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 News from Around the Americas | August 2005 
Major Dreams: Tournament Golf Venues You Can Play
 Larry Olmsted - USA TODAY
| | Got game: Tiger Woods tees off. |
When Tiger Woods ran away with his second British Open Championship last month on the world's oldest course, many fans watching on television had the same thought: "wouldn't it be fun to play there?" In this case they were in luck, since the Old Course at St. Andrews is among the most public — and most popular — courses in the world. But this is the exception rather than the rule when it comes to the Majors.
Golf's four biggest events, the tournaments that comprise the Grand Slam, include the US Open, British Open, Masters and PGA Championship. The majority of these are held at very private courses that the average golfer, even with deep pockets, has little hope of ever playing. The good news is that with the exception of the Masters, which is always held at the very much off-limits Augusta National in Georgia, the domestic Majors are slowly becoming more public-golf friendly, while the British Open, officially known as simply the Open Championship, is always held at courses that, with some effort, you can play.
In addition, there are a number of other venues for important non-Major tournaments that are well worth considering for your next golf vacation. Marquee PGA Tour events like the Players Championship and Tour Championship have fields and prizes to rival the Majors, and the Ryder Cup, the biannual international match between the US and Europe, has become one of the sport's highest profile events. You may never be able to take a swing in Yankee Stadium, serve an ace at Wimbledon or drive on the Brickyard, but you can play in the footsteps of champions at these courses:
US Open
Amazingly, in the land of the free where democracy rules, only three public courses have played host our nation's most prestigious golf tournament, two of them for the first time in the last 6 years. Interestingly, two of the three have also held the PGA Championship, making these the only public courses in the world to host different majors.
One of the courses —Pinehurst Number Two— has also been the site of the Ryder Cup, the US Senior Open, the Men's and Women's Amateur Championships and the North & South Amateur, the nation's longest continuously held event. Pinehurst Number Two (there are eight 18-hole layouts at the resort) just hosted the 2005 US Open, its second in six years, and is widely considered the lifetime achievement of legendary architect Donald Ross. The course is easily accessible to guests of the resort's several inns, hotels and rental condos (800-ITS-GOLF, www.pinehurst.com).
California's Pebble Beach is consistently rated the number one public course in the US by Golf Magazine, and in addition to the US Open and PGA Championship, it annually hosts the PGA Tour's AT&T Celebrity Pro-Am. With so much demand to play the famous course, and so many rooms within the resort, even hotel guests need to make tee times many months in advance. While Pebble Beach is technically open to outside play, the course is almost always sold out, so other than springing for a $300+ room, the only real choice is to show up early as a single, put your name on the list, be prepared to wait hours and hope for the best. (800-654-3900, www.pebblebeach.com).
Two years ago, the Open was held on Bethpage Black outside New York City, the first time the event was ever held at a municipal course. As part of a county park system, this is the most budget-friendly major venue on earth, but it is very difficult for non-residents to get tee times, and people sleep in the parking lot in their cars to get a chance to play (516-249-4040). A limousine company called New York Golf Shuttle offers tee times, along with transportation from city hotels, but this costs in excess of $400 per person (718-740-6657, www.nygolfshuttle.com).
PGA Championship
Our third domestic major has been played mostly at private clubs, but there are a handful of exceptions. The most recent and notable was the Straits Course at Whistling Straits, part of Wisconsin's Destination Kohler resort. The Straits hosted last year's event, and is currently ranked as the fifth best public course in America. It is a very authentic version of a Scottish or Irish links course set on high land above Lake Michigan. The walking-only course has no carts, and it is one of the finest resort golf experiences in the country. Interestingly, two of the three other courses at Kohler, the Meadow Valley and River layouts at Blackwolf Run, have combined to host the Women's US Open (www.destinationkohler.com).
In addition to Pinehurst and Pebble Beach, PGA National Resort in Palm Beach Gardens, Fla., has held the PGA Championship twice, along with the Ryder Cup and Senior PGA Championship. The resort has five layouts, and Jack Nicklaus recently redesigned and improved the Championship course that hosted the event (800-6339150, www.pga-resorts.com). The Seaview Marriott Resort, outside of Atlantic City, has a classic Donald Ross oceanfront course that last hosted the event in 1942. (800-932-8000, www.seaviewmarriott.com). Perhaps the least famous major venue on earth you can play is Pecan Valley, a low-key course in San Antonio, Texas, that held the historic 50th PGA Championship in 1968. Pecan Valley may not be nearly as illustrious as its peers, but at least you can get on easily (210-333-8756).
British Open
Every one of the 14 Open Championship venues welcomes some degree of non-member play. The most popular is the Old Course at Scotland's St. Andrews— the world's first course — where the tournament has been held 27 times. The municipal course is truly public, owned by a trust set up by Parliament to keep it essentially a municipal park. However, demand makes it very difficult to arrange tee times, especially in the summer.
Even though the club has no members per se, blocks of tee times each day are reserved for both citizens of St. Andrews and members of the Royal & Ancient, Britain's version of the USGA. The least expensive way to get on is to enter a daily lottery for the following day's tee times. Results are posted in the clubhouse each afternoon. While in peak season your chances can be as slim as 20%, golfers visiting St. Andrews for a week almost always get on, and there are more than enough high quality courses in town to keep you occupied. Bear in mind that the course is always closed on Sundays.
Certain high-end hotels, such as the Old Course Hotel (www.oldcoursehotel.co.uk), as well as tour operators like Perry Golf (www.perrygolf.com) and Wide World of Golf (www.wideworldofgolf.com), have allocations of guaranteed tee times they can pass on to their clients at typically inflated prices. You can also request tee times in writing a year in advance. For complete details on the arcane process, visit www.standrews.org.uk.
Among the other Open venues, the easiest to get on is probably the Ailsa course at Turnberry, a resort course whose tee times are easily available to hotel guests. Turnberry is arguably the most beautiful course in Scotland, running for nine holes along dramatic coastline with the ruins of a castle and its landmark lighthouse (800-WESTIN, www.turnberry.co.uk). Carnoustie, while a member's club, also has a resort hotel guaranteeing guest access (011-44-1241-411-999, www.carnoustie.com). The most unique option is the very welcoming Prestwick, where the Open began and was played 24 times, second only to the Old Course. Since Prestwick has been deemed "too short" for modern Tour players, it no longer hosts the event, which has diminished its demand but not its rich history. With original holes designed by Old Tom Morris, it is one of the most memorable course designs on earth (011-44-1292-477-404, www.prestwickgc.co.uk).
Ryder Cup
This biannual international team competition between the best players of the US and Europe is the Olympics of golf. Besides Pinehurst and PGA National (above), it has been played on only two domestic public courses, the Ocean Course at Kiawah Island resort, S.C., (800-654-2924, www.kiawahresort.com) and at the Greenbrier, W.Va. (800-624-6070, www.greenbrier.com). Of the two, the recently renovated Ocean Course is the standout.
For a more far-flung golf adventure, consider one of the European venues. In the United Kingdom, the Ryder Cup has been played at several British Open venues, including Muirfield, Royal Lytham and Royal Birkdale. But you don't have to go all the way to Scotland, since the tournament was also held at two very good courses just outside of London, Walton Heath and Wentworth. The only time the Ryder Cup has been played in continental Europe, it was at the region's top-rated course, Spain's Valderrama.
Other Events: Two of the most important dates on the PGA Tour calendar are the Mercedes and Player's Championships. The former is the first event of the season, open to all winners from the previous year. It is held on Kapalua's Plantation course on Maui, Hawaii, which is among the most accessible and beautiful tour stops (800-KAPALUA, www.kapaluamaui.com). The latter is played on the TPC Sawgrass in Ponte Vedra Beach, Fla., the headquarters of the PGA Tour and home of architect Pete Dye's infamous island green. Sawgrass was the very first of the more than two dozen Tournament Players Clubs or "stadium" courses, and boasts perhaps the most famous golf hole in America, the island green par-3 seventeenth that annually spells doom for some of the world's best players. The course is open to guests of the on-site Sawgrass Marriott (800-457-GOLF, www.marriott.com). |
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