Golf Magazine Top 100 Public Courses

[golfro]

Let's see...breaking it into states:

Nationally:
Pacific Dunes - played in 2005
Bandon Dunes - played in 2003
Crosswater@ Sunriver - 2004
Torrey Pines - 2005

Oregon:
Pacific Dunes: 2005
Bandon Dunes: 2003
Pumpkin RIdge: 2001
Crosswater at Sunriver: 2004
Langdon Farms: woohoo! My home course for many years!

Washington:
Gold Mountain Olympic Course: 2009
Trophy Lake: 2008
Port Ludlow: 2010
WA National: 2010
Newcastle: 2010
Druids Glen: 2009

[clubchamp]

http://www.golf.com/golf/courses_tra...007598,00.html

How is Neshanic Valley ranked number 2? I played that course last summer and it was beat up badly. The fairways we dried out and the greens were littered with ball marks. I was so mad I paid to play there...

[AmenCorner]

There is more than 1 publication that ranks courses you know. Golfweek, Golf Digest, etc....

[elvis14]

I've played Woodlake, pretty nice tract. I'm about 20 miles from Pinehurst, so I try to go play a different course in the area every month.

We enjoyed Woodlake on Friday. Didn't play well but that's not the course's fault

. We played the Maples course and found it interesting. I'd like to go back there on a day where I'm not pulling everything left into the trees off the tee and see what it really plays like. The staff was nice and course wasn't crowded. We were playing a little slow and nobody was behind us until the 18th (and even then they didn't have to wait). I live in Raleigh. If you have advice on courses to play in Pinehurst, please send me a message. We don't make it there very often to making good choices on courses is good thing.

[bwdial]

I've only played one; Grand National on the Robert Trent Jones Golf Trail in Alabama. Best bang for your buck, as are all of the Trail courses.

[sabram]

I've played 32 of the courses on this top 100 list. Played Harvester in July and Wild Horse last week. Here are links to my pix:

http://sports.webshots.com/album/578350873CmvhqJ


http://sports.webshots.com/album/578136020gxKSRO

[TarDawg]

I've played 3....


Pinehurst 2
Pinehurts 8
Grand National

yet I've only played 2 of the Top 15 in my state (GA)
Callaway Gardens
The Frog

[dukivich10]

I am playing Pebble and Spyglass this week. I am absolutely pumped! What should I expect??

[yenner]

My uncle and I traveled from OH to NC this past February to play Tobacco Road. They had a deal going to play two courses and we decided to drive through the night Thursday, arrive Friday morning, grab some sleep, and play Friday and Saturday and head back Sunday. All went as planned as we arrived at the hotel at ~7:30AM and had a tee time for ~2:00 at Southern Pines leaving Tobacco Road, the course we were dying to play, for Saturday. It snowed about 3 inches that night and shut down the state. In Ohio we may have been able to play since our tee was time later in the day allowed the sun to melt most of the snow and raise the temps to ~55 degrees. We would've too. :) Never got to play Tobacco Road. We will be back.

You southerners...LOL

[gortyl]

Just got back from Bandon Dunes. Played all four courses there. Spectacular, spectacular golf! Collectively, I can't imagine four other courses in the same location that are so unique, so challenging, so fun in such a great setting. It's truly all about golf there. The only bad part is how tough it is to get too, especially if you aren't on the west coast. It's funny too, since this thread is about rankings. We asked about 15 employees what their own ranking of the four courses were. 12 of them (!) said Bandon Trails, which is the lowest-ranked course in GD's rankings of public courses. Because of that, we played Trails twice, so five rounds in three days. No carts on the course and it is very hilly or "dunesie", so they were tough to walk. My own personal ranking was in this order: Bandon Dunes, Bandon Trails, Pacific Dunes, Old Macdonald. Not that I thought Old Mac was "bad" by any stretch, in fact I loved it and felt it was the closest of any of them to Scottish links-style courses, I just thought the other three were slightly better. Interesting though, if I were to go back and play just ONE course, it'd be Pacific Dunes. It was the hardest course for me and I'd like another crack, but if I had to play one course over and over out of those four, it'd be Bandon. Anyway, best pure golf trip I've ever been on.

[nevets88]

Just got back from Bandon Dunes. .... Anyway, best pure golf trip I've ever been on.

God I love Bandon Dunes. I'd go back in a second.

I see the green fee has gone up since I played though. Bummer. I haven't been that many times, but other than the location, the weather can be spotty, no? Other than those two points, BD is golf heaven. I wonder how the April weather is, to take advantage of the shoulder rate?

[gortyl]

Weather is definitely an issue, but more so in the winter. Of course after about 90 straight days of sunshine and 70 degrees, it rained 3 of our 5 rounds including a downpour Saturday morning. It was a "light" rain, not a storm, which is typical of the climate. We were able to play in rain gear and not really have the rain itself impact the golf at all. Caddies said that the winter (which is late October to early April, really) is a crapshoot - it might rain like it did Saturday and be in the 50s instead of the 60s like it was or it could be sunny and 65. The beauty of going in the winter is that it is less crowded and less costly.