Derek Duncan

Here's why Wild Springs Dunes, a new 36-hole destination in east Texas, will be a win for public golf

In just 14 months, Dream Golf, the upscale resort golf enterprise run by Michael and Chris Keiser, have announced the development of two 36-hole public golf properties.

We’re in a Golden Age of restoration during which architects and clubs have been returning courses from the 1910s and ’20s back to their original designs, but should every historical course be restored as faithfully as possible?

The first amateur golf design competition was likely held in 1914 when Country Life Magazine asked readers to submit suggestions for a theoretical hole. Actual architect C.B. Macdonald, one of the judges, liked the par 4 that Alister MacKenzie sketched so much (MacKenzie was still a doctor and not yet a practicing designer) that he built a version of it at his newly under-construction Lido course on Long Island.

Our new ranking of the world's best courses celebrates the virtues of sand and sea

The most important development in golf-course architecture during the past 20 years is the elevation of sand-based sites. Encouraged by the success of destinations like Bandon Dunes, developers have spent this time scouring the globe for sandy, dunes-like properties on which to construct new courses and lure golfers, several of which make their debut on the Golf Digest 2024-2025 World’s 100 Greatest Courses, our ranking of courses outside the United States.

The USGA will be hosting the premier girls junior championship for the 75th time this year, with this recently renovated Los Angeles-area course excited to be the host

John Bodenhamer, the USGA’s Chief Championships Officer, has said the association is focused on taking the men’s and women’s U.S. Opens to the historic “cathedrals of the game.” The venues booked for most of the next 25 years support that assertion, including several mainstays among America’s 100 Greatest Courses in Shinnecock Hills, Oakmont, Merion, Pinehurst No. 2, Chicago Golf Club and Pebble Beach.

For a country with a population roughly the size of Washington D.C. and a geographic area less than South Carolina’s, Scotland’s depth of golf is nothing short of sensational. The country accounts for nearly 20 percent of the courses in our 2024-2025 World’s 100 Greatest Courses ranking (19 courses), far more than any other country.

Beethoven was not a large man, standing a mere 5-foot-4. Picasso was the same height. The writer Charlotte Bronte was just 4-10, and both the boxing champion Roberto “Hands of Stone” Duran and soccer star Lionel Messi stand a mere 5-7. Mahatma Gandhi brought down an empire, and he was but a frail 5-5.