Top 100 Courses

Bandon Dunes Golf Resort (Old Macdonald)

The second round of the Bandon Dunes golf trip for our group was on Old Macdonald. My last trip to Bandon Dunes was the week Old Macdonald opened back in June of 2010 and at that time the course was too new to be rated in Golf Digest’s Top 100. When the new list came out in early 2013 Old Mac debuted at number 49 which was really not much of a surprise to anyone.

As I mentioned in my Old Macdonald write up from 2010 the course is a nod to Charles Blair Macdonald who is widely considered the father of American golf. Tom Doak and Jim Urbina pulled a page from Macdonald’s playbook in that they laid out the course using their interpretations of many of the classic golf holes from Scotland. In the instances where Doak & Urbina did not use template holes they worked in their own original creations which, in my opinion, meld perfectly with the classic hole designs.

Bandon Dunes Golf Resort (Pacific Dunes)

After spending the night right outside of Eugene, OR I woke up early the next morning and started making my way towards the Coos Bay airport. I was going to drop off my rental car there and meet up with the contingent of Texas guys I was joining for the Bandon Dunes portion of my Pacific Northwest trip. It’s about a two and a half hour drive from Eugene to Coos Bay so I had plenty of time before their flight from San Francisco arrived in the early afternoon and I could make a leisurely morning out of it. My GPS gave me a number of options for getting from Eugene to Coos Bay and on my buddy Barry’s recommendation I decided to take the coastal route that heads directly west towards Florence and then south along the coast from there. While there are not a ton of ocean views, the coastal route is very pleasant and winds through some beautiful forests with the occasional ocean vista through the trees or at a roadside scenic overlook. As far as I’m concerned it beats the heck out of highway driving.

Sahalee Country Club (South/North)

We’ve all heard the expression “it’s a small world” and many of us have had those small world moments, but it never ceases to amaze me when it actually happens to me. Back in 2010 I was visiting Sand Hills with a large group, one of whom was a golfer from San Francisco named Jeff. As we played our round together I told Jeff about my Top 100 quest and said he would give my website a look when he got back home. Once Jeff checked out the website he forwarded a link to one of his co-workers in North Carolina who is a die hard golfer that he thought would enjoy the site. Turns out his co-worker is someone that I have known and gone on a couple of golf trips with dating back to before I ever started my Top 100 quest. So, I go to the middle of nowhere Nebraska to meet a guy from San Francisco who knows someone that I’ve been on golf trips with in North Carolina . . . I love that kind of stuff.

Whispering Pines Golf Club

As would be expected, the years when the list changes are always tense times for me. For the last six years Golf Digest’s Top 100 list and the courses on it have completely controlled my vacation and travel schedule, so whenever an update to the list comes out it’s a bit of a cross between Christmas morning excitement and final exam anxiety for me. Luckily, the change at the beginning of 2013 was the least damaging of the three changes that I have gone through since I began this quest, so I was pretty happy about that.

Plainfield Country Club

The New York and New Jersey metro area surrounding New York City has quite a few golf courses on the Top 100 list so I’ve made numerous trips to the area over the last 5 years as I’ve been plugging away at my Top 100 quest. Plainfield Country Club is one that had eluded me for quite some time. I’d tried to include it on several trips over the last few years, but never could quite come up with a connection to a member. Luckily, I asked the right person earlier this year and I finally got a chance to visit Plainfield.

Before I get on to my experience at Plainfield here are a couple little bits of history from the club. Founded in 1890 Plainfield Country Club was then known as the Hillside Tennis Club. The name was officially changed to Plainfield Country Club in 1904 and the Donald Ross designed golf course opened for play 17 years later in 1921.

Inverness Club

The above inscription resides on a grandfather clock presented by a group of golf professionals to Inverness Club at the 1931 U.S. Open. The incredible show of generosity resulted from something that happened at Inverness eleven years prior during the 1920 U.S. Open and forever changed the game of golf.

From the time golf began in the U.S. through 1920 professional golfers had been looked upon unfavorably . . . to be frank, they were not considered gentlemen. Because of this second class social status golf professionals had not been allowed inside the clubhouses at the golf clubs where they worked, visited or played in tournaments. In this day and age of superstar golfers like Tiger Woods, Phil Mickelson and Rory McIlroy its pretty hard to fathom that anyone would look down their noses at them, but things were clearly different at the turn of the 20th century.

Oakland Hills Country Club (South Course)

Oakland Hills Country Club is a very familiar name on the landscape of American golf. With two courses, the North and the South, the club is one of the biggest and best in the midwest. There have been six U.S. Opens, three P.G.A. Championships and one Ryder Cup contested on the South Course at Oakland Hills. In addition to these 10 events there have been an additional six important and significant golf tournaments played here over the years including the Men’s and Women’s U.S. Amatuer, U.S. Senior Open, Western Open and the Carling World open.

The South Course opened for play in 1918 and was designed by one of the leading architects of the day, Donald Ross. In addition to having a big name golf course designer Oakland Hills also had a big name club pro. The outspoken and often outrageous Walter Hagen, who had already won a U.S. Open by time Oakland Hills was founded, was selected to be the club’s first golf professional. Additionally, Robert Trent Jones was hired to do the 1950 redesign of the course. With those type of affiliations the club was practically destined to be a significant piece of American golf.

Crystal Downs Country Club

Crystal Downs Country Club in Frankfort, Michigan is one of the courses that I had been dying to play since the first day of my Top 100 quest. As seems to be the usual, I found that my desire to play matched the difficultly in connecting with a member. Despite the fact that my college roommate lives in Grand Rapids and spends much of the summer at his lake cottage in Northern Michigan he only ever bumped into one member. Unfortunately it was a casual meeting and he never saw him again. As time wore on I was beginning to think that Crystal Downs may become my achilles heel on the list.

Fortunately, in 2011 my luck took a turn for the good when I played a round with a fellow golf nut in Southern California who followed up after our game with an email offering to help with my quest. Right there in his email, shining like the North Star, was an offer to connect me with a member at Crystal Downs. What luck!!! I excitedly replied that I would be most appreciative and he immediately connected me with Ed who is a member at the club. Ed graciously agreed to help and we decided that we would try for sometime in 2012.

Kiawah Island Resort (Ocean Course)

Back in 2007 when I started this Top 100 quest, one of the first courses I played was Kiawah Island’s Ocean Course. I didn’t take many photos during that round and it was raining in 2009 when I played the course again, so the end result is that I’ve never had many photos of The Ocean Course on this site. With all the excitement for the 2012 PGA Championship I decided that I should make a trip down to South Carolina with my camera and check out the course one more time. I contacted some friends in North and South Carolina to see if they were interested and before I knew it everything was planned.