Imagine building 26 golf courses at the height of the golf development bubble, with nine figures in public pension money — in an effort that now loses money year after year. Welcome to the Robert Trent Jones Golf Trail.
In theory, 12-hole designs should be cheaper to play, build, and maintain. But in the staid industry of golf course development, there’s been no rush to test the theory. The minds behind Sweetens Cove are ready to change that.
Lincoln Duff explains that, with a variety spanning cutting-edge 21st century designs and Golden Age layouts, not many American cities can match the depth of golf options in Chattanooga, Tenn., both public and private.
In a summer caught somewhere between a pandemic and life as usual, a return trip to Pinehurst brought the chance to live — rightly or wrongly — as though things were back to normal.
Geography, pedigree, and happenstance have positioned a Chattanooga muni to emerge as a star in an area that is already an embarrassment of public golf riches.
Three years after winning one of his first college tournaments, Georgia Tech’s Tyler Strafaci has won two straight events — including Pinehurst’s North and South Amateur, which his grandfather first won 82 years earlier.
Pine Needles feels like a step back in time, but four U.S. Women’s Opens in 25 years prove that it still offers all the challenges that the modern golfer can handle.
Pinehurst’s tremendous golf courses lure the visitor into 36-hole days, but the real fun around Pinehurst lies in the area’s small pleasures, like a late night of crushing inadvisable 5-irons at Donald Ross’ 100-year-old fireplace.
Pinehurst No. 2 is golf’s equivalent of Level 20 on “Dr. Mario” — it moves quickly, and it brings certain doom, but in the end you limp away convinced that all you need is one more chance.
For 110 years, a struggling beachfront golf course on the Mississippi Gulf Coast has enjoyed its claim as the state’s only Donald Ross design. Except that it’s not.