Mac…
There’s a number of courses I could play again and again. That’s not to say they are necessarily the best, but they all make it to the top 100 worldwide. Not in any particular order:
Royal St George’s: Watching Greg Norman win The Open here in 1993 on TV in no way prepared me for the majesty that is Royal St George’s.
Merion: One of the great places to play, but I’m not saying anything that everyone here doesn’t know. I once wrote in a book “I don’t usually assign a gender to a golf course, but to me, Merion has an unmistakable aura of femininity. All subtle curves, inimitable style, elegance and grace, it’s the Audrey Hepburn of golf courses. Beautiful to photograph and beguiling to play.” And that about sums up my memories of Merion.
Pebble Beach: Wonderful setting, and fun to walk in the footsteps of the legends of golf. Worth the effort just to play the 7th and 8th holes.
Royal Melbourne West: Less than 45 minutes drive from home, and always gets the nerves jumping when a game is imminent. So many fantastic holes within a suburban location, yet the world rarely encroaches on the game.
Kawana Fuji: It’s a wildly contoured piece of ground that hosts the Kawana Fuji golf course. Put simply, there’s an abundance of fun shots to be played on what is a beautiful setting for a golf course.
Whether or not these courses are regarded as the best can be debated, although I doubt I would get too many arguments about their merits, but I could happily return again and again to any one of them. There are probably quite a few other great links courses that I am tempted to include from Great Britain and Ireland, but when the criteria is playing again and again I am reluctant to add places where I am probably going to consistently have to battle inclement weather. I’m not a “fair weather” golfer by most standards, but I wouldn’t be interested in playing repeatedly in wind and rain as I often did on the links courses. You’ll have to cut me some slack for not wishing to do that day in, day out.