by derek duncan + ron whitten In 1965, the great Dan Jenkins picked an All-Star team of golf holes for Sports Illustrated, The Best 18 Golf Holes in America, selected by a committee of one, although he allowed Ben Hogan a nod or two. What set Jenkins’ list apart from other pretenders was a self-imposed restriction. His All- Star team, he said, couldn’t have five quarterbacks and three tight ends. Each hole had to play the position it occupied on the real course: best first hole from among all starting holes in America, best second hole, and so on. His article later became an influential book, and today each club he featured still treats Dan’s selection as a papal blessing. ▶ Jenkins joined Golf Digest in 1985, and in the early 1990s it was suggested that he reprise his list, selecting from among golf holes that didn’t exist in ’65. He was lukewarm, partly because he hadn’t played many of the newly built country-clubs- for-a-day, or the hundreds of O.B.-laden tract-home layouts or even any of the ultra-private, guard-gated, one-owner Augusta National wannabes. But he soon returned to the game with renewed en- AMERICA’S BEST 18 HOLES SINCE 2000

thusiasm and finally agreed to pick a new Best 18, this time with some help, as there were some courses he wanted no part of. His Second-Generation list appeared in this magazine in early 2000, covering holes built from 1965-’99. ▶ Sadly, Jenkins is gone now, but a good idea remains a good idea, even if it has been milked twice before. As Golf Digest is celebrating its 70th anniversary, we believe an updated list seems appropriate, this time choosing from among golf holes built from 2000-’19. ▶ Our approach was a bit different than Dan’s. His original list drew from the usual courses, the architectural classics like Merion and Pine Valley, spiced with a few “modern” twists like Champions in Houston (definitely not a Hogan thumbs up) and The Dunes in Myrtle Beach. Thirty-five buckle up years later, he searched for holes that looked great on calendars The par-5 11th hole and gave tour pros heartburn, hence his embracing of holes at Arcadia Bluffs is like the 14th at Muirfield Village and the 17th at TPC Sawgrass.▶ a 633-yard thrill ride.

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------players of various abilities the chance to get home with 1 one swing, providing they hit GAMBLE SANDS DELIVERS ON kingsley club from the right markers. But kingsley • michigan it’s no lay-up. The tee shot THE PROMISE OF THE DRIVABLE PAR 4—IF YOU PLAY par 5 • 602 yards must challenge a centerline architect • mike devries bunker 40 yards short of the FROM THE RIGHT MARKERS. 2001 green, either straight over it or curving around it on the ▶ Our opening hole, with its right and then rolling in on 90-yard-wide corridor, would the helping contours. Gamble seem to be a comfortable Sands is where David Kidd, par 5 to ease us into the after remembering that golf round. The first hole at the should be fun, introduced the private Kingsley Club, near concept of defending birdie Traverse City, actually has but offering par, and no hole two fairways, a high-right epitomizes that come-hither avenue and a lower-left route, ethos better than this one. —DD the two separated by a cluster of bunkers. But here’s where Mike DeVries messes with our heads (the goal of every 3 great architect), by making us pick and choose on the first tot hill farm g.c. shot of the day. Do we play ashboro • north carolina up the narrow right side? Can par 3 • 180 yards we reach the crest? Or do we mike strantz aim at the wider left side, at 2000 the risk of rolling down into the trees? Or do we split the ▶ Extremely rocky sites difference and try to carry can produce dramatic golf over that frightful field of pits? scenery, but they can also Kingsley’s wonderful glacial produce extremely expensive domes and hollows provide headaches for architects who brain teasers and aggravating must clear and maneuver options throughout the round, around the unwieldy demanding that our mental obstacles. But at Tot Hill game be focused on the shot Farm, the late Mike Strantz in front of us and nothing else. did what he always did and Which is good, as golf is meant went the opposite direction, to be an escape. —RW embracing extremity by using the site’s ubiquitous rocks as large, outlandish garnishes. The par-3 third is the most continues to curve along spoils of a defunct phosphate- and the Biarritz, but the 2 triumphant example, a fiesta 4 the edge of the hazard. But 5 mining operation—into an 6 most remarkable one here, of stone that plays from at Canyata, Bob Lohmann international destination. or almost anywhere else, is a gamble sands hillside tees surrounded by canyata g.c. and his then-associate Mike streamsong black No hole better typifies the black creek club Silva original. The par-5 sixth brewster • washington boulders, across an avalanche marshall • illinois Benkusky chose to turn the bowling green • florida dramatic potential of these chattanooga plays across mostly open par 4 • 340 yards of cascading rock, over a par 4 • 485 yards hole in the other direction, par 3 • 211 yards sites than the Black course’s par 5 • 559 yards space, though drives must david mclay kidd creek, and onto a green bob lohmann away from the water and up a gil hanse & jim wagner par-3 fifth, which gives the brian silva contend with bunkers jutting 2014 that boomerangs around & mike benkusky hill. The challenge of the tee 2017 impression it’s erupting 2000 into the fairway from the left. an enormous flashed sand 2005 shot remains the same—carry from a sandy gash of earth. The real engagement begins ▶ The “drivable” par 4 has feature. Strantz enjoyed the water—but position is also ▶ In the past 20 years, sand The difficult tee shot plays ▶ Brian Silva deserves recog- on the second and third shots. been a wildly popular pushing golfers’ buttons, and ▶ The “Cape hole” is revered in important. Hit it too far to the has become golf design’s uphill to a skyline green with nition for being one of the Golfers cannot see the green architectural conceit the past temperatures certainly elevate golf design, with its daunting right, and a second shot could most precious substance, a wicked false front and a first architects to rediscover, ahead, only a tall, fortress-like two decades. But typically, here as hole locations migrate diagonal drive over a hazard to be blocked by overhanging sparking a global, gold-rush- deep, punishing wash on the restore and popularize the embankment of long grass and they’re only drivable if you from the wide, accessible front the fairway, the length of the trees. Bail out long left, and like quest for sand-based right. The entire left side of architecture of Seth Raynor. bunkers. At some point the slug the ball around 300 lobe back toward the obscured diagonal carry determined by a string of bunkers can come properties and turning places the tilted, 22,000-square- At Black Creek Club, Silva was rampart must be breached, yards or more. With flexible rear finger of green that curls the courage of each individual. into play. Those bunkers are like Streamsong in remote foot green area is a series of able to build his versions of and on the other side awaits a tees playing off an elevated behind the raised bunker. —DD The par-4 fourth at Canyata, huge. “We wanted the features south-central Florida—built bubbling, knee-high knobs Raynor and C.B. Macdonald’s punchbowl arena of more than bluff—and 10-mile views a marvelous private retreat to complement the vast on the formerly unusable sand that can deflect balls toward “ideal holes” like the Short 55,000 square feet that would across central Washington’s in east-central Illinois, is a site,” Benkusky says. “Tight the hole or, if misplayed, in make Raynor blush, with broad Columbia River Valley— unique variation of the Cape fairways and small greens the opposite direction, leaving sloping banks that funnel shots this downhill hole delivers concept. On a normal Cape, would have looked out of long putts with mind-bending toward a large, square green

on the promise, offering after the tee shot, the hole place.” —RW of arcadia bluffs courtesy opening pages: degrees of break. —DD perched against a creek. —DD

74 golf digest | issue 8 . 2020 Photograph by Brian Oar 1 The Kingsley (Mich.) Club Par 5 / 602 yards Mike DeVries, architect AMERICA'S 2 Gamble Sands Par 4 / 340 yards David McLay Kidd BEST 18 HOLES Brewster, Wash.

3 Tot Hill Farm G.C. SINCE 2000 Par 3 / 180 yards Mike Strantz Asheboro, N.C. 7 8 4 Canyata G.C. 6 Par 4 / 485 yards Mike Benkusky & Bob Lohmann Marshall, Ill.

5 Streamsong Black Par 3 / 211 yards Gil Hanse & Jim Wagner Bowling Green, Fla.

6 Black Creek Club 9 Par 5 / 559 yards Brian Silva Chattanooga 10 7 Ballyneal G.C. Par 4 / 352 yards Tom Doak Holyoke, Colo.

8 Pikewood National G.C. 5 13 Par 5 / 562 yards Robert Gwynne & John Raese 12 Morgantown, W.Va.

9 Chicago Highlands Club Par 4 / 344 yards Arthur Hills & Joe Hills Westchester, Ill. 4 14 10 Friar’s Head G.C. Par 3 / 210 yards 11 Bill Coore & Ben Crenshaw Riverhead, N.Y.

11 Arcadia (Mich.) Bluffs G.C. (Bluffs) Par 5 / 633 yards 1 Warren Henderson & Rick Smith

12 Chambers Bay 15 Par 4 /281 yards Robert Trent Jones II & Bruce Charlton University Place, Wash. 2 13 The Quarry at Giants Ridge Par 4 / 323 yards Jeff Brauer 3 Biwabik, Minn.

14 Oak Quarry G.C. Par 3 / 214 yards Lee Schmidt & Brian Curley Riverside, Calif.

15 Four Mile Ranch G.C. 18 Par 5 / 579 yards Jim Engh 16 Cańon City, Colo.

16 Bayonne (N.J.) G.C. Par 4 / 486 yards 17 Eric Bergstol

17 Brooksville (Fla.) C.C. Par 3 / 146 yards Bobby Weed

18 McLemore Club Par 4 / 435 yards Bill Bergin & Rees Jones Rising Fawn, Ga.

76 golf digest | issue 8 . 2020 Illustration by Chris O'Riley wide sand dune, what Bill from a forest into a denuded, Coore called a “giant anthill” hyper-realistic dunescape, when he first viewed it. In with this magnetic par 5 10 keeping with the philosophy 11 unfurling down its left flank of his design partner, Ben like a mythological creature friar's head g.c. Crenshaw, the 10th lets us arcadia bluffs g.c. reticulating urgently toward baiting hollow • new york each play our game, so we can arcadia • michigan the sea. Many of our holes par 3 / 210 yards hit all sorts of tee shots—high par 5 • 633 yards on this list present some type bill coore & ben crenshaw fade or low draw, parabola or rick smith & of strategic conundrum, 2003 worm burner—and still find warren henderson but after a drive to a 70-yard- some portion of the putting 2000 wide landing zone, there ▶ By now it should be surface. It’s just that you are no options but to sling apparent that we love blind probably won’t see the result ▶ As you stand on the 11th accurate, unflinching arrows shots, the kind that require until you reach the green, tee and gaze upon this at a fairway that bulges visualization before you which is more than 60 yards breathtaking hole, you’re and writhes through an swing and invoke anticipation deep and 18,000 square feet. inclined to wonder, What kind increasingly narrow valley of as you rush to see where the It takes a truly bad shot to of bizarre architectural minds gnarly, fescue-covered hills. ball ended up. The par-3 miss, and the smart money could conjure such a thing? The reward for clear passage, 10th at Friar’s Head, on Long says to overclub off the tee It’s a good question. Set on a however, is a moment of Island’s North Shore, is only to avoid the anthill, and section of bluffs above Lake sublime tranquility on the partially blind, most of the then rely on your approach Michigan, this entire course wavy green overlooking the green blocked by a lone, tall, putting. —RW was radically transformed watery blue horizon. —DD 7 8 9 ballyneal g.c. pikewood national g.c. chicago highlands club holyoke • colorado morgantown • west virginia westchester • illinois par 4 • 352 yards par 5 • 562 yards par 4 • 344 yards tom doak john raese & bob gwynne arthur hills & joe hills THE PAR-3 10TH AT FRIAR'S HEAD 2006 2008 2010 IS ONLY PARTIALLY BLIND, GUARDED BY ▶ The idea behind the flowing, ▶ Once John Raese and Bob ▶ A dozen years ago, Joe Hills, unmarked tees at Ballyneal, in Gwynne, the CEO and VP of a son of architect Art Hills, had A 'GIANT ANTHILL' SAND DUNE. the appropriately named Chop Greer Industries, a mining a desire to follow his dad into Hills of northeast Colorado, concern, decided to build the the business, so he was given is to experience the holes private Pikewood National on responsibility for Chicago from a variety of undefined surplus company property, Highlands, a private club built distances. (The winner of the they spent years traversing on a garbage dump across previous hole usually picks the forested mountaintop the interstate from Butler the starting spot.) As such, searching for lay-of-the-land National. Joe did the routing the downhill seventh can be golf holes. On one trek, they and grading plans, supervised played as short as 250 yards discovered a crescent-shape its construction and even to a blind fairway tumbling rim around a deep kettle shaped some holes on a dozer. toward a three-tiered green hole, all covered in trees, and Because the entire landfill had nestled snuggly into a saddle agreed it would make a helluva to be covered with soil, Joe of shaggy dunes and shaped gambling Cape hole. The trees had some of it piled into a like an elongated E. That were clear-cut to the width of dome 40 feet high on which he flirtatious little emerald goads a boomerang fairway, and the would carve out the ninth, you into firing drives directly bowl was deforested as well. a hole brilliant in its simplicity. at it on the danger line over a After a little nudging from a A reachable par 4 from all raised bunker when prudence bulldozer to form a green on six tee boxes, it’s basically a would urge a safer route off the far horizon, Pikewood’s volcano with a flag at the top. the banking slopes down the eighth hole was grassed and The slopes surrounding the right side. On the other hand, put into play. It stands today small hilltop green drop off best plans might not matter as one of this century’s most in every direction and are much because the ground natural holes, a true risk- mowed tight, so errant shots is a tilt-a-whirl ride that reward par 5 with bite-off- will often roll to the base of the sends balls in unpredictable what-you-dare opportunities slope some 50 yards or more directions, sometimes on all three shots. When Golf away. From there, recoveries helping, sometimes not. You Digest named Pikewood can be like pingpong if one never know, and that’s part of National its Best New Private gets sloppy. A few years back, the joy. —DD Course of 2009, we wrote the the slope beyond the green eighth hole was “the sort of was filled in a bit, in an act of audacity one would expect mercy for shots swept long by from amateur architects.” prevailing winds, but the other The club promptly renamed slopes, particularly the left one, the eighth hole Audacity. —RW are still long and steep. —RW

78 golf digest | issue 8 . 2020 Photographs by Evan Schiller the green at Brooksville’s short and that it possessed enough 17th, set at the bottom of an width to accommodate a 16 excavated pit and wedged 18 new, even more spectacular between a pond and exposed ending. After clearing the bayonne g.c. quarry wall, looks like it was mclemore club ledge and solving the problem bayonne • new jersey simply scraped and seeded, rising fawn • georgia of how to get down to it and par 4 • 486 yards a tremendous amount of par 4 • 435 yards back up, they created what is eric bergstol engineering went into making bill bergin & rees jones likely to become one of the 2006 it work. It’s a beauty of a 2008 most recognizable holes in hole but also testing because American golf. The strong ▶ Tucked among the docks there’s little room to miss ▶ The old 18th at this property par 4 plays along the edge of and storage tanks of New with the diagonally set target on Lookout Mountain was an a sheer precipice that drops York Harbor is the private narrowing the farther over attractive hole, playing along more than 350 feet down to Bayonne Golf Club, a faux the water the hole is cut. a high ridge with distant views the floor of McLemore Cove, Ballybunion with recessed Pete Dye often built short, off the left into northwest the fairway rising to meet a fairways among towering perilous par 3s as penultimate Georgia. But in the process green that seems to hover in dunes formed from half a tests of nerve and accuracy, of performing a full remodel midair. Great finishing holes decade’s worth of deposits and Brooksville does the of the course, Bill Bergin and should leave an impression, dredged from the harbor same here, strikingly so. Rees Jones discovered that and few anywhere are bottom. The juxtaposition Sometimes you have to step there was a densely forested more memorable or more of green grass and golden up and hit the shot. —DD shelf down below the old hole, resplendent than this one. —DD rough against gunmetal-gray warehouses and rusted oil [email protected] + [email protected] 12 13 14 15 tankers in the foreground and the sparkling Manhattan chambers bay the quarry at giants ridge oak quarry g.c. four mile ranch g.c. skyline in the distance is one university place • washington biwabik • minnesota riverside • california cañon city • colorado of the great visuals in golf, par 4 • 281 yards par 4 • 323 yards par 3 • 214 yards par 5 • 579 yards particularly from the dune- BOLD AND BRAWNY: robert trent jones jr. jeff brauer lee schmidt & brian curley jim engh top tee of Bayonne’s 16th. We & bruce charlton 2003 2000 2008 confess this long dogleg-right THE PAR-4 13TH AT THE QUARRY 2007 par 4 is absolutely the hardest ▶ Yes, we picked back-to- ▶ We also chose back-to- ▶ Jim Engh has developed a among our Best 18, the fairway AT GIANTS RIDGE. ▶ Chambers Bay, the Tacoma- back drivable par 4s, but back quarry holes, although number of template-like holes blunted at 300 yards by a spot area gravel pit turned U.S. they’re different. The 12th at again, each is different. Oak that he likes to incorporate of wetlands, the green at the Open site, has a number of Chambers Bay is narrow, half- Quarry is a massive pit-mine into most of his designs. One far end of a bumpy neck of unique golf holes. Our favorite hidden and favors the ground reclamation project an hour is a par 5 resembling a long landfill poking into the harbor, is the drivable par-4 12th, game, and the 13th at The east of Los Angeles, and its leg with a severely dislocated a hole sometimes played by which looks from the tee like a Quarry at Giants Ridge is bold, 14th is a long par 3 that plays ankle, the green cocked at a tacking against the wind in the super-extended par 3, mainly brawny and encourages an much shorter because of a 40- 90-degree angle to the line of manner of a sailboat. Our pick because the fairway between aerial assault. When he found foot drop from hilltop tees to play around a bunker, a water of Bayonne’s 16th is in part sand dunes isn’t much wider a small rock quarry of perfect the surprisingly small putting feature, or often both. At Four symbolic, a reminder that at than a gravel-truck haul road, dimensions for the hole, Jeff surface that’s surrounded Mile Ranch, in a bare foothill the end of each round, the real which it was for decades, until Brauer placed the wide fairway by deep bunkers and dark desert of southern Colorado, world awaits. —RW Robert Trent Jones Jr. and and the equally wide green pools of water on the left and he notched the green into Bruce Charlton turned it into on diagonals (the latter atop a behind. What sets this hole a cavity hooked around the a ribbon of turf leading to a ledge) to provide at least four apart is its awesome backdrop, backside of a natural rock 12,000-square-foot punchbowl options of attack. For those not a mammoth limestone vertical formation. Playing off a high 17 green. The beauty of the 12th willing to gamble off the tee, cliff, a mountain seemingly ridge, the hole is a gambler’s is that mere mortals have a it plays, as should all good split in half by a giant meat delight that requires long brooksville c.c. genuine chance of reaching short par 4s, as consecutive cleaver. This rock, which players to assess whether brooksville • florida the green from the appropriate par 3s. That grassy ramp in 2000 we dubbed golf’s they can first squeeze a drive par 3 • 146 yards tee box without using driver. leading up to the perched “El Capitan” (after the through a narrow fairway bobby weed If you can bounce the ball past green wasn’t part of the quarry. monolith at Yosemite National notch between two stony 2006 the lone bunker up the left Construction workers built it Park), dwarfs everything in outcroppings, and then side, to a spot some 260 yards to get their heavy equipment its shadow. It’s a compelling whether they should launch ▶ Great golf holes often from the back tee and just 200 up the shelf to build the green. distraction to those on the a long approach up and over look like they were simply yards from the whites, the Brauer saw it and kept it as an 14th tee because it skewers the rock ridge into the blind discovered in their landscape. contour of the land will feed alluring temptation for those scale, perspective and depth green cavity. Everyone else When Bobby Weed and the ball down onto the green, who think they can bounce perception. You can’t play to can hit their second shots well associate Chris Monti added where depending upon the their drive onto the putting the yardage on No. 14, and out to the left and then pitch nine new holes to this modest flagstick location and the rubs surface. Don’t try it unless you it’s hard to eyeball the shot. almost backward into the public course in west-central of this green, you could face a can bull’s-eye a 10-yard-wide Good luck. —RW green, but whatever the tactic, Florida, they were thrilled makable eagle putt or one of fairway from 300 yards. —RW the results aren’t fully revealed to be able to incorporate 60 feet with eight feet of break. until the corner of the natural several of them into the terrain But still, it’s for an eagle. —RW amphitheater is turned. —DD of an old calcite mine. Though

Photographs by Brian Oar