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.
Cider Ridge Golf Course in Oxford, Alabama, is more a forgery of a golf course than a real one: penal and poorly thought out, routed from the scraps of land left over from a surrounding housing development.
Dropping the pretense of being a superhuman change agent and acknowledging his own emotional turmoil could be Bryson DeChambeau’s real chance to make history.
Overlooking the Gulf of Mexico on “the unluckiest island in America,” Isle Dauphine might have more potential than any golf course in the United States.
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.