Daily course spotlights, architect profiles, golf news, and coverage from across the country.
Michael Lowry's design south of Blanco rolls through live oaks and limestone creeks at Rockin' J Ranch. The Gold tees push 6,864 yards with a 139 slope, and the front nine bites harder than you'd guess.
Russell Breeden built 43 public-friendly courses across the Carolinas, Virginia, and West Virginia, spending more time on a bulldozer than at a drawing board.
Over 60 years, Jerry Matthews designed more than 100 original courses in Michigan and remodeled nearly as many. Stymie lists 46 of his open courses today.
A community-owned nine-hole layout in the Arkansas River Valley plays to par 72 over 6,090 yards and sits higher than any other golf course on the continent.
Brian Ault and Tom Clark have run one of the Mid-Atlantic's busiest golf design firms for half a century, with 51 courses on Stymie across 10 states.
Voted Delaware's best public course, Rock Manor plays harder than its 6,405 yards. A Lester George redesign of a 1920s muni turned this Wilmington property into a par 71 worth driving for.
A Jack Nicklaus desert design in Scottsdale that runs through boulders, washes, and big elevation drops. Here is what to expect at Geronimo.
Desmond Muirhead built 21 courses across 10 states, from an LPGA major venue to the most controversial design of its era. A look at golf's great experimenter.
A 9-hole muni on Minnesota's Iron Range that plays a full 18 from two tee sets, complete with a periscope and a ship's bell on its blind par 7th.
A father-and-son partnership that trained under the Golden Age masters and then quietly shaped mid-century golf across the East Coast, from Saucon Valley to Greenwich.
A Willie Ogg front nine sharpened by Geoffrey Cornish, a modern Armacost back nine, and some of the fastest greens in Western Massachusetts. Here is what to expect at Country Club of Wilbraham.
A University of Florida turfgrass man who designed more than 20 courses across his home state, Lloyd Clifton built Florida golf from the ground up, literally.
Larry Packard's 1970 Wolf Creek Golf Club hides off I-55 in Pontiac, Illinois. Small fast greens, tight tree-lined fairways, and value that keeps regulars coming back.
Jimmy Hines designed this 1968 Whittier club into a tight 6,406-yard par 70 with a 136 slope. The course has hosted US Open qualifying for decades.
He built 48 courses across the tri-state region between 1961 and the late 1990s. Hal Purdy never chased the spectacular, just routed walkable golf for the working golfer.
Forty-eight courses, eight states, and a Master’s in Soil Physics from Texas A&M. Leon Howard built the public golf infrastructure of small-town Texas and never got a magazine profile for it.
Dick Phelps built a 40-year practice out of Evergreen, Colorado, designing 47 mostly-public courses across ten western states with one rule: show the golfer the trouble before they hit the shot.
Founded in 1910, Wellesley Country Club is one of only two New England clubs with golf course work by Donald Ross, Wayne Stiles, and Geoffrey Cornish. The 6,903-yard par 70 layout west of Boston still plays seven of Ross's original holes.
A PGA Tour veteran who finished 12th at the 1970 U.S. Open, Joel Goldstrand spent three decades shaping nearly 100 affordable, walkable courses across the Upper Midwest.
An 18-hole Homer Fieldhouse design perched on the Niagara Escarpment above Lake Winnebago, with five tee sets that fit any handicap and a setting that earns the 'best-kept secret' label.
Bruce Devlin and Robert von Hagge built the first architect-and-tour-pro design partnership, producing 49 open courses across 10 states from South Florida flatland to Colorado mountain valley.
An Arthur Hills original from 2001, redesigned in 2023 by Nick Campanelli with crushed shell waste areas and short-grass collection zones that reward thinking over bombing.
Dan Maples' 1986 Pawleys Island design winds 7,118 yards through 600 acres of former rice plantation, with one of the toughest par 3s on the Grand Strand at the 13th.
Doral's Blue Monster, Bay Hill, Cog Hill Dubsdread, Laurel Valley, and 34 more courses on Stymie all carry Dick Wilson's signature: elevated greens, curving bunkers, and an aerial-game demand.
Bob E. Baldock built more than 350 courses across the American West, mostly on shoestring budgets for small towns and military bases. Stymie has 48 of them across 11 states.
Leon Howard's 1971 nine-hole layout 40 miles southwest of Fort Worth plays twice for a full 18, with small greens and a creek-guarded dogleg that rewards iron play over distance.
From Westover Field's runways to the Copperhead's 18th green, Larry Packard spent six decades convincing golfers to use every club in the bag. We have 50 of his courses on Stymie.
A 1955 newspaper clipping in the Elk City pro shop tells you most of what you need to know about this Donald Sechrest 18 in western Oklahoma. Forgiving fairways, real wind, easy I-40 access.
Robert Muir Graves spent four decades carving public and municipal courses out of the western United States. Stymie has 51 of his designs across eight states.
A founding member of the ASGCA, William Diddel designed roughly 300 golf courses across the Midwest, mentored Pete Dye, and lived to 100 still scoring his age.
A century-old DeSoto County municipal course that still walks well, plays fast, and keeps its prices honest. Five tee sets, par 72, and a drivable par-4 closer.
Arthur Davis built Fields Ferry in Calhoun, GA with a chimney rising from a bunker, a pond-fronted par 3, and a par 5 guarded by seven pot bunkers. Here is what to expect on the tee.
Ron Fream and David Dale carved this 7,227-yard, slope-140 layout out of the Cape May pines in 2002, and it still plays as one of New Jersey's toughest public tests.
Donald Ross's Pinehurst protégé built more than 70 courses across the Southeast. Ellis Maples shaped Carolina golf with high-point routings and signature flashed bunkers.
Green Lea in Albert Lea, Minnesota plays 6,204 yards to a par 72 and hosts the 100th edition of the Shortstop, one of the state’s longest running match play tournaments.
Tom Jackson designed more than 120 golf courses over a 45-year career, with 53 of them on Stymie. Inside the design philosophy of the Carolinas' most prolific modern architect.
Carey Park Golf Course sits on the south bank of the Arkansas River in Hutchinson, Kansas, opened in 1932 by salt magnate Emerson Carey. Here's what makes this 18-hole municipal worth a tee time.
Jack Kidwell built more than 100 golf courses across the Midwest, most of them affordable public layouts in Ohio. He shaped the working-class side of American golf and mentored Michael Hurdzan.
Willard Byrd designed more than 100 courses across the Southeast, opened the South Strand of Myrtle Beach to golf, and earned dual fellowships in the ASGCA and ASLA. Stymie tracks 53 of his courses across eight states.
A 1925 Donald Ross design hidden in plain sight under one of America's most iconic hotels, restored twice this century from his original Tufts Archives blueprints.
For nearly 25 years, Augusta National's consulting architect was a Savannah-born landscape designer named George Cobb. He left a quiet mark on the South with 64 courses still in play.
River Ridge in Garretson, SD packs slick greens, water on eight of nine holes, and one of the longest par 5s in the Midwest into a small-town public track that punches above its weight.
From his renovations of Bethpage Black to original designs like Atlantic Golf Club, Rees Jones has spent five decades shaping how American golf tests its champions.
Algie Pulley's 1991 design winds through 150 acres of working Napa vineyards in American Canyon, with a par-3 eighth that Golf Digest's Ron Whitten ranked among the 18 most fun holes in America.
Links at Northfork in Ramsey, MN is a nationally ranked public course with open fairways, honest conditions, and a layout that rewards strategy over power.
Robert Trent Jones Jr. built over 270 courses across six continents following one guiding principle: listen to what the land tells you.
With 83 courses across 29 states, Robert Trent Jones Jr. spent five decades shaping American fairways through a philosophy grounded in listening to the land -- from Chambers Bay to Princeville.
Pioneer Creek rolls through 200 acres of glacial terrain in Maple Plain, Minnesota, with water in play on 13 of 18 holes and greens that run faster than almost any public course in the state.
Designed by Robert Trent Jones Sr. in 1947 on a sprawling 218-acre Connecticut farm, Rockrimmon Country Club in Stamford is exactly what Golf Magazine called it -- a hidden gem.
Arnold Palmer brought the same go-for-broke instinct to golf course design that defined his playing career, leaving 300-plus courses worldwide and 69 on Stymie across 27 states.
Tom Fazio has designed more than 200 courses, placed 46 in Golf Digest's top 200, and served as Augusta National's consulting architect for over 25 years. His secret: a painterly eye and total confidence in the machines.
Prairie Ridge has been serving Neosho County since 1941 with a nine-hole layout that plays twice for a full round. Here is what to expect from this small-town Kansas course.
Indian Hills Golf Course in Murfreesboro has earned its reputation as Rutherford County's top public track, with the Stones River cutting through 18 holes of genuinely challenging layout.
Albert Warren Tillinghast designed the courses that still humble the world's best players. Stymie tracks 65 of his open courses across 16 states, including Winged Foot, Baltusrol, and Bethpage Black.
Robert Trent Jones Jr. has spent more than five decades designing golf courses that work with the natural terrain rather than against it, from the Hawaiian coastline to the Scottish-style links of Pebble Beach.
Robert Muir Graves designed 27 holes of public golf in Burlington, WA that delivers Cascade and Olympic mountain views, challenging doglegs, and one of the best greens complexes north of Seattle.
William F. Bell spent 30 years building the courses that defined public golf in California, from Torrey Pines to Sandpiper, carrying on a family design tradition that began before World War II.
Opened in 1955 as Mt Pleasant CC, The Haven Country Club in Boylston was reimagined by architect Ron Forse in 2022 and now hosts the New England PGA Pro-Pro Championship on a par-72 layout with small greens and serious elevation changes.
Robert Trent Jones Jr. has shaped golf on every continent, designing more than 250 courses guided by a single conviction: listen to the land.
Robert Trent Jones Jr. spent more than 50 years designing courses that work with the natural landscape rather than against it, leaving his mark on 83 courses across 29 U.S. states.
Ted Robinson designed The Falls at Blackhawk Country Club in Danville, CA to reward positioning over power. Renovated in 2010, this private East Bay course plays to 7,110 yards from the tips with a slope of 132 and delivers some of the most scenic rounds in Northern California.
Pete Dye spent six decades terrorizing golfers with railroad ties, island greens, and pot bunkers -- and in the process became the most influential American golf course architect of the modern era.
Built in 1959 along the historic Oregon Trail, American Falls Golf Club packs a surprisingly challenging round into nine well-maintained holes with views of the Snake River reservoir.
20 pre-1900 US golf courses still in operation. The oldest dates to 1860.
We averaged slope rating across every rated course in every state. New Jersey is the hardest.
The longest championship-par US golf courses. Top entry: 8,454 yards.
We counted every Golf Digest Top 100 course by architect. One name leads with 7 designs.
We ranked every rated US golf course by slope. The top 25 all carry slopes above 140.
He designed more than 500 courses on six continents and coined the phrase "the sun never sets on a Robert Trent Jones golf course." Here's a look at the man who shaped modern golf course design.
Tom Fazio carved 18 holes through 510 acres of Mississippi forest for MGM's Beau Rivage resort. The result is the #1 ranked course in the state, with a 142 slope from the tips and a PGA Tour Champions pedigree.
Robert Trent Jones Sr. designed more than 500 courses across 45 states and 35 countries, including two Golf Digest Top 100 courses on Stymie. Here is the story of the man who invented modern championship golf architecture.
Built in 1937 with horses and mules on genuine Kansas dunes, Prairie Dunes Country Club ranks among the finest courses in America -- and it plays every bit as hard as the ratings suggest.
Geoffrey Cornish designed more golf courses in New England than any architect in history, building a 240-course career on the principle that great design should work with the land, not against it.
From Oakland Hills to Spyglass Hill, Robert Trent Jones, Sr. designed more major championship venues than any other architect in history. A look at the career that defined modern golf course design.
Riverview Golf Course in Kirtland, New Mexico plays two completely different games: a classic parkland front nine and a links-style back nine with Shiprock visible from the fairways. At $24 to walk, it is the best deal in the Four Corners.
Clear Lake Golf Club in Big Rapids, Michigan has been welcoming golfers since 1918. This 18-hole public course offers scenic lake views, two contrasting nines, and some of the most affordable rounds in central Michigan.
Joe Lee designed over 100 courses across 13 states during a 44-year career, quietly becoming the dominant force in Florida golf from the 1960s through the 1990s.
Designed by Frank James in 1927, Longview Country Club sits on a forested hillside above the Columbia River with small, fast greens and a slope rating that punches well above its yardage.
Ted Robinson built 95 courses across the American West, earning his nickname through waterfalls, cascades, and water-wrapped greens that became his calling card from Palm Springs to Hawaii.
Plum Brook Country Club has anchored Sandusky, Ohio's golf scene since 1914. Rolling terrain, a par-71 layout, and an Arthur Hills redesign in 1994 make it one of northern Ohio's more interesting tracks.
Ed Ault spent more than two decades as a Washington power company engineer before designing over 150 golf courses across 19 states. His drainage-first, minimalist approach shaped the Mid-Atlantic golf landscape for decades.
Stonebrooke Golf Club in Shakopee, MN is a 4-star Golf Digest course where water comes into play on 13 holes and getting to the 8th green requires a pontoon boat ferry across Lake O'Dowd.
Ron Garl has designed over 250 golf courses worldwide, with more than 100 in Florida alone. His work spans five continents and 40-plus years, built on a single guiding idea: courses should sit softly on the land and reward every level of player.
Houston County's only 18-hole public course sits in the Mississippi River bluff country of southeast Minnesota, where Homer Fieldhouse routed a par-71 layout across rolling terrain in 1970. It still plays great today.
Robert Trent Jones Jr. founded his own firm in 1972 and designed more than 250 courses across five continents, guided by a simple maxim: listen to the land.
Geoffrey Cornish designed this 18-hole par-61 in 1950, and Westwoods Golf Course in Farmington, CT has been a local staple ever since. Twelve par-3s, a slope of 93, and affordable rates make it worth the trip.
Arthur Hills designed over 200 golf courses across 27 states during a 55-year career -- a prolific, principled architect from Toledo, Ohio whose classical approach shaped American golf course design from the 1960s through the 2000s.
Canyon West Golf Club in Weatherford, TX packs 1,000 feet of elevation change, eight lakes, a limestone waterfall, and an island green into 6,653 yards of Parker County terrain. Here is what to expect before you make the trip.
A family-owned public course in Phoenixville, PA, Pickering Valley has been drawing golfers from Philadelphia and beyond for over 30 years with scenic terrain, honest golf, and a welcoming atmosphere.
Klinger Lake Country Club in Sturgis, Michigan carries over a century of Donald Ross golf. The original nine still plays as the tougher half, with classic built-up greens and a slope of 138 from the tips.
Built in 1963 and designed by Sam Marcus, Los Verdes Country Club is a quietly demanding private layout in the Denver metro with bent grass greens, a challenging 124-slope blue tee, and the altitude edge that comes with playing a mile above sea level.
With over 500 courses across 45 states and 35 countries, Robert Trent Jones Sr. defined what championship golf design looks like in America and beyond.
Family-owned since 1971 and voted best in Warren County, Warrenton Golf Course offers a rare back-to-nature round on zoysia fairways with no housing developments in sight.
A par-61 executive course in Estero designed by Gordon Lewis that punishes sloppy iron play and rewards golfers who can hit greens. Open to the public May through October.
Donald Ross designed more than 400 courses across 31 states, leaving a stamp on American golf that no other architect has matched. Here is the story behind the man and the work.
Valley Brook Golf Course in River Vale, NJ is a par-70 municipal layout where water hazards, tight fairways, and compact greens punish inaccuracy far more than the short yardage suggests.
Tobacco Road Golf Club in Sanford, NC announces a new short course designed with a Strantzian twist, paying homage to the late Mike Strantz's iconic design philosophy.
