Links Magazine-- America's 18 Most Revolutionary Golf Courses

[Buck Wolter]

Interesting list:
Chicago Golf Club
Myopia Hunt Club
National Golf Links of America
Pine Valley Golf Club
Course at Yale
Colonial Country Club
Oakland Hills Country Club (South)
Desert Forest Golf Club
Cog Hill Golf & Country Club (Dubsdread)
The Golf Club
TPC Sawgrass (Players Stadium)
Long Cove Club
Troon North Golf Club (Monument)
Shadow Creek
Ocean Course at Kiawah Island
Robert Trent Jones Golf Trail
Sand Hills Golf Club
Bandon Dunes

Who would you add (you have to subtract one too)?

I'll try, Add Pasatiempo and delete Yale. Where is the West Coast in this list?

http://linksmagazine.com/golf_courses/features/18_most_historic_golf_course_innovations/revolutionary_golf_courses_index.aspx

[Charlie Goerges]

I don't know what I'd add, but I'd definitely delete the RTJ golf trail. That doesn't seem to meet the rather simple criteria of being a golf course, but is a group of golf courses. If groupings of courses qualify then Bethpage State Park should be on the list before the golf trail.

[Ed Oden]

How did they define "revolutionary"?  I can't see how they left off ANGC unless it was just to be contrarian.  Regardless of your opinion of Augusta, hasn't it been equal parts original and influential?

Ed

[Kevin_Reilly]

I couldn't place the Sand Hills picture...what hole is it?

[ed_getka]

I'd drop RTJ and replace with Rustic Canyon or Wild Horse. Most of the other courses are representing the high end.

[Kyle Henderson]

Pebble Beach
Lido
Oakmont
Tobacco Road
Prairie Dunes

[Rich Goodale]

I'd delete #'s 2-18--they are all just minor variations on the theme (18 proper holes) that Macdonald borrowed from the UK.

[Adam Clayman]

Dubbs ?  That's a joke right?

[Mark Pritchett]

I think Harbour Town belongs on the list.

[PCCraig]

Dubbs ?  That's a joke right?

I'm assuming the idea that they jumped onto as "revolutionary" was that Old Joe built a championship golf course to be played by average public golfers.


I would take The Golf Club off and replace it with Crooked Stick

[Carl Rogers]

The defintion is key.

Question:

Is the initial impulse of an idea that might manifest itself in a project with a few 'flaws' or 'unintended consequences' more important than the idea more 'perfectly' executed in a project that comes later?

I vote for the former position.

[Wade Whitehead]

I can't imagine a "most revolutionary" list without Mike Strantz.

WW

[Tony_Chapman]

I couldn't place the Sand Hills picture...what hole is it?

The par-3 third.

[Norbert P]

  I've always been intrigued with Desert Forest.  Someday.

I dig this view at Myopia . . .

 

[Kevin_Reilly]

I couldn't place the Sand Hills picture...what hole is it?

The par-3 third.

I never noticed the water when I was there.

[Tom_Doak]

Is this a real article in print, or just online?

I don't get the magazine anymore, but the link goes to tiny justifications for each course, with no byline anywhere.

I'd say they got the list maybe half right.  I'm a huge fan of Long Cove but it's a particularly strange selection.  So is Troon North.

[Peter Pallotta]

deleted and retracted - an unneccesarily mean-spirited post.

Peter

[Jay Flemma]

Tobacco road and and black mesa and ballyneal belong on that list.

[Andy Troeger]

Only need one Scottsdale desert course--Desert Forest came first.

I do The Golf Club belongs--it was Pete Dye's original was it not? Then Crooked Stick shortly thereafter? If I was going to pick a second Dye course I'd go Whistling Straits over Long Cove or the Ocean Course just because it's so different.

Kind of hard to see a list like this without Pebble Beach or Cypress Point.

I actually like having the RTJ Trail on there--its been copied (or attempted) and is VERY popular as an example of affordable golf. The scale of the project is bigger than Black Mesa, Rustic, etc. even if those might be better designs.

[JNC Lyon]

Bethpage should replace Cog Hill. Why do Colonial and Troon North belong on the list?

[Jay Flemma]

agreed re:  cog hill.  my guess is they put colonial on b/c it was first bent greens in TX?

[Tim Gavrich]

Tobacco road and and black mesa and ballyneal belong on that list.

What are their respective "revolutions?"  Tobacco Road is one-of-a-kind, as I don't think there are any other courses quite like it. So I don't think it's revolutionary, although it sure it cool.  I don't know enough about Black Mesa to comment, but Ballyneal seems to be a direct descendant of Sand Hills, so having both of them on the list wouldn't make much sense to me, unless there's another revolutionary quality Ballyneal possesses that SH does not.

I would actually take Bandon Dunes off the list and replace it with the Pinehurst courses.  If Bandon Dunes is viewed as a more or less golf-only destination, then Pinehurst is the family patriarch of those, I'd argue.

[Ian Larson]

Pardon my French but Cog Hill is a fucking joke. I can't believe Riviera isn't on there.

[Buck Wolter]

Pardon my French but Cog Hill is a fucking joke. I can't believe Riviera isn't on there.

Ian- Here's their reasoning for Cog Hill.

REVOLUTION Until Cog Hill owner Joe Jemsek commissioned the hazard-laden Dubsdread, the prevailing wisdom was that a difficult public course would be bad for business.


How about High Pointe as Revolutionary -- I would say it was the forerunner on the public side to Wild Horse, Rustic, et al.