The 10 Most Essential Golf Courses in America

1. Pebble Beach Golf Links

Monterey , CAThe Monterey Peninsula is hallowed ground for golfer , and this iconic coastal layout is its most hallowed public site . design by Jack Neville and Douglas Grant in 1919 , it has hosted the biz ’s most esteemed tournaments , and wherever you stand , you may bet that a golf legend has too . The Tour pro wreak here every year , as do pilgrims from all around the satellite , digging deep into their pockets for a round as spiritual as its price ( $ 495 ) is steep .

2. TPC Sawgrass

Ponte Vedra Beach , FLThe golf line architect Pete Dye has been called the Marquis de Sod , a reference to his excellently punish design . Few are more punishable than this water - lace layout , which terrifies even the world ’s estimable histrion with its island green equality - three 17th . Not that that ’s a problem . We linksman are a masochistic lot . We can take a licking , so long as it add up with some out-of-door beauty . And Sawgrass is a stunner that delivers immense pleasance with its pain in the neck .

3. Sharp Park Golf Course

Pacifica , CARegarded as the Michelangelo of golf design , Alister Mackenzie is best known for such masterpieces as Cypress Point Club and Augusta National , two of the most exclusive line in the world . He did n’t build a lot of place for Joe Public . Sharp Park is an exception – a municipal course that hugs the coastline and bears Mackenzie ’s distinctive imprints in its deceptive bunkering and disingenuous doglegs . The difference is that anyone can play it . Show up at first light , with a gentle walkover blowing off the Pacific , and fall in the waiting list of regulars , who are commonly crop in t - shirts and jeans .

4. Chambers Bay

University Place , WAPresto , change - o. virtually ten year ago , a great gouge in the earth , once given over to a gravel mine , transform into a rollicking links - trend golf game course of action , with immense , frowzled greens , heaving fairways and stunning aspect of Puget Sound . In 2015 , it hosted the United States Open Championship , though the layout itself , with steady , degenerate turf and robustious aboriginal grasses , looks like the sort of spot that could stage a British Open . It ’s like playing in the UK without queer the pool .

5. Bethpage State Park

Farmingdale , NYAn hour outside Manhattan , this sprawling res publica car park features five killer 18 - hole course of action , all named after colors . It ’s a rainbow coalition that tests all ambit of players , starting with the Yellow , the easiest of the bunch , moving up in trouble through the Blue , Red and Green , then on to the infamous Black , a course so tough that a augury near the first tee has a bold - lettered “ admonition ” advising all but the “ extremely skilled ” to stay away .

6. Paiute Golf Resort,

Las Vegas , NVIn a urban center overproduction with over - priced golf game courses , this station give great knock for the vaulting horse . Run by the Paiute tribe , 20 bit from the madness and the neon , this unspoiled property has three 18 - hole layouts , the good being the Wolf Course , an impeccably groomed track with endless desert vistas . Chase your ball here when you ’re done chasing your money on the Strip .

7. Forest Dunes Golf Club

Roscommon , MILike an indie film discovered on the festival electric circuit , this Lower Peninsula course start life as a sleeper , beloved by a pocket-size accumulation of purist but pretty much ignored by everyone else . But gems are backbreaking to hide , even in this out - of - the - elbow room positioning . And today Forest Dunes is an organization darling , noted on GOLF Magazine ’s honored list of Top 100 Courses you may act . As its name suggests , it ’s a wide-ranging layout of sandy wastes , grassy meadows , and towering pines .

8. Bandon Dunes Resort

Bandon , OR“Golf as it was meant to be ” is Bandon ’s slogan , and when you set foundation on the property , you see why . define on a alone stretchability of the southern Oregon sea-coast , the resort is home base to four 18 - hole courses ( there ’s also a 13 - maw par - three course ) . But not just any path ; the atavist excogitation of the links - manner layouts bring Scotland to mind . It ’s an upscale resort , but the golf is utter and mere . No golf carts here . Everybody walks . There ’s not much else to do , so it ’s all about the golf game . You get up at daybreak and play till sunset , maybe with a flaskful tucked in your traveling bag . Ok , emphatically .

9. Brickyard Crossing

Indianapolis , INThis ought to get you revved up for your daily round – a golf course built around the Indianapolis Motor Speedway . Most of the layout sit just beyond the grandstands , but four holes tumble into the stadium itself , tie through the infield of the ellipse in what total to a seriously high - octane stretching . The course is appropriately loaded with sporting feature article , including water hazards line with salvaged concrete from the speedway ’s honest-to-god retaining bulwark . But since you ’re in a golf pushcart , go easy on the turn .

10. Plantation Course

Kapalua , MauiWhen you peg it in Hawaii , you expect it to be pretty . But nothing quite prepares you for the panorama that greet you at the first golf tee of this dramatic layout , which swoops up and down a heap on the northward end of the island . Humpbacks breach on the horizon , laurel wreath and true pine tree do the hula in the trade winds … The starting trap before you is a broad - shoulder equation - four , framed by the Pacific , a target area so breathtaking you almost blank out to swing . It ’s a surreal moment , and part of you wonders : are you playing golf game , or wandering through a postal card in 3D ?