The 25 best trees in golf

In the early 1990s, Oakmont Country Club—host of the 2025 U.S. Open, its 15th men’s or women’s major championship and revered as one of the nation’s greatest courses—as covered in trees. Each hole was shrouded in a cloak of timber and leaf, the views of other holes almost non-existent. The members, at least most of them, loved it that way. They and their predecessors had spent decades enhancing the course through beautification programs, planting trees by the hundreds. Although originally built in the early 1900s to resemble a links on barren, broken farmland, Oakmont had gradually matured into a prototype of parkland golf.

Not everyone believed the forestation of the course was a good thing. Shortly after Larry Nelson won the U.S. Open there in 1983, former longtime head professional Bob Ford took the Oakmont green committee out to the first hole to demonstrate how overgrown and invasive the trees had become. He climbed into a fairway bunker and asked them to stand behind to see what kind of shot a player in that position faced. “I had to hit out of the bunker and over a tree to get to the green,” he says, “and the tree was 50 feet tall by then. I looked at the grounds chairman to get his reaction, and he said, ‘You know, Bob’s right—we need to take that bunker out.’ ”

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Ford cringed. As A.W. Tillinghast, creator of Oakmont’s peers such as Winged Foot, Baltusrol and San Francisco Golf Club once proclaimed, “The necessity of lofting over a barrier of trees cannot be countenanced.”

RELATED: The five biggest changes to Oakmont

SLEEPY HOLLOW COUNTRY CLUB

18TH HOLE

Scarborough-on-Hudson, N.Y.

Clearing away a group of non-deciduous trees about five years ago revealed the full majesty of the sugar maple poised on the right side of the fairway, its shapely canopy spanning nearly 100 feet from tip to tip. The fairway slopes toward it, so drives need to be nudged up the left to avoid interference—otherwise second shots will have little chance of reaching the elevated green framed against the clubhouse.

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Alan Pittman

Such is the affection that people, and not just golfers, develop with trees. Despite the negative impact on playability and turf conditions, nothing happened to that or any other tree at Oakmont for nearly a decade. Even by 1993, with a president and green committee in place who were vested in returning the course to its pre-sylvan roots, the sentiment of the membership had yet to step out of the shade. Under the cover of darkness, with the support of Ford and a small team of club leaders, superintendent Mark Kuhns and crews began to stealthily take down select trees.

“We had a team that would go out at 4:30 in the morning, cut ’em down and take ’em out, and by 6:30 there wasn’t a leaf out of place, only sod where the roots used to be,” Ford says. The gradual clearing started small, but over time became more determined.

“Then we got caught,” Ford says. “The caddies ratted us out.”

DIABLO COUNTRY CLUB • 18TH HOLE

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Diablo, Calif.

There were few rules in the early days of American golf design, evidenced by Diablo’s par-5 18th. When Jack Neville (later of Pebble Beach fame) built the hole in 1915, he left five oaks directly between tee and green. They have matured into majestic specimens (one shown above) that can pinball golf shots if avenues between them are not correctly mapped. Architects since have occasionally positioned singular trees in fairways, but the five at Diablo’s 18th seem from another time. Photo by Adam Joseph Wells

Those caddies, who knew the course as well as anyone, noticed the new sod regularly being laid down in the rough. They began searching for new patches during their loops, and eventually the word trickled into the membership. Oakmont’s covert tree removal program, now exposed, escalated into a pitched battle between those who wanted the course restored and those who wanted to preserve the wooded character. Eventually, as the peeled vistas began to reveal startling benefits, the restorationists persevered. Between 1993 and 2015, with superintendent John Zimmers continuing the program, every tree that might impede a golf shot or a view across the property had been taken down, totaling more than 12,000, save one solitary American elm next to the third tee. The culling improved the agronomics and allowed playing strategies that had long been constricted to breathe again. More importantly, it uncovered the property’s dazzling array of ditches, beautiful slopes and tiers that most didn’t realize, or didn’t remember, existed yet are such vital elements of its architecture.

RELATED: 11 of our favorite new short courses that anybody can play

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The denuding of Oakmont had ramifications that reverberated beyond the banks of the Allegheny River. It initiated a conversation among clubs, superintendents, architects and historians about the purpose of trees on golf courses. If a landmark of Oakmont’s stature, long known for its trees, found such treasure in stripping them away, what was to stop other courses from doing the same? Chainsaws have been buzzing ever since.

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The first move almost any architect prescribes today when consulting with older clubs is to begin paring back trees. This is always done in the name of healthier fairways and greens—trees compete with grass by blocking sunlight, impeding airflow and drinking up soil nutrients. Heavy canopies can also interfere with intended hole strategies.

In practical terms, the deforestation of Oakmont was the beginning of a new movement of tree removal that has infiltrated almost every level of renovation. Dozens of layouts on America’s 100 Greatest and Second 100 Greatest Courses rankings followed, with leafy glades yielding to breezy panoramas. During the 2020 remodel of Congressional Country Club’s Blue Course, site of the 1964, 1997 and 2011 U.S. Opens, holes once bordered by hardwood groves now flow through undulations of short fescue grasses punctuated by only occasional copses of remaining wood. Members can stand on the second green at one end of the course and see nearly a mile across to the 16th green. Oak Hill Country Club’s East Course, site of the 2023 PGA Championship, Essex County Club, a Donald Ross design from 1917 in Manchester, Mass., and Philadelphia Cricket Club’s Wissahickon Course have all enacted tree harvests that have altered their character in breathtaking but beneficial ways. At other places, like Southern Hills Country Club in Tulsa and Cherry Hills in Denver, the deletion has been more surgical but no less transformative.

PRAIRIE DUNES COUNTRY CLUB

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12TH HOLE

Hutchinson, Kan.

Cottonwoods typically thrive on the banks of rivers and streams, but here they rise from the dry sand hills of central Kansas. Two imposing clusters flanked 70 yards short of the green at this short par 4 serve as gates crashing shut. If drives aren’t positioned precisely to allow for shots to pass cleanly through, approaches will have to be punched low under their branches.

Chase Castor

However appropriate the taking down of trees might be, it doesn’t quell a deep emotional opposition to it. For most golfers there is nothing comforting—at first—about seeing the sacking of familiar friends. Large trees possess a satisfying primordial presence, on golf courses or elsewhere. Strolls over beaches and meadows can be pleasant, but for more soul-searching hikes we seek the solitude of forests and the partnership of trees. The woods take us in and pass us through, covering us in blinking glimpses of scenery, their air filled with the swish of wind and the scent of new buds, sap and pine. What is golf, at its best, but a wondrous hike with nature.

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There can even be sport in it when a tree appears to have stymied our shot. “Most of the best inland courses owe their popularity to the grouping of trees,” wrote Alister MacKenzie. “Groups of trees, planted irregularly, create most fascinating golf, and give players many opportunities of showing their skill and judgment in slicing, pulling round or attempting to loft over them.”

In this view the act of chopping them can seem purely destructive, like the wrecking of a beneficial if not sacred ecosystem. Trees and woods are critical to the sustainability of our environment. They capture carbon, help cool urban areas and provide shelter and habitats for wildlife. Golf courses account for the largest green spaces in many cities. More trees are needed at this moment, not fewer.

BULLS BAY GOLF CLUB

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15TH HOLE

Awendaw, S.C.

Using trees as strategic lynchpins is risky because they can be felled by weather or disease, but for this par 4, architect Mike Strantz employed two ancient live oaks staggered near the green to create provocative decisions on the downhill tee shot: Play well right toward the water to get a clear inside angle around the first oak or aim left for a safer drive but a longer approach between them.

Clint Davis

What makes tree removal efforts in golf so widespread is not antipathy toward trees. Rather, it’s what is needed. The land beneath most of North America’s historic courses was not naturally wooded. The trees being cut now were added during beautification sprees much like Oakmont’s throughout the middle of the 20th century. Aerial photographs from the 1920s, ’30s and ’40s show how scarce trees were on courses built in those decades. Much of American golf came to life on land that had been cleared for agricultural reasons or on prairies and other open spaces. Courses we have long considered synonymous with parkland fairways were largely bereft of significant tree cover, from Westchester Country Club in New York to Laurel Valley in Pennsylvania, from Interlachen in Minneapolis to Baltusrol, Inverness and Merion. Even Pine Valley, the ideal of hole-to-hole isolation, was sparsely populated by spindly, half-grown pines.

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Almost as soon as the grass was growing, however, members at clubs coast to coast began garnishing holes with trees. Settings with broad, stark horizons were rarely considered desirable, and it was taken as a matter of faith that trees lent beauty to courses and thus made them better. This notion was widely shared, including among many of the best architectural minds of the Classical era.

“From a landscape point of view, you can get greater value from tree planting on a dull piece of land than from any other form of work,” wrote Charles Alison, partner of Harry S. Colt and designer of Milwaukee Country Club, Kirtland, Bob O’Link and the first nine at Sea Island (among others), though he did advise against placing them where they might block desirable views. Donald Ross, like Tillinghast, resisted placing them in the line of play and urged restraint when clearing them. “There is no need to ruthlessly cut down everything before us,” he said. “We must go about this tree matter carefully, else we will have a barren, devastated appearance on many of our courses.”

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In spite of protestations against the interference of shots, no architect of the era expressed a greater love of trees than Tillinghast. “I find one of the greatest joys of my profession in working among the trees, for I cannot conceive of an inland course without them. Indeed, I like many,” he said. “To some, one tree is very like another. To others its influence is as satisfying as anything a round of golf may provide.”

As golf moved deeper into the countryside, often necessitating forays into woods, tree clearing became a crucial element of construction. Tillinghast noted this allowed the discerning architect to bring into view the most prominent trees by cutting away less sturdy neighbors. “Judgment [must] be used in removing trees, to the end that every possible beauty be featured so long as it does not interfere with the sound play of the game,” he wrote. He was particularly fond of the noble varieties—hickories, elms, sycamores and oaks—so much that he often had to make himself “absent during the execution” when the timbering of a particularly impressive creature could not be avoided.

OLD MACDONALD

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THIRD HOLE

Bandon, Ore.

The “Ghost Tree” is a lone shore pine stripped bare by wind that stands hauntingly atop a dune ridge that must be hit over some 150 yards from the tee. Its forked shape is a metaphorical Styx dividing the terrestrial logic of holes 1, 2, 17 and 18 and the surreal underworld shapes that await on the far side. It’s also a useful aiming target.

Ben Walton

In the post-World War II years, tree-planting became frenzied and took hold of nearly every old club or city course. Some hired landscape architects to advise on species and placement, but more often committees and greenkeepers took it upon themselves to arrange their saplings and seed, often in crowded, linear rows. These superfluous trees are typically the first to be taken out, clearing the way for other specimens to take prominence. As the old architects recognized, removing clutter and green noise accentuates what’s left behind.

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Oakmont’s night moves may be regarded as the genesis of the modern tree-reduction movement but will also be the exception. Few North American courses have had the motivation or historical justification Oakmont did for such total tree reversal. Elsewhere, the pruning is more judicious, with the goal of producing healthier turf, more room to play and to showcase the exemplary species that most inspire us. In the United States and Canada, whether in the high country and mountains, the Pacific rainforests, along creeks and rivers, the Lowcountry of the Southeast or the old forests of the North, trees are a part of golf. Without them the game is less diverse and frequently less attractive. What the past 20 years has taught golf is how to better appreciate the long-lived, majestic trees that make courses unique—not by accoutrement and crowding but by giving them and the air around them the space they deserve.

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THE 25 BEST TREES IN GOLF

Thousands of courses have trees, but only a few possess trees that matter. The following are some of the sport’s most impactful and unforgettable specimens.

AUGUSTA (Ga.) NATIONAL GOLF CLUB

The most impressive tree at Augusta National is not on the golf course. It’s the regal live oak just off the back of the clubhouse, believed to have been planted in the 1850s before Bobby Jones and Alister MacKenzie were even born. One of the game’s great meeting places, the oak has become a landmark.

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No club has tinkered with its golf course as often or as effectively over the decades as has Augusta National Golf Club, mainly to keep it competitive for the annual Masters Tournament, an event it has conducted since 1934, with time off during WWII. All that tinkering has resulted in an amalgamation of design ideas, with a routing by Alister Mackenzie and Bobby Jones, some Perry Maxwell greens, some Trent Jones water hazards, some Jack Nicklaus mounds and swales and, most recently, extensive rebunkering and tree planting by Tom Fazio. The tinkering continues, including the lengthening of the par-4 fifth in the summer of 2018, the lengthening of the 11th and 15th holes in 2022, and the addition of 35 yards to the famed par-5 13th in 2023. View Course

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BLACKWOLF RUN, THE RIVER, NINTH HOLE

Kohler, Wis.

Known as “Cathedral Spires,” this drivable par 4 can be maddening because the line to the green is over an upshoot of American basswood, red oaks and cottonwoods along the banks of the Sheboygan River. There’s a safe but unsatisfying option to play to the left fairway, so the instinct is to risk trying to fly them. You might not like these trees, but you won’t forget them.

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Previous Next Pause Play Save for later Public Blackwolf Run: River Kohler, WI 4.4 40 Panelists

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Only Pete Dye could have convinced owner Herb Kohler to rip apart an award-winning course (Golf Digest’s Best New Public Course of 1988) and still come out a winner. Dye coupled the front nine of that original 18 (now holes 1-4 and 14-18) with nine newer holes built within a vast bend of the Sheboygan River to produce the River Course. It possesses some of Dye’s most exciting holes, from the triple-option reachable par-4 ninth to the boomerang-shaped par-5 11th to the monster par-4 18th, where Kohler surprised Dye by converting a long waste bunker into a temporary lagoon for tournament events. For major events, like the 2012 U.S. Women’s Open, Dye’s original 18 was used. But for survey purposes, Golf Digest evaluates the River 18, which is available for everyday general play. View Course

BOSTON GOLF CLUB, FOURTH HOLE

Hingham, Mass.

This hole is called “Wizard’s Cap” for an aptly named Eastern white pine topped by a cocked upper bough angled like the collapsing point of a sorcerer’s hat. It was moved from the fairway during construction and relocated into a stand of slightly less distinguished pines behind the green, oriented so that the tilted point is online with a slope that feeds balls onto the putting surface.

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Previous Next Pause Play Save for later Private Boston Golf Club Hingham, MA 4.5 15 Panelists

Boston Golf Club, in the southern suburb of Hingham, is a modern-day Pine Valley, massaged by architect Gil Hanse and his team from dramatic coastal topography with gashes of unsullied sand. Fairways tumble across the landscape, posing some blind shots that are embraced, not criticized. One stretch surrounds an old strip mine, with mining spoils incorporated as chocolate-drop mounds. One vein of sand serves as a “Hell’s One-Third Acre” hazard. Like Garden City Golf Club, Boston finishes with a terrific par-3. View Course

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CHAMBERS BAY, 15TH HOLE

University Place, Wash.

The “Lone Fir” tree behind the 15th green at this former U.S. Open site south of Seattle is the only tree of note on the course. Its sentinel posture standing against the backdrop of Puget Sound makes for one of golf’s most iconic images.

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Previous Next Pause Play Save for later Public Chambers Bay University Place, WA 4.4 43 Panelists

Prodded by his partner, Bruce Charlton, and their then-design associate Jay Blasi, veteran architect Robert Trent Jones Jr. agreed to a radically different, vertical-links style when building Chambers Bay in an abandoned sand quarry near Tacoma. By the time Golf Digest named it as America’s Best New Public Course of 2008, the course had already been awarded the 2010 U.S. Amateur and 2015 U.S. Open. In the Amateur, Chambers Bay proved to be hard, both in the firmness of its dry fescue turf (Jones called his fairways “hardwood floors”) and its difficulties around and on the windswept greens. For the U.S. Open, the firmness and surrounds were more manageable, but the greens were notoriously bumpy. That’s now been remedied, as the fescue turf on the putting surfaces has been replaced with pure Poa Annua. What’s irreplaceable are the views of Puget Sound from nearly every hole, multi-level fairways that entice bold driving to gain second-shot advantages and two holes running parallel to a railway that invokes feelings of early Scottish and Irish links courses. View Course More from Golf Digest

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CHERRY HILLS COUNTRY CLUB, 14TH HOLE

Cherry Hills Village, Colo.

Two overhanging cottonwoods, one in the foreground, the other farther downfield, guard against second shots to a green tucked in the nook of a creek. Drives that play left to shorten the long dogleg must contend with branches, but shots played wide to the right leave much longer and more perilous approaches.

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Previous Next Pause Play Save for later Private Cherry Hills Country Club Englewood, CO 4.7 22 Panelists

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When Cherry Hills opened in the early 1920s, it was a ground-breaking design, with the nation’s first par-5 island green and closing back-to-back par 5s, although in championships, the 18th is played as a par 4. In the 1960 U.S. Open, winner Arnold Palmer popularized the idea of a drivable par-4 by going for the first green in every round. Curiously, when Palmer and partner Ed Seay remodeled Cherry Hills in 1976, they lengthened the first hole so no player could duplicate Arnie’s feat. Almost 50 years later, modern equipment has once again made the first hole reachable from the tee. A decade’s worth of renovation and individual feature restoration by Tom Doak and Eric Iverson of Renaissance Golf have primed Cherry Hills for the next phase of its illustrious tournament history, which began with the 2023 U.S. Amateur. View Course

CYPRESS POINT CLUB, 14TH HOLE

Pebble Beach

The grove of cypress hugging the cliff at Cypress Point’s 17th is iconic, but the billowing specimen cypress to the right of 14 gets the nod here for sheer otherworldliness. Known as the Octopus Tree for its enormous multi-armed body, it also defends the green against drives played too far right.

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Previous Next Pause Play Save for later Private Cypress Point Club Pebble Beach, CA 5 27 Panelists

From Golf Digest Architecture Editor emeritus Ron Whitten:

Cypress Point, the sublime Monterey Peninsula work of sandbox sculpture, whittled Cypress and chiseled coastline, has become Exhibit A in the argument that classic architecture has been rendered ineffectual by modern technology.

I’m not buying that argument. Those who think teeny old Cypress Point is defenseless miss the point of Alister MacKenzie’s marvelous design.

MacKenzie relished the idea that Cypress Point would offer all sorts of ways to play every hole. That philosophy still thrives, particularly in the past decade, after the faithful restoration of MacKenzie’s original bunkers by veteran course superintendent Jeff Markow. Explore our complete review here—including bonus photography and ratings from our expert panelists.

 

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ESSEX COUNTY CLUB, 10TH AND 11TH HOLES

Manchester, Mass.

Essex County has been deforested in stages, particularly on the rocky ridges in the center of the second nine. This allowed the club and consulting architect Bruce Hepner to identify the stateliest trees to keep, including the towering white oak that stands watch over the rugged terrain of the 10th and 11th holes.

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Previous Next Pause Play Save for later Private Essex County Club Manchester, MA 4.8 32 Panelists

Essex County Club is considered the first great Donald Ross design and perhaps his most intriguing. He wasn’t the original architect, but he served as its professional from 1909 to 1913 (until his design business became so lucrative he no longer needed the pro job) and lived on site, so he was able to tweak many holes. Ultimately, he returned to do a substantial remodeling in 1917. Unusual holes are the order of the day, from the flat opening six holes with fuzzy chocolate drops covered in tall fescue grasses to the blind shots, both uphill and downhill, on the back nine. The par-3 11th, with its green resembling the deck of a sinking ship, and the downhill par-4 18th, shaped like an S around small hills, are special. The club insists its third green, created in 1893 and preserved by Ross in his remodel, is the oldest green in continuous existence in America. View Course

HARBOUR TOWN GOLF LINKS, SEVENTH HOLE

Hilton Head Island

The gnarly upper limbs of three tall coastal oaks surrounding the green on this par 3 threaten to swat stray tee shots into a moat of sand or flanking canal. Few designers other than Pete Dye would think to nestle a green in such a place, but few have built holes as memorable as this.

RELATED: We ranked every PGA Tour course—from best to worst

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Previous Next Pause Play Save for later Public Harbour Town Golf Links Hilton Head Island, SC 4.4 42 Panelists

In the late 1960s, Jack Nicklaus landed the design contract for Harbour Town, then turned it over to his new partner, Pete Dye, who was determined to distinguish his work from that of rival Robert Trent Jones. Soon after Harbour Town opened in late November 1969 (with a victory by Arnold Palmer in the Heritage Classic), the course debuted on America’s 100 Greatest as one of the Top 10. It was a total departure for golf at the time. No mounds, no elevated tees, no elevated greens—just low-profile and abrupt change. Tiny greens hung atop railroad ties directly over water hazards. Trees blocked direct shots. Harbour Town gave Pete Dye national attention and put Jack Nicklaus, who made more than 100 inspection trips collaborating with Dye, in the design business. Pete’s wife, Alice, also contributed, instructing workers on the size and shape of the unique 13th green, a sinister one edged by cypress planks. Beginning two weeks after the conclusion of the 2025 RBC Heritage, an extension restoration started at Harbour Town, overseen by Davis Love III and his design company. View Course

MONTEREY PENINSULA COUNTRY CLUB, SHORE COURSE, 11TH HOLE

Pebble Beach

Few trees in golf are more romantic than the Shore Course’s cypress. They appear alone or spaced in contemplative, top-heavy clusters amid the Boschian landscape of architect Mike Strantz, but the most evocative group is the chorus behind the 11th green, sculpted in leeward pose by the harsh Pacific wind.

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The view from behind the 12th green at MPCC Shore.

LC Lambrecht/Courtesy of Monterey Peninsula CC

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The approach to the eighth green at MPCC Shore.

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Behind the sixth green at the Monterey Peninsula Country Club Shore course.

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Approaching the 413-yard par-4 15th hole at Monterey Peninsula Country Club’s Shore course.

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The par-3 third hole, before the layout opens up to 17 Mile Drive.

LC Lambrecht/Courtesy of Monterey Peninsula CC

Previous Next Pause Play Save for later Private Monterey Peninsula Country Club: Shore Pebble Beach, CA 4.5 22 Panelists

Mike Strantz was battling cancer while transforming the bland, low-budget Shore Course into a scenic and strategic marvel that rivals next-door neighbor Cypress Point. Strantz reversed the direction of the fifth through 15th holes to provide a Pacific Ocean backdrop to most of them. He weaved fairways among trees so players could “dance among the cypress,” and added native grasses for a coastal prairie look. The stunning landscape would be Strantz’s last work of art. He died six months after completing the redesign. Former PGA Tour player Forrest Fezler, who was Strantz’s associate on the project, later served as a consulting architect to retain the Strantz vision, until he passed away, also from cancer, in 2018. Designer Dave Zinkand completed a renovation of the bunkers in 2025 to keep Strantz’s artistry vivid. View Course

OAK HILL COUNTRY CLUB, EAST COURSE, 13TH HOLE

Rochester, N.Y.

The grove of red oaks on the right embankment overlooking the 13th green is known as the Hill of Fame. It was created in the 1950s by John R. Williams, the club’s former chairman, to honor golfers who contributed to the game, and each tree bears copper plaques engraved with the names of prominent figures from Bobby Jones to Bob Hope to Nancy Lopez.

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The approach to No. 13.

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The fourth and fifth holes at the renovated East course at Oak Hill Country Club.

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A closer look at the 13th hole.

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The renovated East course will host the 2023 PGA Championship, the fourth PGA in the club’s history.

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Previous Next Pause Play Save for later Private Oak Hill Country Club: East Rochester, NY 4.9 24 Panelists

Back in 1979, George Fazio and nephew Tom were roundly criticized by Donald Ross fans for removing a classic Ross par-4 on Oak Hill East and replacing it with two new holes, including the bowl-shaped par-3 sixth, which would later become the scene of four aces in two hours during the second round of the 1989 U.S. Open. They also built a pond on another par-3 and relocated the green on the par-4 18th. The club hired golf architect Andrew Green to remodel those holes to bring them more in line with Donald Ross’ original style. In addition to putting the final touches (at least for now) on a significant tree removal program, Green re-established Ross’ original par-4 hole, then the fifth and now playing as the sixth (pictured here). Reconstruction occurred after the 2019 Senior PGA Championship on the East Course and was completed in May 2020. Oak Hill’s East Course hosted the 2023 PGA Championship, won by Brooks Koepka. View Course

OHOOPEE MATCH CLUB, 15TH HOLE

Cobbtown, Ga.

Shortly after the course opened in 2019, a colossal live oak positioned at the inside corner of this dogleg par 4 was struck by lightning, splitting off one large section. The felled half of the tree, with branches that look like a frozen web of horizontal lightning, was secured in place to preserve it, and the best drives are those that just skirt by its reach or fly directly over the top.

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Previous Next Pause PlaySave for later Private Ohoopee Match Club Cobbtown, GA 4.8 15Panelists

From Golf Digest Architecture Editor emeritus Ron Whitten: I’ve been told Gil Hanse had first examined the site of Ohoopee Match Club as far back as 2006 considered it ideal for golf: gently rolling terrain with no severe elevation changes, and beautiful sandy soil deposited by the nearby Ohoopee River, perfect for drainage and firm, fast conditions. The ground around tiny Cobbtown, Ga., is also perfect for growing onions—it’s just northeast of Vidalia, world-famous for the Vidalia onion. Indeed, Ohoopee’s logo is a freshly picked onion, although if you look closely, its roots are three writhing snakes. Any symbolism pertaining to match play is uncertain; perhaps it simply suggests the sort of putts one will face. What’s the composition of a course meant for match play? One might think it would contain lots of penal hazards, because a triple bogey on any particular hole would not be fatal in match play. Perhaps the targets would be smaller than normal, to level the playing field between big hitters and short-but-accurate golfers. That’s not the composition of the 7,325-yard championship course at Ohoopee. Hanse did produce dramatic visuals in this sandy locale that hark back to portions of Pinehurst and Pine Valley, from long expanses of sandy rough dotted with native plants to deep, foreboding pits of sand, but they’re mostly on the far perimeter of holes.  Explore our complete review here—including bonus photography and ratings from our expert panelists.

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OZARKS NATIONAL, 11TH HOLE

Hollister, Mo.

Like a perfectly placed bunker, the solitary pine along the left rough of this par 5 controls the strategy of the hole. Set about 350 yards off the back tee, it looms in the path of seemingly every second shot as the fairway curves left. Drives played to the short side to the left leave a long carry over a ravine, and those pushed farther up the other side must contend with a narrowing strand of seven fairway bunkers.

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Evan Schiller

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Evan Schiller

Previous Next Pause Play Save for later Public Big Cedar Lodge: Ozarks National Hollister, MO

The Ozarks of southern Missouri are not tall, but their ridge-and-valley topography provides a sense of heightened elevation. Ozarks National at Big Cedar Lodge takes advantage of the illusion with holes that run out along ridgetops and onto elongated fingers of land that fall off into wooded ravines. Formerly the site of a different, much narrower golf course, Coore & Crenshaw found ways to widen out many of the same spaces and added new holes on previously unused parts of the property. Though not as broad as is customary for the designers, the cant of the holes and the engaging fairway bunkering put a premium on shaping shots and hitting the correct line off the tee. View Course

PEBBLE BEACH GOLF LINKS, 18TH HOLE

Pebble Beach

After the old pine that stood near the front of the 18th green passed on in 2001, it was replaced by a slightly smaller but equally attractive figure, a Monterey cypress transplanted from the first hole. The 18th actually has two trees that players must contemplate: this beauty on the second or third shots and another cypress set prominently in the driving zone.

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Sherman Chu

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Getty Images

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Photo by Joann Dost

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Previous Next Pause Play Save for later Public Pebble Beach Golf Links Pebble Beach, CA 4.7 46 Panelists

Not just the greatest meeting of land and sea in American golf, but the most extensive one, too, with nine holes perched immediately above the crashing Pacific surf—the fourth through 10th plus the 17th and 18th. Pebble’s sixth through eighth are golf’s real Amen Corner, with a few Hail Marys thrown in over an ocean cove on the eighth from atop a 75-foot-high bluff. Pebble hosted a successful U.S. Amateur in 2018 and a sixth U.S. Open in 2019. Recent improvements include the redesign of the once-treacherous 14th green and reshaping the par-3 17th green, both planned by Arnold Palmer’s Design Company a few years back, and modifications to the green at the famous eighth hole, which we deemed the second Greatest Hole in America. Green modifications have continued, and Pebble re-enters our top 10 after a brief time out the last two years. View Course

RIVIERA COUNTRY CLUB, 15TH HOLE

Pacific Palisades, Calif.

Riviera’s most famous tree stands next to the 12th green—Humphrey Bogart was known to occasionally lean on it as he sipped whiskey and watched the pros play the L.A. Open. But the seven California sycamores that ring the gull-winged 15th green combine to make a far more elegant impression, especially during the cool season in their leafless white skeletal forms.

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Carlos Amoedo

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Taku Miyamoto/Courtesy of Riviera Golf and Tennis, Inc.

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Taku Miyamoto/Courtesy of Riviera Golf and Tennis, Inc.

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Taku Miyamoto/Courtesy of Riviera Golf and Tennis, Inc.

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Previous Next Pause Play Save for later Private Riviera Country Club Pacific Palisades, CA 4.8 27 Panelists

A compact and shrewd design by George C. Thomas Jr. and associate William P. Bell, Riviera features everything from a long Redan par-3 to a bunker in the middle of a green to an alternate-fairway par-4. With its 18th green at the base of a natural amphitheater, and its primary rough consisting of club-grabbing Kikuyu, Riviera seems tailor-made as a tournament venue. It hosted a PGA Championship in 1995, a U.S. Senior Open in 1998 and a U.S. Amateur in 2017, but no U.S. Open since 1948. Riviera was recently awarded the 2031 U.S. Open, and it will also host the 2028 Olympics. But it’s the site of an annual PGA Tour event, which is even better exposure to the golf world. View Course

SWEETENS COVE, THIRD HOLE

South Pittsburg, Tenn.

Trees standing in fairways can usually be maneuvered around, but when they preside over the front of a green, they draw the ire of duffers and pros alike. However, the ectomorphic oak covering the left half of the serpentine third green at Sweetens Cove is fair game because everything else at this nine-hole phenomenon is equally unconventional.

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Photo by Rob Collins

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Photo by Ron Whitten

Previous Next Pause Play Save for later Public Sweetens Cove Golf Club South Pittsburg 4.6 16 Panelists The nine-holer just 30 miles west of Chattanooga is probably the buzziest nine-hole course in the U.S. Designed by King-Collins and now with financial backing by prominent golfers such as Peyton Manning, Sweetens Cove offers numerous alternative routings, allowing the course to be played several ways. The laidback atmosphere defies country-club tradition and encourages players to wear whatever they want—even allowing golfers to bring their dog along for the round. The course itself features generous fairways and massive, undulating greens that reward imagination and creativity. View Course

THE OCEAN COURSE AT KIAWAH ISLAND (S.C.), THIRD HOLE

The weathered live oak in the middle of the landing zone on this short par 4 that swallowed Rory McIlroy’s drive during the 2012 PGA Championship perished, but its replacement is every bit the same nuisance. Drives must fly past it or be short of it—and not in it—for a clear pitch into the knoll-like green.

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Carlos Amoedo

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Behind the third green at the Ocean Course.

Uzzell Lambert

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Photo by Stephen Szurlej

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Stephen Szurlej

Previous Next Pause Play Save for later Public Kiawah Island Golf Resort: The Ocean Course Kiawah Island, SC 4.8 49 Panelists

The Ocean Course was designed on short notice for a specific event, the 1991 Ryder Cup, when the PGA of America decided to move the event from California to the more attractive Eastern time zone television time slot. This manufactured linksland-meets-lagoons layout might well be Pete Dye’s most diabolical creation. Every hole is edged by sawgrass, every green has tricky slopes and every bunker merges into bordering sand dunes. Strung along nearly three miles of ocean coast, Dye took his wife Alice’s advice and perched fairways and greens so golfers can actually view the Atlantic surf over a ridge of beach dunes. That also exposes shots and putts to ever-present and sometimes fierce coastal winds. The Ocean Course will forever be linked with Phil Mickelson and his improbable victory at the 2021 PGA Championship, as well as Rory McIlroy’s romp in 2012. View Course

TPC SAWGRASS, PLAYERS STADIUM COURSE, 16TH HOLE

Ponte Vedra Beach

Though tour pros at the Players Championship can flight long second shots over the top, the two famous oaks leaning in opposite directions 40 yards in front of the green are just where resort players prefer they weren’t. Though they add a much-needed vertical aesthetic, they force second shots toward the water’s edge if a treeless approach is desired.

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Dom Furore / Golf Digest

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Courtesy of TPC Sawgrass

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Courtesy of TPC Sawgrass

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Courtesy of TPC Sawgrass

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Previous Next Pause PlaySave for later Public TPC Sawgrass: Stadium Ponte Vedra Beach, FL 4.6 24Panelists

TPC’s stadium concept was the idea of then-PGA Tour commissioner Deane Beman. The 1980 design was pure Pete Dye, who set out to test the world’s best golfers by mixing the demands of distance with target golf. Most greens are ringed by random lumps, bumps and hollows, what Dye called his “grenade attack architecture.” His ultimate target hole is the heart-pounding sink-or-swim island green 17th, which offers no bailout, perhaps unfairly in windy Atlantic coast conditions. The 17th has spawned over a hundred imitation island greens in the past 40 years. To make the layout even more exciting during tournament play, Steve Wenzloff of PGA Tour Design Services later remodeled several holes, most significantly the 12th, which he turned into a drivable par-4, something Dye was never a fan of. View Course

WADE HAMPTON, 17TH HOLE

Cashiers, N.C.

With holes carved from the Blue Ridge Mountain forests of western North Carolina, architect Tom Fazio had little trouble finding gorgeous evergreens and hardwoods to show off. The two most fascinating are the pair of Eastern hemlocks that rise like twin goalposts on each side of the entrance to this lovely par-3 green.

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Previous Next Pause Play Save for later Private Wade Hampton Golf Club Cashiers, NC 4.8 21 Panelists

Built during the period when Tom Fazio was still working with the existing landscape rather than bulldozing it, Wade Hampton is an exercise in restraint. The fairways flow through a natural valley between flanking mountain peaks. Some holes are guarded by gurgling brooks, but Fazio piped several streams underground to make the course more playable and walkable. Selected as Golf Digest’s Best New Private Course of 1987, it has never been out of the top 40 since it joined America’s 100 Greatest. View Course

WINGED FOOT GOLF CLUB, WEST COURSE, SECOND HOLE

Mamaroneck, N.Y.

Architects from William Flynn to Gil Hanse have been averse to placing trees behind greens, preferring to showcase the horizon of the putting surface. But when given one as palatial as the elm to the rear left of the West Course’s second green, you work with it, as Tillinghast did in 1923. It became the largest tree at Winged Foot when a bigger elm on the East Course’s 10th hole, said to be the largest in New York state, succumbed in 1993.

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The 18th green at Winged Foot (West).

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No. 17

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LC Lambrecht

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The ninth hole with the iconic Clifford Wendehack clubhouse in the background.

Dom Furore

Previous Next Pause Play Save for later Private Winged Foot Golf Club: West Mamaroneck, NY 4.8 29 Panelists

Gone are all the Norway Spruce that once squeezed every fairway of Winged Foot West. It’s now gloriously open and playable, at least until one reaches the putting surfaces, perhaps the finest set of green contours the versatile architect A.W. Tillinghast ever did, now restored to original parameters by architect Gil Hanse. The greens look like giant mushrooms, curled and slumped around the edges, proving that as a course architect, Tillinghast was not a fun guy. Winged Foot West was tamed, somewhat, by Bryson DeChambeau in winning the 2020 U.S. Open that was played in September, but he was the only competitor to finish under par in his six-shot victory. View Course More from Golf Digest

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