh green on no. 2 to get to the short, downhill par 5 second. Though the landing area is partially obscured, the fairway is wide open and you should bomb away. The lay up should be straightforward (just carry the bunker) if you’ve hit a good drive. The green complex is very clever for those who can go for it in two because it’s completely blocked by a bunker, but you can use the hill on the right to feed the ball onto the green. This won’t matter for long hitters, but might have been useful for me if I had been playing on a day when it was warmer than 45 degrees.

I really like the look of the par 4 third. If you’ve read some of my other posts, you’ll know that I’m a fan of uphill shots and this one requires you to play right of or carry two fairway bunkers. The approach to the green is a beauty: the green sits at grade and is completely open for a run up. When you approach it, you see that it is large and full of little bumps and ridges. A fairly simple hole done very well.

Hanse completely redid the par 3 fourth; it used to be a pond hole with the green on the far side of the picture. Now the green on the much shorter current version hangs on the hill on the left. It’s an awkward hole, with the tree on the left coming into play for left hole locations or if you hit a fade. But I think it’s an improvement over the previous version.

I remembered the par 4 fifth as being one of the better holes on the Fazio course and that’s true of the Hanse version too. The drive is an attractive one into the side of a hill. The best drive here will skirt the bunkers and junk on the right. It’s a very long par 4 so it’s important to hit a good drive—otherwise you’ll have to lay up short of the front left bunker. The green has a pretty steep false front, but you can run the ball around this if you carry the bunker. It’s a very tough, but very good hole.

The par 3 sixth is very good, but deadly. Just take my word for it—don’t hit it over the green. Hanse did an excellent job of shaping this green complex; the left side of the green, with its small mounds and run-off 4 ft. downhill and 15 ft. away from the green is as good an attempt at a Pinehurst no. 2 style run-off as I’ve seen.

The par 4 seventh is a very good driving hole—all of the visible hazards are up the right and you should challenge them (1) because the green opens up from this side and (2) because the fairway runs out on the left. The green is another beauty, angled from front right to back left with two perpendicular ridges running through it.

The par 4 eighth has bunkers cutting through most of the fairway from the right. Laying up short of these will leave a blind shot but if you’re on the right side, the approach to the green will be open. The par 5 ninth will be a real challenge for most people who play this course because the fairway is cut off by about a 70 yard-long hell’s half acre hazard starting probably 220 from the green. Lay up to the right here because the green is open (but semi-blind) from this angle.

The medium-length par 4 tenth plays to a wide fairway, but with a bunker pinching in on the left where a long driver might want to hit it. The approach is over a bunker that’s actually well short of the green which again, is very elegant (the junk to its left, not so much).

The short par 3 eleventh is new and helps the flow of the routing in this area. You used to walk halfway down what is now this hole for the eleventh, which was just the current twelfth with an awkward dogleg. As of mid-October 2020, Google Maps shows the current version of the course while Google Earth shows the Fazio version. So we can compare them.
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The new green embodies a principle that I’ve always liked: err short and you have more room wide to miss. The deeper you go, the narrower the green becomes. And the bunkers are pretty deep, so a back-and-forth across the green is a possibility. Clearly the players in the 2019 US Amateur hadn’t learned these lessons because this short par 3 was the 3rd hardest hole on the course in the opening stroke play rounds.

The long par 4 twelfth features a semi-blind drive where you want to go down the left side to shorten the hole. The green is two-tiered from back to front and completely open in front. The back tier is shallow and I suspect that this is to encourage a run-up shot—you’ll need to put a lot of spin on the ball to land and stop it up there. But we had a front pin and as you can see, it wasn’t so hard to get at.

We go down the hill and to the left for the par 5 thirteenth tee. If you look left, you’ll see another green. I couldn’t figure out what that hole was—it didn’t look like there was another course nearby. Well, it’s actually the old par 3 twelfth on the Fazio course. Apparently my memory for golf holes isn’t as good as I thought… But the once and current thirteenth hasn’t changed much. You still drive out to a pond, which you can carry to go for the green, or play safe with a shorter carry to the right. The further right you bailout on the lay-up, the trickier the approach to any front pin because there’s a rise short and right of the green that will a less-than-precise pitch offline.

The long par 3 fourteenth over the pond is probably the least-changed hole on the course. But the short par 4 fifteenth is an improvement because while Fazio made us drive to the top of the hill to play the drive, Hanse gives us a very English-looking, uphill drive from near the pond. As is appropriate for a blind drive, the landing area is generous. But the green is one of the best, with a series of little ridges coming in from the right side.

Sixteen is another hole which Hanse changed substantially. It used to be a medium length par 4 with kind of an awkward dogleg left. Hanse has moved both the tee and green closer to each other and made it a drivable par 4. There’s a cluster of bunkers that crosses most of the driving area but it’s probably only about 150 to carry them. The hole is dictated by the shaping around the green and you can make out the major feature from the tee: a mound on the right side of the green. Thinking backwards, you should realize that if you’re approaching from the right side of the fairway, you’ll have to play over this mound. Therefore you should play up the left side. This is even more true than you might think because the green is on a narrow plateau angling from front left to back right. A pitch from the front-left is easy but if you hit it down the right side of the fairway, unless you’re a very good wedge player, it’s very easy to miss the green. It’s a textbook example of both a drivable par 4 and how to use contours rather than bunkers to generate strategy.

The seventeenth is one of the most demanding driving holes on the course, with a left-to-right sloping fairway and a bunker in the left-center right where you want to drive it. It’s a long par 5, so you’ll probably be laying up. And the lay-up is tricky, with staggered bunkers right then left. The green is among the more receptive on the course, but that’s appropriate because the two previous shots have been demanding.

Eighteen extends a Pinehurst area tradition: the great long par 4 finishing hole. I remembered liking the Fazio version and comparing Google Maps to Google Earth, they’re fairly similar. But the Hanse version has a bit more bite; it’s a bit more of an S-shaped hole than before, with the bunker on the left off the drive cutting in a bit more and the waste area on the approach angling in from the right rather than crossing the fairway. The approach reminds me a bit of the approach to eighteen on no. 2, but this green is a bit wider and there’s no bunker on the high left side. But it’s definitely a strong contender for best eighteenth hole in the sand hills, so it’s a good one.

Pinehurst no. 4 is a very well-balanced test of golf. Some holes really reward length. It almost never feels tight off the tee, but there’s always an advantage to being on one side of the fairway as opposed to the other. The green complexes are fantastic; they’re open and receptive from the proper spot in the fairway. Several have false fronts, but most have simple, flat entrances (from the right angle). The variety of contour is excellent. Some are fairly flat (1, 11, 17), some flat but pitched (8, 18), but most have a bunch of little ridges and bumps that require you to think about the pin placement and not stray too far from it (2, 3, 7, 10, 15).

The course exudes one thing above all: that Gil Hanse and company really cared about what they were doing here. They understood the historic nature of their task and put a lot of thought into designing and shaping these holes. But they were also cognizant about not overdoing it. The course is challenging, but it never really feels intimidating. None of the drives (except maybe on seventeen) feel narrow. Unlike some of the shots on no. 2, you’re never standing on the tee or in the fairway thinking ‘how the hell am I supposed to hit this green?’ It played about 3.5 shots easier than no. 2 in the two stroke play rounds of the 2019 US Amateur, but it still averaged 73.36 shots on a par of 70. I’m not sure where I’d rank no. 4 among the area’s many great courses, but I definitely look forward to returning so that I can think about it a bit more.

While most people go to Marquette Golf Club to play the spectacular Greywalls course, it isn’t the only course there. In fact, people have been playing golf here since 1926 when architects William Langford and Theodore Moreau laid out an 18 hole course. Only 9 of these holes were built and eventually, part of the land for the second 9 on the east side of the property was used to build houses. But by the 1960s, the club decided to go ahead with a second nine and commissioned David Gill to design it. The current Heritage Course is a mix of Langford and Gill holes, with most of the Langford holes coming in the middle of the front nine and most of the Gill holes at the end of the back nine.

But thanks to the club and our host, superintendent Craig Moore, our group was able to play the Langford 9 in its original order. While the rest of our golf course architecture snob outing stopped there, Bob and I continued on and played the Gill 9. This was my second trip around the Heritage Course (the first came in its everyday configuration in 2011) and cemented my fondness for the course. It’s clear that despite their somewhat degraded state, the Langford 9 holes are the stars here. But there are several good holes on the Gill 9 as well and I think that with a little tree clearing (and lack of restoration of the Langford 9), they wouldn’t be too far apart in quality.

It’s certainly worth playing all eighteen holes if you’re going to play the Heritage Course and it’s also worth playing the Heritage Course if you come to play Greywalls. While it doesn’t have the drama of Greywalls, it’s on a very good piece of property and makes for an excellent second 18 or evening nine.


The first hole on the Langford 9 is the tenth on the Heritage Course. It’s a slight dogleg left with a wall of trees protecting this hole from the driving range on the right (with moderate success). As you approach the green, you can see the old Langford bunkers on the left side that are now grass. And if you look around the green, you’ll see the margins of the old Langford green pad, which in many cases are ~50% larger than the greens in their current state.

Two (Heritage 11) doglegs right around some spruce trees that attempt, probably most of the time in vain, to protect the eleventh (2nd) hole from slicers. The second plays up the hill again again, you can see the old Langford bunkers adding zig and zag to the fairway. The green complex looks like it lays simply on the land but if you look over the back, you can see that it’s been built up a good 8 feet.

Three (7) is a great 140 yard drop shot to a severely back-to-front pitched green on the edge of a valley. Again, the front of the green is built up several feet from its surroundings. One thing that I noticed here, like at Langford and Moreau’s most famous course, the Links at Lawsonia, is that all of the greens involved substantial earth moving but if you’re playing into them from the correct place, it’s hard to tell that they did any earth moving at all. The shaping is always very well-blended into its surroundings.

The par 4 fourth (8) is something of a Langford and Moreau template. As at the second at Lawsonia, this drive is blind over a hill and the architects placed two bunkers on opposite sides of the fairway that form a V-shape facing the tee about 130 yards out that golfers need to carry. They repeated this feature several times at Lawsonia, including on the second shot of the par 5 ninth and the drive on the par 4 seventeenth. While most will be able to carry these bunkers, they would have probably caught many mis-hit shots in the 1920s.

The second shot plays downhill to a shrunken green in a great green complex. There are crossing trench bunkers about 30-50 yards short on the left and the green side bunkers are no match for their Langford ancestors. But the entire green pad is being mowed as short grass which suggests that the green might be restored to its original size in the near future.

The par 5 fifth (4) is a beauty. The drive is uphill and if you want to go for the green in two, you’ll have to skirt the wooden ravine on the right edge of the fairway. The approach is downhill to what appears to be an almost completely restored Langford surface (again, the bunkers not so much). Take a look over the back right of this green to see just how much above its surroundings it was built.

The par 3 sixth (5) and short par 4 seventh (6) have seen better days. On the former, the green has shrunk and bunkers were built on the actual green pad (!). The seventh was originally a 240 par 3 but has become about a 280 yard par 4. This green was absolutely enormous but is currently at best half its original size.

The long par 4 eighth (12) was a beast back into the wind, although there’s ample fairway here to bomb away. There was originally a crossing bunker cutting in from the left ~50-60 yards short of the green. While the bunkers could use some work, the green has been restored to the full original pad. You can tell that it had shrunk because there are sprinklers about 15 feet into the green in several places.

The short par 4 ninth (13) was originally a much longer par 4 where you teed off from across Grove St. There was a solitary fairway bunker up the left side near the start of the fairway. Now there are two bunkers and a maple tree on the right edge of the fairway, near where you want to hit your drive. While not at all what Langford intended, I think that the current hole is actually very good, with a drive placed near the bunkers giving you a better view and angle into the green. If they do ever restore the rest of the Langford nine, I’d suggest sticking with a version of this hole closer to what exists now. I doubt that they’d restore the original tee across the road and this version works better at this length.

The Gill 9 starts with the par 4 first on the Heritage Course and while it may not have the steep and deep earthworks of the Langford and Moreau 9, we can see from the first tee that it won’t be a pushover. It’s a fairly short par 4 so the only sensible play is to lay up short of the first fairway bunker, but that doesn’t stop people (including some of the golf course architecture and strategy buffs that I played with) from trying to hit the narrow neck to its right—with mixed results.

The dogleg right par 4 second is actually one of my favorite holes on either nine. There’s a diagonal water hazard up the right which good players should be able to carry—but if you push it, you’ll end up in a grove of arborvitae trees. The second is uphill to a very well defended green with a general back-left-to-front-right tilt, except in the back right, where it slopes away.

The third is right next to the fourth hole on the Langford nine and shares some of its features—the blind tee shot, the slight dogleg left on the approach. But it also illustrates the relative weakness of the architecture—there’s no interesting V-shaped carry bunker or crossing hazards on the approach (there is a blind pond on the right, which isn’t a plus). But there are several bunkers around the green and it’s still a demanding approach.

We cross Grove St. for the fourth hole, which is the ninth on the Heritage Course. It’s a slight dogleg right around a solitary bunker then gradually uphill to a green with flanking front left and right bunkers. It sums up the Gill 9 well—solid, but nothing special.

The next few holes have some special features, although not so much for the better. I like the short par 3 fifth (14) out of a chute of trees to a green with two bunkers right and one left. Like the rest of the course, it’d be a bit more interesting if there were more shape to the bunkers.

I have some pretty serious problems with the next three holes and one of them is obvious from standing on the sixth (15) tee. This hole has just become completely overgrown in the roughly 50 years since this nine opened. With tree clearing around the tee and the removal of a few white pines left of the fairway, this hole would be a nice drop shot par 4 where the primary challenge would be to keep your drive out of the right hand fairway bunker and keep your approach below the hole on the steep back-to-front sloped green.

I’m afraid that there isn’t much that can be done for the par 5 sixteenth, which might just be a classic bad hole. The drive is into a big right-to-left side slope and the approach is blind over granite outcroppings that were covered with dirt. You can try to go for the green, but it’s a small target and blocked by more dirt and grass covered granite outcroppings. An even more practical reason not to go for the green is that a push stands a good chance of taking out a windshield in the parking lot next to the clubhouse. The smart second is a lay up with about a 9-iron, which leaves a pretty interesting-looking approach over the aforementioned mounds. I guess that you could think of it as a risk-reward hole, where some of the risk is borne by the other golfers who parked their cars in the wrong place in the parking lot (or maybe you parked there too and you put out your own windshield…).

Another weakness of this part of the course is that the routing is awkward. We drove around the seventeenth green to get to the sixteenth, now we play back between them before driving uphill around the sixteenth to get to the eighteenth. As it plays parallel, seventeen is similar to fifteen but while it’s just as overgrown around the tee, there’s a bit more room out in the fairway.

Along with the second, the eighteenth is the best hole on the Gill 9. I think that strategically, this one would be a contribution to the Langford nine: there’s a ridge that cuts into the fairway diagonally from the left side and angles down the fairway to the right. If you follow the ridge out to the right, you’ll have an awkward approach across bunkers to the green. But if you carry the ridge, you shorten the approach and can play down the angle of the green, angles from front left to back right.

When I last played here in 2011, I really liked the Heritage Course. It’s obviously no match for Greywalls but I think that it complements it well. Other than the last few holes, it’s very walkable and doesn’t have so many opportunity to lose balls (or a golf cart…). It’s a good course for an evening nine or a league. It reminds me a bit of one of my favorite public courses in metro Detroit, Rackham, a Donald Ross course where several holes had to be redone to accommodate I-696. Now the architect of those new holes did a better job of trying to capture Ross’s style than David Gill did here and I think that the original Ross holes there are closer to their original state than the Langford holes here. But are courses by (at least in part) a great Golden Age architect where the general public can see some of what has made these guys so revered.

It seems like the club is trying to restore the Langford holes gradually and they are certainly to be commended for that. The restored eighth green is magnificent and it looks like they’re close to restoring the fourth to its original state as well. But I think that the bunkers might be an even bigger issue—the current bunkers are totally out of place and it seems like it would be pretty easy to restore the Langford bunkers. All of the earthworks are still there, so I think that it’s just a matter of putting sand in them. They don’t necessarily need to put sand in all of the original bunkers—many of the bunkers at Lawsonia have been kept as grass bunkers and I think that that works just fine.

But both for their own sake and because most people who play this course neither know nor care about Langford and Moreau, probably the easiest way to improve the Heritage Course is to clear out some of the trees on the fifteenth through seventeenth holes. There’s nothing wrong with the design of these holes (well, the routing isn’t great…), but they’re just absolutely choked out by trees at the moment, which makes playing them frustrating. They should do this while continuing their gradual restoration of the Langford holes. And in the really long run if they’ve restored the Langford holes and the budget allows, they might consider redoing the bunkers on the Gill 9 in the Langford style. This might be difficult to do because with the deep Langford bunkers come the huge, built-up Langford greens, but I think that the point of such an effort should be a more superficial aesthetic consistency rather than turning Gill holes into Langford ones.

Erin Hills has an eventful past. What was once a farm was supposed to be a golf course designed by Tom Doak in the late 1990s. But that never happened and the property was acquired by Bob Lang, who wasn’t a golfer but became obsessed with hosting a US Open. He jettisoned Doak and hired Ron Whitten, Michael Hurdzan, and Dana Fry to design the golf course. While the original course was minimalist, with the architects moving little earth even to build greens, Lang became convinced that the course needed to be more difficult and needed more ‘stuff.’ He eventually built bunkers everywhere, ran out of money, and was bought out by some hedge fund guys from Milwaukee. This story is the subject of probably the best piece of golf journalism that I’ve ever read: the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel’s 7-part tale of the course’s troubled journey to the US Open. 

But by the time the last acquisition happened, the course was already slated to host the 2017 US Open, so there was little chance that they were going to return the course to something closer to the original vision. And that’s a shame because what exists today is a golf course that sits on one of the most beautiful pieces of property that you’ll ever see, but one that’s just trying way too hard. It’s too long, the holes are too far apart, and there are too many bunkers that make it impossible to play anything but aerial shots most of the time. It’s a course that looks to have been built solely to challenge low handicap golfer but the ultimate irony there is that the pros beat this course up more than any other recent US Open site. They made the excuse that it had been wet and the course couldn’t get as firm as they wanted but it’s June in the midwest and the course is on farmland: it rains a lot on the ground is good at retaining water. That’s why they used it for farming in the first place.

If it’s not already clear, I had a lot of problems with Erin Hills. On about the eleventh hole, Bob asked me what I thought of the course and I went on one of my rants, which I summed up by saying ‘this course is a lot of what’s wrong with golf today.’ We played with a guy who insisted on playing the championship tees and while he was a long hitter and a good golfer, we spent almost every hole looking for his drives in the fescue. On most of those holes, it’s at least 250 just to reach the fairway so any little bit off line and your in the fescue. Still, we couldn’t have played any faster than the five hours that we took because the group in front of us was also always looking for their balls in the fescue.


Despite my comments, I think that Erin Hills gets off to a very good start. The first hole features the course’s only marshland up its left side, but hugging this will make the lay up much easier. If you hit a weak drive out to the right (as I did), you’ll have to contend with the bunker in the middle of the fairway on your lay up. Once you get past this, the approach to the slightly domed green is wide open. It's a tough opening hole, but a very good par 5.

The second hole is one of the best on the property. If you drive it toward the bunkers on the right, you’ll have an awkward angle to the green and likely a blind shot. But if you can carry part of the hill with your drive, you’ll have a clear look down the deepest aspect of another dome-shaped (and small) green. I thought that the green was a little bit gimmicky, like a Pinehurst no.2 green, but with more severe run-offs. But apparently, it was placed on a natural knole and used to be an even smaller and steeper dome. Sometimes the hand of man is an improvement, at least for the sake of golf.

The third starts my complaints about the course as we’ll see 7 or 8 holes like this: a long par 4 with a huge fairway to a green that’s wider than it is deep with a big bunker right in the front middle, preventing you from being able to run the ball on. I’m not sure why anyone thought that this would be the right way to challenge the longest hitters. It plays right to their strengths: bomb it 350 inaccurately and wedge it onto the green. Meanwhile the guy who hits it 250 (me) is stuck with a long iron that they have to try to fit around the bunkers.

Four is the same thing except this time if you go over the green, you run down a hill. Even though I only had a wedge to the green, I couldn’t stop it up there. Five is the same thing as well, except we’ve reverse directions and are now playing into the wind, so what was a wedge is now a 4-iron.

The sixth is the first of what’s actually a pretty good set of par 3s. It plays over a valley to a ridge top green with a big false front. Although you can’t tell from the tee, the green is quite deep and pretty flat. So it’s better to miss long than short and if it’s playing into the wind like it was for us, take plenty of extra club.

We reverse direction again for the par 5 seventh, which was playing quite short—even I was able to reach the green in two with a hybrid from 550. Same deal again, bunkers blocking access to the front of the green. I decided to hedge a bit right and that was the right call; short and right of the green is a fairly easy pitch.

Nothing about the long par 4 eighth is easy. While there are no bunkers off the tee, unless you carry it a long way (into the wind), you’re going to hit into the upslope and have a long, blind approach. Of all the holes at Erin Hills, this one might bother me the most. It falls beautifully across the land and has a good green site but what do they do? Block the entire entrance to the green with bunkers. I don’t get it. Why on a 440 yard par 4 where you drive into an upslope would you put bunkers across the entire front of the green? I swear, they designed this course with about 15 people in mind and one of those, Brooks Koepka tore it a new one in the US Open. This approach to design doesn’t even work for the people it’s designed for so really, it works for no one.

Nine is a short, downhill par 3 that I was a bit worried about. It has another dome-shaped green and is surrounded by bunkers, so I was worried that it was going to create a Kingsley-Club-2nd-hole situation where if you hit it in one, you go back-and-forth across the green until you eventually pick up. But this hole actually works because the green is large enough, the slopes aren’t that steep, and the bunkers aren’t that deep. The ball will hold on most edges of this green. Maybe I’m underestimating the possibility of disaster because everyone in my group hit a decent tee shot, but even that’s some evidence that it’s playable—because it was windy.

I had a hell of a time with the tenth—I couldn’t even reach the fairway. But unlike all of the long par 4s on the front, this green is open in front and fairly receptive. Eleven is also restrained for this course—only about 350 yards from the normal back tees (7,150 yards) and without fairway bunkers. A drive up the left side gives you a better angle at right pins but if you drive it up the right, you’ll be playing into the slope of the green. This hole is as easy as it gets at Erin Hills.

And twelve is as good as it gets—a beautiful natural hole winding through several of the hills in the links-like middle of the property. The drive is onto a ridge and if you hit a good one, you’ll go over the other side and have a wedge to the green (and also maybe drive into the group in front of you like the one behind us did). The approach is over another ridge to a green that angles front-right to back-left. This isn’t a very interesting hole from a strategic perspective because there’s no way to open up the angle of the green, but it’s a hole that was routed over interesting land in an interesting way and doesn’t try to outcompete it with a bunch of bunkers. For me, that’s enough to make it an excellent hole.

The thirteenth isn’t a very interesting par 3 but I appreciate its visual simplicity—something that does not characterize the par 5 fourteenth. We’re back to the bunker overload here with blindness, alternate fairways, and confusing turns in the fairway to boot. Like many of the holes at Erin Hills, the key thing to do is…play the correct set of tees. I was playing off the middle green tees (still 6,750 yards) and was able carry the fairway bunkers on the left off a good drive. If you can go for the green in two, play over the middle of the rough-covered mound as everything near the green feeds right. The alternate fairway short and right of the green doesn’t serve much purpose.

Fifteen is one of three shorter par 4s (with two and eleven) and this is the one that they made drivable for the US Open. It’s not well-suited for that. The green is perched up on the side of a big hill and there are bunkers everywhere. The only sensible play here is to lay up, preferably just short of the left centerline bunker. You’re pretty much dead if you miss this green (as I learned from both of my playing partners) so wherever you drive it, go for the center of the green. You may three-putt if the pin is near an edge (as I learned from myself) but you won’t make a 7, which is otherwise quite possible.

The sixteenth is a lovely medium-length par 3. While the green is surrounded by bunkers, there’s enough room up there that you should be able to hit it with a decent shot. Seventeen is something that I wish more holes were: bunkerless. The hole doglegs slightly left around the hole and the fairway slopes gently to the right, making it a tough drive. But you want to drive it up the right side here because a ridge blocks the green from the left side of the fairway and the ground short of the green slopes gently to the right.

The final hole sums up Erin Hills nicely: there’s just too much shit going on. There are bunkers on both sides of the fairway seemingly for the entire hole then when you get to the lay up area, there’s a bunker in the middle of the fairway too. It looked like a nightmare on my GPS. And it’s very frustrating even if you hit a good drive because the second is blind and there are bunkers everywhere. I hit what I thought was a decent second only for my ball to roll into bunkers on the left side of the fairway. I played conservatively from there and was able to save a six, but it was an annoying way to finish.

Despite all of my griping, I actually played really well at Erin Hills. In fact, one of my proudest moments ever in golf was at the end of the round when the caddy for my championship-tee-playing playing partner said that it was the first time he had seen anyone play the championship tees and then asked me what I shot. 74, I was very proud to say. Because I had played the appropriate set of tees, I was able to take advantage of some of the easier holes and hit some good shots into the harder ones. I also got a few lucky bounces.

But I played one of my better rounds ever and had good luck—I’m not a very long hitter (usually ~250 off the tee) and I don’t hit the ball that high. And if I played 10 more rounds here, that’d probably be the best score that I’d shoot by a few. This course demands a very modern, aerial game. It’s the type of design that you could do on any type of land, which is why it bothers me so much here—the land is so good and it really deserved a design that used the undulating character of the property to generate most of the strategy. But this design doesn’t generate strategy so much as it generates difficulty and it does that almost entirely through the use of bunkers. It would have been possible to build a great course on this land with no bunkers.

I’m not surprised that the pros beat this course up in the US Open. The fairways aren’t that narrow, so it just becomes a matter of bombing it off the tee and landing high, soft iron shots into greens. Go figure that the guy who benches 350 lbs. won the tournament. The next time that they play a big men’s tournament here, either Bryson DeChambeau or one of his disciples will shoot 20-under and win. In the meantime, thousands of golfers will play the course from too far back (’tip it out’ as my playing partner douche-ily put it), spend half their day in the rough, shoot 120, and cause the pace of play to be even slower than that on the PGA Tour.

I’ve been excited to play Sand Valley ever since I heard that Mike Keiser would be developing a golf resort in the sand hills of central Wisconsin and that Bill Coore and Ben Crenshaw would be designing it, probably seven or eight years ago. As I discussed at the beginning of my Mammoth Dunes review, I was intrigued by this region as great land for golf when I came hiking here back in 2008. When I heard that Mike Keiser thought the same thing and hired Coore and Crenshaw to build the first of several courses here, I knew that I wouldn’t be disappointed.

And I wasn’t. Once they decided to strip away the red pines on what was an old lumber plantation and expose the sand barrens and their native vegetation, it was going to take a special effort to build a bad golf course. I suppose that they could have built one with several blind shots and overly complicated holes, a bit like Tobacco Road. But when you look down from the first/tenth tee, you’ll see that the property is just too pure to do anything fussy like that.

Unlike its younger sister Mammoth Dunes, Sand Valley lets the land dictate the play. Whereas David McLay Kidd did a tremendous amount of shaping to create a variety of mounds and banks that you could use to run the ball onto greens or near tucked hole locations, Sand Valley sits on the land in a simpler way. That means that sometimes the land will help you get the ball closer to the hole. But often it will not. Sand Valley is a tougher course—often a little narrower and a little bit less forgiving around the edges. But there are also several holes with big, concave greens like those on Mammoth Dunes. So there’s a lot of variety in this course, arguably more than on Mammoth Dunes. But easy or hard, it’s still a lot of fun and rewards well-played golf, if not so much creativity.


The first hole is a pretty atypical start: a short, but not drivable par 4 (~330 yards). This type of hole seems to have fallen out of favor recently as we’ve come to equate short and drivable par 4s. But even the juicer would be wise to lay back here as the green is at a sharp front right to back left angle to the tee and any miss left of the fairway will give you an approach that you definitely didn’t practice at the range. So take it easy on yourself—lay-up to the right and pitch on.

The second is a medium-length par 4 that has one of my favorite types of greens: one where the front is completely open and where a miss short right or left leaves an easy pitch, but one that gets narrower at the back and where the run-offs become steeper and longer the further you go. For some reason, I didn’t get pictures of the sides but safe to say whatever your yardage, play to the front of the green.

After a lovely long par 3 over a big sandy waste area, we come to a long, wide open, uphill par 5. As long and as wide open as it seems, it plays even longer, but not quite as wide. Holes four and five work their way to the highest point on the course so while there’s plenty of room to miss, you’re probably gonna need some of that. You have to hit two good shots to get with a decent distance of the green and the third shot played about two clubs uphill. I was the only one in my four ball still standing by the time that we got to the green…and just barely at that.

The fifth is a drop shot par 3 and a very good one. The green is about twice as wide as it is deep, but it should be plenty deep enough. A miss short right will feed off down a slope, so it’s best to hedge a little left.

Six is a long par 4 where the fairway bunker cutting in on the left should be your cue that it’s best to play your drive up the left side. There’s plenty of room to run your ball up onto the green from the left but this is one hole where, like Mammoth Dunes, you really need to know where the pin is placed. The green is enormous and heavily contoured. But unlike Mammoth Dunes, there are no shoulders on its edge to keep your ball on the green. Like most of the other greens on Sand Valley, the edges are convex so you have to be a bit more careful if you’re playing the ball on the ground.

Seven is another par 5 and, I think, one of the best holes on the course. The drive is up hill and plays diagonally left to right along a large bunker up the right. There’s room to play out to the left but if you go too far, there’s another bunker to catch your drive. This left bunker runs down the hole for another 140 yards and splits the lay-up zone into a blind left side, which gives you a shorter approach and better angle, and an open right one. If you can carry your second to within 110 yards of the green, you can carry this bunker.

The eighth is a great example of one of my favorite type of holes, the uphill par 3. If there were heather around the bunkers, this hole would be at home on one of Colt’s excellent London-area heathland courses.

Nine is a drivable par 4 that features in a lot of the course’s promotional material. It’s a bit simpler than a lot of the drivable par 4s today—the fairway is wide open for a lay-up but the green is surrounded by bunkers, so you either have to run it up the narrow front or carry it to the green. It’s definitely a sucker play because the green is quite receptive and the three of four people in my four ball who laid up were able to get their seconds close to the hole (to be fair, so did the guy who tried to drive the green).

Ten is another excellent par 5—in fact, it’d probably be my pick for the best hole on the course. There’s a b bunker in the middle of the fairway and you’d correctly suspect that if you want to go for the green in two, you should either carry it or play to the narrower fairway left. The second shot is one of my favorite shots on a par 5. About 100 yards short of the green, bunkers left and right pinch the fairway, which plays into the green from a slight left-to-right angle. So if you’ve kept it near the centerline bunker off the tee, it’s a straight shot. If you’ve hit your drive out to the right, the angle into this section of the fairway is awkward. It’s a bit like the second shot on the ninth hole at Lawsonia, but laying up short of the bunkers here only leaves you 120 yards rather than a 170 blind shot. Unfortunately I didn’t get good pictures of the approach to the green.

Eleven is a good example of one of the strengths of Sand Valley: its variety. After a few complex par 5s, this hole is fairly simple. The fairway is wide open but the approach is much easier if you hug the left fairway bunker. That’s because the green has a Pinehurst run-off on its right side—if you miss here, the ball will run down a 4 ft. slope about 20 feet away from the green. If you’re in the right side of the fairway, you’ll have to carry this slope to go at middle or back pins.

Twelve is another very complicated par 5, I think a bit unnecessarily so. The bunker on the right is about 220 short of the green and if you can reach it, you’ll either have to lay-up or play over the edge of the trees on the left. I’m not a long hitter and I managed the latter just fine, so it’s doable. And actually there’s one more option although no one in my group was aware of it—the fairway that you see left of the trees is an alternate fairway. It’s wide open, but I’m not sure anyone hits it over there because it looks like it’s on another hole (although that hasn’t always stopped me before…). The approach from there is blind and has to carry a lot of junk. The approach from the right is straight-forward and if you’ve carried the trees, it’s easy to reach in two (I did it both times with a mid-iron). I’d suggest losing the left fairway and make the driving decision about laying up short of the bunker or carrying/skirting the trees.

Thirteen is medium-long par 4 that is wide open but plays very tough because like the long par 5 fourth, it’s uphill and was straight into the wind. I suspect that this is the prevailing wind because the green is wide open in front, giving you ample opportunity to run it on. Fourteen is a lovely par 3 framed by sand and scrubby pines. The green is receptive in the back for those who go directly at back hole locations.

Fifteen is a medium-long par 4 where you want to hug the let side of the fairway to shorten the approach. While there’s a lot of room to run the ball onto the green, the approach becomes very long if you let your drive leak to the right.

Sixteen is one of the toughest par 4s that I’ve ever played. It ruined my second round and let’s just say, it didn’t make a positive contribution to the first either. There’s a bunker in the middle of the fairway about 190 yards short of the green, right where I wanted to drive my ball. The green is up a hill to the left, protected by a bunker on its right and if you drive right of the centerline fairway bunker, it’s an extremely hard approach. You can run it in up the left, but there are two bunkers cut into the hill short and left of the green, so you have to be very careful with this shot.

The last two holes feel like they belong next door on Mammoth Dunes, but that just contributes to the variety in the course. The seventeenth is a long par 3 to what must be a >10,000 sq. ft. green in a massive punchbowl. For most pin placements, you’ll at best be able to see the top of the flag. It’s pretty easy to hit this green, but difficult to get close to the pin unless you know where it is and which slopes feed toward it.

The eighteenth is a very busy uphill par 5. The best play is just to go right over the middle of the first bunker although long hitters will be able to reach the next one. If you hit a good drive, you should be able to reach the green, but you’ll have to carry the bunker that runs along the right. The more direct a line you take, the more of the bunker that you’ll have to carry. But the green is receptive to a shot that runs in from the left. If you lay up, you’ll need to be sure where the pin is because the green is 60 yards deep from the lay up area.

I found Sand Valley to be several shots harder than Mammoth Dunes. It’s easier to get away with a few loose shots over there. The closing stretch killed me both times that I played this course although with the exception of number sixteen, that’s probably due more to my bad shooting than the difficulty of the holes. And there are also fewer opportunities to three-putt here so if that’s the weakness in your game, you may find Sand Valley to be a bit easier.

Overall, I find Sand Valley and Mammoth Dunes to be two of the tougher courses to rate than I’ve played. The architects put a lot into their designs and they took full advantage of the opportunity for spectacle that the landscape provides. And I guess that if I had one general criticism of both courses, it’d be on this latter point: they’re both a bit too spectacular. It’s hard to criticize something for being too beautiful, but that isn’t really what I mean. I mean more that they’re too spectacular in the sense that they’re visually and often strategically overwhelming. There are probably too many waste bunkers, too many centerline bunkers, and on Mammoth Dunes, the slopes on and around the greens are a bit much. It’s arguably both visual and mental overload and having written these reviews just after I wrote a review of Lawsonia, I think that I’m starting to prefer that course’s approach to design features: the hazards are stark, but limited in number and while there are a few wild greens, many are simpler. There’s a lot of strategy, but it’s neither strategically nor visually overbearing.

It’s also interesting to compare these courses to the Loop in Michigan, with which the property shares some key similarities. While the land here is hillier, both are on all sand and the trees are scrubby Jack Pines and Oaks. The native vegetation seems a bit different here—I didn’t see any prickly pear cactus or beach heather at the Loop. But the main difference is that they left the margins between the holes undisturbed at the Loop while here, everything’s been dug up to expose the underlying sand. It’s certainly more visually spectacular this way and one of my main criticisms of the Loop is that it’s both a bit visually and, off the tee at least, strategically dull at times.

But I think that these course and the Loop would each be a bit better if they borrowed from the other’s approach. The Loop could use a little more visual/strategic interest off the tee while these courses could use less. These courses could also use a bit more short grass and less sand around the greens. I really like the Loop’s greens, which are much smaller in scale and rely more on 2-4 ft. high ridges and mounds. A few simpler greens like those over here would add to the variety. But a few big, wild greens would add to the variety on the Loop. Sand Valley is somewhere in between the extremes of Mammoth Dunes and the Loop, but it’s a lot closer to Mammoth Dunes than the Loop.

Maybe the answer to all of this will be Doak’s third course here, which is currently under construction. While the resort describes itself (accurately enough) as ‘This is heathland golf,’ Doak’s course will take inspiration of another feature common to many of the best courses over there: that the par will be <70. But I hope that Doak’s course takes inspiration from another aspect of those courses: their greater sense of intimacy, with greater simplicity from tee to green and greater use of the native vegetation as rough rather than sand blowouts. It’d be especially nice if they could encourage the growth of the native beach heather, which is very similar to the European heathers common to those courses. That would bring some nice variety to Sand Valley and give golfers probably the closest thing we’d have to heathland golf in the United States.

Back in the summer of 2008, I went with one of my good friends from college who was living in Chicago up to the middle of Wisconsin for a few days of hiking. After spending a day in the Wisconsin Dells learning that there’s no reason to go there unless you have kids under the age of about 9, we headed north into the middle of the state to a few different state parks (I don’t remember which ones). While much of the hiking was on fairly modest land, some of it went up and down big, sandy, oak-covered hills. Being the golf course nut that I am, I said to my friend ‘this would make fantastic land for a golf course (I used to say that a lot).

Well apparently I wasn’t the only person who had that thought hiking around in the sandy hills of middle Wisconsin and one of the others had much better track record of turning his golf fantasies into reality: Mike Keiser, of Bandon Dunes fame. But he saw something about which I certainly wasn’t aware: that if you stripped this scrubby land of its trees, you could expose sand barrens and types of vegetation that are native to this area, but had become dormant in the soil as we suppressed the periodic fires that were such an important part of the region’s ecology. So the land he had was perfect for an inland-Bandon Dunes and in creating it, he could make a major ecological contribution by recreating a type of landscape and plant life (beach heather, prickly pear cactus) that was indigenous to the area. Plus, it would draw wealthy golf tourists to the area, especially because it’s only a few hours (rather than a few flights) from several major metropolitan areas. So it’s a win-win-win.

Now visiting Bandon Dunes is the most overdue item on my realistic golf to-do-list. But after Keiser opened Sand Valley in 2017 and Mammoth Dunes in 2018, I knew that this wouldn’t be a trip that I would put off for 15 years. So when in late April 2020 in the middle of covid cabin fever, I asked my traveling golf buddy Bob if he’d be interested in going and, having taken the lockdown worse than many, he immediately said yes. Plus it gave me the opportunity to tack on another long overdue visit (Lawsonia). Eventually the plans came to include Blackwolf Run (completely worth it) and Erin Hills (well, I checked the box) as well.

There are a lot of words that you could use to describe Mammoth Dunes. ’Mammoth’ and ‘Dunes’ are two good ones. Another is ‘spectacular.’ But from the golfer’s perspective, probably the most important are ‘interesting’ and especially, ‘fun.’ This is one of the most enjoyable golf courses that I have played, especially if you’re someone who likes banking shots off of slopes and big, crazy greens. Architect David McLay Kidd speaks of the importance of the ‘bounce,’ of using firm ground and architectural features to feed the ball into the proper spots of fairways and toward pin placements. While this element has become more important on a lot of recent designs by architects like Gil Hanse and Tom Doak, I haven’t seen a course which is so fundamentally based on it.

Some people might think that it gets a bit over the top with all the big slopes around the greens and that it rewards too many loose shots. True, you may get away with a loose shot or two. But three or four of them will catch a slope and go the wrong way, leaving you in a ditch or with a 75 foot putt. Almost any feature on this course that can help you can also hurt you if you don’t play it correctly. This results in one of the most strategically interesting courses that I’ve played as well as one that gives you among the most tactical options to play shots. Yes, you can shoot a good score here even if you hit a few poor shots, but what’s wrong with that? It’s certainly more fun to shoot well than poorly.

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Now the first hole embodies all of the above-mentioned adjectives with its hundred yard wide fairway and sandy expanses but there’s also another important one: confusing. I hit my drive down the middle of the fairway and played my second at the middle of the green that we see in the second picture. Oops. Turns out that the green is about 60 yards wide and that’s the left third of it.

So I decided to look at the yardage book a little more carefully on the second hole. There’s a bunker in the middle of the fairway about 250 from the tees that I was playing (there are 6 or 7 choices of tee markers at Sand Valley; I played the second from the back, ~6,600 yards.) and you can see what looks like the green over the waste bunker just past it on the left. The green is actually more left than you think. The best angle visually is from the far right side of the fairway, but this leaves a longer second. But the green is also huge and while the flag was hidden in the back left when we played it, the hole is much easier if it’s on the right.

The third is an excellent zig-zagging par 5 where you want to cut off as much of the left bunker as you can to shorten the second. If you’re laying up, it’s important to keep it up the left side, near the bunker, because the angle is very awkward and the shot is blind from the right side.

The uphill par 3 fourth is good example of the importance of using bounce. The bunker in front is in front of the middle of the green and everything right of it slopes right down a false front. But it’s important to try to use context clues when you’re a golfer and there’s an important one here: the solitary white pine behind the green. If you hit it here, the ball will feed into the middle of the green—right next to the hole in my case.

The next two holes feature some huge slopes around the green which you can really use if you get out of position. The best drive on five is up the left, but if you’re coming in from the right, there’s a huge backstop. The sixth green horseshoes around a huge front bunker and features in some of the course’s promotional material. There’s a big ridge in the middle that you can use to feed your ball toward a right pin—or 80 feet from it if you’re a bit off.

The drive on the par 5 seventh is a bit intimidating, uphill over a massive waste bunker. Now there’s about three fairways worth of room to bail out left but there’s also a penalty for doing so—this lengthens the second shot and makes it unlikely that you’ll be able to carry the cross bunker in the lay up area. Unless you’ve hit a good drive, this is one of the tougher lay-ups that I’ve seen on a par 5.

The next two holes are a par 3 to an island green in a sea of sand and a long par 4 that has a that I think is even wider fairway than anything we’ve seen so far—although there’s no reason you should ever be in the left half of it. These aren’t two of the better holes on the course, but they’re still beautiful and fun to play.

The short par 4 tenth, however, is. You can tell a lot about how you should play this hole by looking up to the green on the left. You can see that from this angle, over the left side of the fairway, the green is entirely protected by what looks to be a very deep bunker. So maybe you should play your drive toward the right fairway bunker. This is correct. After all my brilliant planning, I put my drive right where I told myself not to hit it, leaving an awkward angle and then a 60 foot downhill putt.

There’s plenty of room over the right fairway bunker on the par 5 eleventh, but you’ll want to put your drive near the one on the left on this dogleg left par 5. The second shot is uphill and the green opens up from the left, so try not to fan your approach right.

Twelve gives you another centerline bunker to avoid. You either want to thread it between this and the waste bunker that runs up the left side or keep it just short. The green is built into a hill and slopes off short and right. There's also a big mound in the front-center that deflects weak approaches. If you keep your drive up the left, you can run it on and use the slope to feed the ball to back right pin locations.

Thirteen is a signature hole among signature holes; a wedge over a massive sand pit. This is one shot where you have to be fairly precise, although it’s a short one. There’s a backstop for right pins.

Fourteen is interesting for at least two reasons: (1) it’s an excellent drivable par 4; (2) it was the subject of a Golf Digest contest where they published a topographical map of the land in the magazine, invited submissions, and gave $100k to the winner. I had read about this some years ago but didn’t remember any of the details. My playing partners told me that some engineer won it and there’s a precision in the bounces here that would require an engineer to figure out. You drive into a steep right-to-left slope but you can see that if you can carry it 230 or 240, the ball will carry a ridge. From there, the land slopes forward to the green and if you suspect that just carrying the ridge will result in a putt for your second shot, you’ll probably be correct. I laid up in my first round, which left a pretty easy second. I went for it the second time around, hit a good drive, and ended up in the middle of the green. Then I three-putted.

Fifteen is a complicated par 5 that I found quite difficult. There are two choices of fairway here, straight-ahead or blind up the hill to the right. You may not even realize that the latter is there. But it leaves a much more open second. The real difficulty is in approaching the green—there’s a huge trough to the left that can easily suck your ball off the green. If you’ve laid up, it’s best not to attack left hole locations.

Sixteen is a downhill par 3 to a receptive green. If the pin is in the middle, it shouldn’t be to difficult. But if the pin is on the edge of the green, you’d better be somewhere in the middle of the green because now a lot of those slopes that help you feed the ball toward the middle work against you.

The par 4 seventeenth has another huge fairway and you’ll be tempted to just play up the right side, directly at the green. If you’re a long hitter or the flag is on the left, that works just fine. But if the flag is on the right and you’re a shorter hitter, you’ll want to play up the center-left because the green opens from the left side allowing you to run the ball into back right hole locations.

It’s pretty tough to miss the par 5 eighteenth fairway, so swing away. If you hit a really good one, you’ll have a good chance to reach the green in two. There’s a choice of lay-up fairway here—to the left over the waste bunker that gets you near the green or short of it and out to the right. The green is pretty receptive from over here and even though I could have maybe reached the green my first time around, I laid up to the right, had an easy wedge, and made a birdie. And sometimes your plans work.

I really liked Mammoth Dunes. It’s a big, beautiful, fun golf course. The fescue fairways and conducive to all kinds of bank shots and bump-and-runs, giving you an opportunity to play a lot of shots that you probably don’t play on your normal course. A few low handicap golfers may find it to be a bit of a funhouse and one of them might make the cliched windmill comment. But I found it to be a lot less gimmicky and certainly less penal than a place like Tobacco Road. And a windmill might be a useful thing here because you can certainly get a lot of wind—another reason for the width and all of the ground options. And if your low handicap friends are offended by the fact that you can get away with a few loose drives and iron shots, they can insist that you play your next round next door, where the slopes are less often in your favor.

While my June 2020 golf trip to Wisconsin with my golf travel buddy Bob was mainly about going to Sand Valley for me, it was at least as much about seeing the Links Course at Lawsonia. The Links Course is apparently the best preserved example of the architecture of Langford and Moreau, which is similar to the MacDonald—Raynor style of design with its deep trench bunkers and mountainous pushed-up greens. I have a lot to say about this course as you’ll see but to put it simply, I wasn’t disappointed. As great as Michigan’s top public courses are and as much as we promote them, if Lawsonia’s Links Course were in Michigan, it’d easily be the best public course in the state.


I think that the first is an almost perfect opening hole. It’s semi-blind and wide open but if you know one simple thing—that the hole beds right—you’ll suspect that maybe it’s best to play your drive up this side…which is also where the only visible trouble (some long grass) is. And if you make the inference from the minimal information that you’re given that you should hit your drive up the right side, you’ll have the optimal angle to the green. Now if on your second you intend to play to the front or just short of the green, the angle isn’t so important here. But if you intend to go at the pin, the green is built at least 15 feet above its surroundings on the left side and slopes sharply left to right. So the approach from the right side of the fairway is fairly easy, but one from the left is not.

I don’t know why, but I’m a huge fan of uphill, blind drives. When these holes are well designed, the architect will give you some simple visual cues off the tee and that’ll give you all the information that you need. That’s the case on the long par 4 second. There are two bunkers that face the tee in a V-shape about 120 yards off the second tee. Unless the architect is messing with you (always possible--it'll happen later), you might infer from this that the point of the V makes a good aiming point. And you’d be correct. That line points you at the middle of the second fairway. The approach is downhill to the right over two trench bunkers. These are about 50 yards short of the green and if you can carry them, you can run your shot onto the green.

The third is interesting because unlike the first two holes, the visual cues are a bit deceptive. But that’s ok because you can see the entire landing area here. The hole doglegs right around a bunker on the corner. Now as you might suspect, you will have the easiest approach if you carry this bunker. But if you can’t carry it, you actually want to play to the outside of the dogleg on the left because the green is small, elevated, and angled from front left to back right.

The long uphill par 3 is excellent, but tough. The approach to the green is all carry but there’s fairway short and right if you’re not confident in your ability to carry the trench bunker that covers most of the front of the green. The forward tees are appropriately place up the hill to the right, giving you an open angle and a clear view to the green.

The short par 5 fifth is a great hole and probably my favorite hole at Lawsonia. Again, the drive is semi-blind over a ridge. There’s more tree trouble here than on any other hole. But I think it’s appropriate here; the left trees make a good aiming point for a fad and it’d be a really bad drive that went in them. And if you hit a good drive, you should either get past the large oak on the right side of the fairway or at least be able to keep it just left and play underneath its limbs on your second. There's a ridge that bisects the fairway about 270 from the back tee and if you carry it, you'll get another 30 yards on your drive.

Once you’re over the ridge in the fairway, you have what I find to be one of the more beautiful views on any golf course—a slightly downhill approach over a trench grass bunker on the left with a sand trench bunker short and right of the green. You can tell from the general left-to-right slope of the land that a shot up the left side that carries the left trench will feed onto the green. I tried, but failed to get pictures that capture the contour of the green. It’s two-tiered, but the first tier is a triangle with its base at the front of the green and point at the back, with the outsides of the triangle being two lower tiers back left (smaller) and back right (large). This green reminds me of several at Woking Golf Club in Surrey outside of London, which also has several greens with oddly-shaped tiers.

It’s hard to follow a hole like the fifth, but the sixth does so nicely. Several people consider this to be the best hole on the course and it’s not hard to argue that. The drive is downhill over a huge front left to back right angled grass bunker. Old aerials of the course show that these grass bunkers all had sand in them originally, but I think that they work just fine as grass bunkers—you can’t carry their lip and reach the green anyway so it doesn’t really matter what’s in the bottom. If you bail out left and hit it too far, you can run into bunkers through the fairway.

The approach is very difficult—uphill to a shallow green with more bold and creative contours. Like the fifth, this one is two-tiered, but this time the ridge runs from near the front left of the green diagonally to the back middle, making the right ~70% of the green the high tier and the back left 30% the low tier. Our flag was on the 30% side and unless they get their ball on that tier (not easy), about 90% of golfers will fail to get up and down.

The seventh is another Lawsonia wonder—a short par 3 to a green built into a step left-to-right sloping hill on an enormous pile. I read somewhere that there’s boxcar buried underneath this green. That must be mistaken—they must have buried the whole train under there. I don’t believe that I’ve ever seen a green built up so high from its surroundings—it must be 15-18 feet above the natural grade on the right.

The short par 4 eighth might be the least interesting hole so far, but that just shows how great the front nine at Lawsonia is. It’s another drive where you can’t see the landing area, but you can see the green to the right. So just play it toward the green. Simple, right? Too simple…and wrong—the best angle into the green is from the left side because there are deep bunkers across the front of the green if you’re up the right side. But if you go up the left side, you have an open approach up the throat of the green. You still have to get your distance control right, but a miss short on this line leaves an easier recovery.

The ninth hole is a long par 5 that plays down hill and doglegs to the right. In addition to being the most attractive hole on the front nine, it’s really brilliant, but I didn’t realize why until my second playing. On my first playing, I hit a terrible drive and had to lay well back on my approach. But on my second playing, I hit a good drive. That’s when I realized how important the bunkers are that pinch the fairway about 125 yards short of the green. If you get past them, the fairway is wide open to the green. But the shot is uphill and the steep faces of the bunkers make them difficult to carry from long range. Unless you’ve hit a long drive, you have to play a very accurate shot between them or lay back. Admittedly, they’re not relevant for long hitters (which doesn’t include me), but will be relevant for probably 90% of the people who play this hole. We’ll see this feature again on the back nine.

After one of the best nine holes of golf that I’ve ever played, we come to the back nine, which as of the last few years has been rendered almost completely treeless. While I don’t think that the golf quite rises to the level of some of the holes on the front nine, it’s still excellent and the landscape is stunning—you can see the whole back nine from almost any point on it.

While the front nine started with a subtle but very interesting par 3, the back nine begins with just a damn hard par 3—about 240 yards from the back tee. But it’s a very well designed hole for this length. There’s a big bunker that looks like it covers the front of the green, but it’s really about 60 yards short. The best play is to carry this and try to run it on the green. It’s ok if you don’t make it because a miss short is much better than a miss anywhere else.

n.b. With all the trees on the back nine that they removed, I can’t believe that the only ones that they left are some non-native Austrian Pines left of this green. They should be removed immediately.

Eleven is one of three par 5s on the back nine and from the new back tee, it takes about a 260 yard drive to clear the rise in the fairway. If you can’t make this carry, you have to contend with a large grass bunker on the right. Unless you’ve hit a good drive, keep your second short of the bunkers on the left 70 yards short of the green. If you’re going for it, you’ll have to skirt the bunker that cuts into the fairway on the right about 30 yards short.

After the mid-length par 3 twelfth, with its high front-right, low-back left tiered green, we come to a very long and tough par 5. There’s a series of fairway bunkers up the left that only the longest hitter will be able to carry entirely. The rest of us will try to skirt them. Unless you hit a very long drive and can get your second within 50 yards of the green, you’ll be laying up to the base of a hill that will leave a completely blind approach. It’s important to hit it far enough to get to the base of the hill; otherwise, you’ll have a downhill lie…and you’ll still have a blind shot. It’s a very good hole for long hitters but a bit awkward for everyone else. But it’s not gimmicky and the blindness just adds to the variety of the course.

Fourteen is, to me, a less interesting version of the boxcar par 3 seventh. It’s a good hole where you play at back and right pins and your own risk. It was a mixture of aggravation and entertainment my second time around as I had to wait for a guy in front of me to hit bunker shots back-and-forth across the green. I didn’t enjoy the wait, but it is kind of funny to watch a guy score higher than his three playing partners together.

Fifteen is a medium-length uphill par 4 that bends right around a fairway bunker. If there’s a weakness of Lawsonia, it’s that the ratio of holes favoring a fade off the tee relative to those favoring a draw is a bit high…although that’s good for my game. This isn’t a standout hole, but make sure you take enough club on the approach so that you don’t come back down the false front.

I really like the long par 4 sixteenth, which has a bit of an intimidating drive over a grass bunker. But this is only about a 180 yard carry. This is another hole where you want to drive it as far as you can (and a draw does help) because there are bunkers about 40 yards short of the green that will be tough to carry if you’ve hit a mediocre drive. These bunker run to the green on the right side so if you’ve missed the fairway right, you’ll have to carry your approach all the way to the green.

Seventeen is another run the gauntlet hole, with another v-shaped set of bunkers in the driving zone. It’s only about 200 yards to carry them from the back tees and the fairway open up past them, so it’s an easy driving hole for good golfer. But they create a lot of trouble for probably 2/3 of the golfers who play this course (as I saw first hand). And that percentage would have been even higher in the early days of steel shafts after this course opened. Few golfers would have been able to carry them and, with no fairway irrigation, this drive would have been a fantastic test of keeping your drive straight. The fairways may not be as firm now, but the hole still works for many who play this course and it’s a great example of a hole that most good players won’t identify as interesting, but that’s because they lack the proper perspective. Golf holes shouldn’t be designed for just one type of player; not everything needs to be protein shake-proofed.

Eighteen is a short par 5 where even a modest-length hitter like myself can reach the green in two. But there are many hazards along the way. You have to fit your drive between a sand bunker right and a grass bunker left. While a drive up the left shortens the hole, one up the right leaves a more open approach to the green. The approach up this side is protected by a fairway bunker but if you can carry it (about 110 yards short of the green), you can run it all the way to the green.

So that’s Lawsonia’s Links Course—a course that was very high on my list of courses that I wanted to see and which if anything, exceeded my expectations. It’s hard to come up with anything negative to say about the course: it’s on a great piece of land, the holes are very strategic, the greens are great, and the shaping is bold but very efficient—everything that is shaped is shaped with a purpose (no pointless mounds here) and I think that the style fits the land very well. The bunker ridges usually accentuate the natural grade of the land and while most of the greens are built up quite high, if you’re playing into them from the correct angle, it’s hard to tell.

The Links Course is even more important because there are very few, if any well-preserved examples of this type of architecture open to the public. The new South Course at Arcadia Bluffs goes for something similar and it’s interesting to compare the two. Relative to the Links, the new Arcadia course feels over-designed, with too many bunkers and too many convex edges around greens. I think that the Links creates the perfect balance—the bunkers are challenging and there are a lot of the, but at no point does it seem like the bunkers are everywhere and that you’re just playing the same type of shot that you’ve already played several times. The fact that the Links is on a better piece of land probably helps contribute to this feeling of greater variety but if you look at it on Google Earth, you can see that there really aren’t that many bunkers and that their placement varies throughout.

In short, Lawsonia’s Links Course is one of the most important public courses in the country. You could even argue that it’s one of the most important courses overall because there are very few well-preserved examples of Langford’s architecture. It has to be one of the top 20 or 30 public courses in the country and I’d bet that it’s one of the top 100 overall. Again, for me, it’d easily be the best public course in Michigan—and that’s a state that’s justly known for its public courses.

While I didn’t play it (I opted for a second round on the Links, I walked around the Woodlands Course after dinner and a bit to my surprise, I really liked what I saw. It’s completely different from the Links and appropriately named: every hole is through mature oak and pine forest. There are some beautiful holes, like the drop shot par 3 third and the par 5 seventh. This course was built in the 80s and was clearly designed to be difficult, with numerous fairway bunkers and ponds. Unfortunately, it looks like they’re dumbing it down by filling in a lot of the bunkers. I know that it’s expensive to maintain bunkers and they’re probably focusing their dollars on the Links Course (apparently it used to be the opposite—the Woodlands was the premier course). I know that this 80s architecture has fallen out of favor recently, but there looks to be plenty of interest in this course and I think that it’s also worth preserving the architects’ intent, even if their names were Roquemore and Lee rather than Langford and Moreau.