Augusta National Golf Club, located in Augusta, Georgia, is one of the most famous golf clubs in the world. Founded by Bobby Jones and Clifford Roberts on the site of the former Fruitland (later Fruitlands) Nursery, the course was designed by Jones and Alister MacKenzie and opened for play in January 1933. Since 1934, it has played host to the annual Masters Tournament, one of the four major championships in professional golf, and the only major played each year at the same course. It was the number one ranked course in Golf Digest's 2009 list of America's 100 greatest courses and is currently the number ten ranked course on Golfweek Magazine's 2011 list of best classic courses in the United States, in terms of course architecture.
The golf club's exclusive membership policies have drawn criticism, particularly its refusal to admit black members until 1990, a former policy requiring all caddies to be black and its refusal to allow women to join. In August 2012, it admitted its first two female members, Condoleezza Rice and Darla Moore. The golf club has defended the membership policies, stressing that it is a private organization.
Every member of Augusta National receives a green sports coat with the club's logo on the left breast. The idea of the green jacket originated with club co-founder Clifford Roberts. Many believe it is because he wanted patrons visiting during the tournament to be able to readily identify members. Since Sam Snead's victory in 1949 the winner of each year's Masters Tournament has received a green jacket, although he does not receive membership. The jacket is presented to the new winner by the winner of the previous tournament. If the previous champion is either unavailable or has won consecutive tournaments, then the current chairman acts as the presenter. Until 1967, the jackets were manufactured by Brooks Brothers and since have been made by Hamilton of Cincinnati, Ohio with the imported wool produced at the Victor Forstmann plant in Dublin, Georgia.
The current Masters champion is the only owner of a green jacket permitted to remove it from the grounds of Augusta National, and only for a period of one year. Before this time limit was in place, the jacket of a few long-past Masters champions had been sold, after their deaths, to collectors. Consequently the members of Augusta National have gone to great lengths to secure the remaining examples. Now, two jackets remain outside the grounds of Augusta National with the club's permission. When Gary Player first won the Masters in 1961, he brought his jacket home to South Africa. For years the board insisted that Player return the jacket but Player kept "forgetting" or coming up with humorous creative excuses why he did not return the jacket. After becoming something of a running joke, Augusta National's members allowed him to keep it, where it is on display in his personal museum. The second jacket belongs to 1938 Masters Champion Henry Picard. Before the traditions surrounding one of golf's greatest awards were well established, the jacket was removed by Picard from Augusta National. It is now currently on display in the "Picard Lounge" at Canterbury Golf Club in Beachwood, Ohio.
Pebble Beach Golf Links is a golf course on the west coast of the United States, located in Pebble Beach, California. Widely regarded as one of the most beautiful courses in the world, it hugs the rugged coastline and has wide open views of Carmel Bay, opening to the Pacific Ocean, on the south side of the Monterey Peninsula. In 2001 it became the first public course (i.e., open to the general public for play) to be selected as the No.1 Golf Course in America by Golf Digest. Greens fees are among the highest in the world, at $495 (plus $35 cart fee for non-resort guests) per round in 2008.
Four of the courses in the coastal community of Pebble Beach, including Pebble Beach Golf Links, belong to the Pebble Beach Company, which also operates three hotels and a spa at the resort. The other courses are The Links at Spanish Bay, Spyglass Hill Golf Course, and Del Monte Golf Course. The PGA Tour and Champions Tour play annual events at Pebble Beach and it has hosted six major championships: five U.S. Opens and a PGA Championship. The course is included in many golf video games, such as the Links series and the Tiger Woods PGA Tour series.
The course was designed by Jack Neville and Douglas Grant[6] and opened on February 22, 1919. Neville also designed the back nine at Pacific Grove Municipal Golf Course on the other side of the Monterey Peninsula. His objective was to place as many of the holes as possible along the rocky and beautiful Monterey coast line.[citation needed] This was accomplished using a "figure 8" layout.
Muirfield Village Golf Club was the dream and work of Jack, in association with Desmond Muirhead. The land was acquired in 1966, but construction did not begin until July 28, 1972. The golf course is situated on 220 acres, which includes an 11-acre driving range. The course was officially dedicated on Memorial Day, May 27, 1974, with an exhibition match between Nicklaus and Tom Weiskopf. Nicklaus scored a six-under par 66, which stood as the course record until 1979.
The 18-hole layout, selected by Golf Digest as No. 17 among "America's 100 Greatest Courses," played at 6,978 yards in its original form, but is 7,221 at present. It had 77 bunkers, a number since reduced to 71, and water can be a hazard on 11 holes.
A Columbus Pro-Am on August 11, 1975 was the first event held at Muirfield, and the first Memorial Tournament was played in May 1976. The Memorial Tournament has grown into one of golf's premier events, often called the fifth major. The course has also hosted the 1986 U.S. Junior Amateur, the 1987 Ryder Cup Matches, the U.S.G.A's 1992 United States Amateur Championship, the 1995 Wendy's Three-Tour Challenge, and the 1998 Solheim Cup.
Home of the prestigious Memorial Tournament since 1976, Muirfield Village has been consistently ranked in the Top 20 in the United States and Top 50 in the world since it opened. Voted the No. 1 course in golf-rich Ohio. Name was inspired by Jack's first British Open victory in 1966 at Muirfield, Scotland.
Cypress Point Club is a private golf club in California. The club has a single 18-hole course, one of eight on the Monterey peninsula near Monterey, California. The course is well known around the world for its series of three dramatic holes that play along the Pacific Ocean: the 15th, 16th and 17th, which are regularly rated among the best golf holes in the world. The 16th is a long par three that actually plays over the ocean. The course was designed by golf course designer Alister MacKenzie, collaborating with Robert Hunter, in 1928. It formerly was one of the courses used for the AT&T Pebble Beach National Pro-Am, last doing so in 1991.
Set in coastal dunes, the course enters the Del Monte forest during the front nine and reemerges to the rocky coastline for the finishing holes. The signature hole is #16, which requires a 231-yard tee shot over the Pacific to a mid-sized green guarded by strategically placed bunkers. Cypress Point Club was ranked #2 on Golf Magazine's 2011 List of The Top 100 Golf Courses in the World and #5 on Golf Digest's 2011-12 list of America's 100 Greatest Golf Courses.
Amongst the world of golf, few courses are as revered as Cypress Point. Cypress Point Golf Course was created by the well renown designer Alister Mackenzie and opened in 1928. Extraordinary and timeless, Alister Mackenzie masterpiece is consistently rated as one of the top 3 golf courses ever created by all major publications. Cypress Point offers natural beauty that is unmatched anywhere. The clandestine approach to Mackenzie's achievement is the reality that he did not over power the natural terrain, allowing the course to take shape organically.
Meandering through the coastal dunes, this immaculate course journeys into the Del Monte forest during the front nine and reemerges to the rocky coastline for the best set of finishing holes of all time. The signature hole #16, which requires a 231-yard tee shot over the Pacific to a mid-sized green guarded by strategically placed bunkers, offers all the dynamics you could imagine on a majestic oceanfront par three. With the famous back-to-back par three's, #15 and #16, not to mention the spectacular par four 17th, set in the most exquisite natural location ever imagined for a course, the back-nine is truly the Holy Grail of golf.
The Old Course at St Andrews is one of the oldest golf courses in the world.[2][3] The Old Course is a public course over common land in St Andrews, Fife, Scotland, and is held in trust by The St Andrews Links Trust under an act of Parliament. The Royal and Ancient Golf Club of St Andrews club house sits adjacent to the first tee, although it is but one of many clubs that have playing privileges on the course, along with the general public.
The Old Course at St Andrews is considered by many to be the "home of golf" because the sport was first played on the Links at St Andrews in the early 1400s.[4] Golf was becoming increasingly popular in Scotland until in 1457, when James II of Scotland banned golf because he felt that young men were playing too much golf instead of practicing their archery.[4] The ban was upheld by the following kings of Scotland until 1502, when King James IV became a golfer himself and removed the ban.
The Old Course was pivotal to the development of how the game is played today. For instance, in 1764, the course had 22 holes. The members would play the same hole going out and in with the exception of the 11th and 22nd holes. The members decided that the first four and last four holes on the course were too short and should be combined into four total holes (two in and two out). St Andrews then had 18 holes and that was how the standard of 18 holes was created. Around 1863, Old Tom Morris had the 1st green separated from the 17th green, producing the current 18-hole layout with seven double greens. The Old Course is home of The Open Championship, the oldest of golf's major championships. The Old Course has hosted this major 28 times since 1873, most recently in 2010. The 28 Open Championships that the Old Course has hosted is more than any other course, and The Open is currently played there every five years.
One of the unique features of the Old Course are the large double greens. Seven greens are shared by two holes each, with hole numbers adding up to 18 (2nd paired with 16th, 3rd with 15th, all the way up to 8th and 10th). The Swilcan Bridge, spanning the first and 18th holes, has become a famous icon for golf in the world.[9] Everyone who plays the 18th hole walks over this 700 year old bridge, and many iconic pictures of the farewells of the most iconic golfers in history have been taken on this bridge.[10] A life-size stone replica of the Bridge is situated at the World Golf Hall of Fame museum in St. Augustine, Florida.[10] Only the 1st, 9th, 17th and 18th holes have their own greens. Another unique feature is that the course can be played in either direction, clockwise or anti-clockwise. Along with that, the Old Course has 112 bunkers which are all individually named and have their own unique story and history behind them. The two most famous are the 10 ft deep "Hell Bunker"[11] on the 14th hole, and the "Road Hole Bunker" on the 17th hole. Countless professional golfers have seen their dreams of winning the Open Championship squandered by hitting their balls in those bunkers.