The Sweet 16: America’s Top College Golf Courses

We’re in the thick of March Madness right now so we thought it would be fun to name the Sweet 16 of college golf courses in the United States. There are blue bloods— courses designed by some of the most recognizable architects and at some of the biggest schools— and Cinderella stories— under the radar…

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Men Only: America’s Most Exclusive Golf Clubs

There are 23 clubs in America that still only permit men to join. These clubs are becoming more and more rare, as fewer have opened in previous decades and many have opened their doors to women in recent times, such as Augusta National and Pine Valley. We looked at clubs with extremely small membership in…

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Toughest Tee Times: America’s Most Exclusive Golf Clubs

In past articles, we’ve highlighted the most accessible regions and top publicly accessible courses by famous golf course architects. Now we are moving to the opposite end of the spectrum and highlighting some of the most exclusive clubs in the world. In Part One of our Exclusive Clubs series, we highlight some of the hardest…

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Bang for your Buck: Top Courses in the U.S. under $100

Now that green fees for 2023 are released for many courses there is a lot of chatter about rising prices— and it’s a valid point. Fees in the U.S. have risen the past few years due to demand being at an all-time high after the COVID-19 pandemic. The cost of labor and supplies has also…

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America’s Top Golf States

There’s always been a spirited debate amongst passionate golfers about which state in the U.S. is best for golf with a bit of bias towards one’s home state. We don’t know if we’ll solve the debate for good, but we wanted to take a deep dive into the numbers and provide some awards and insights…

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Architect Profile: Kyle Franz

Biography Kyle grew up in central western Oregon and became interested in course design at an early age. He studied turfgrass at Oregon State University where he got his hands dirty on a project only a few hours down the road that would eventually become one of the world’s best courses: Tom Doak’s Pacific Dunes.…

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Romantic Golf Getaways: Top Resorts for Couples in the US

There are a lot of golf resorts in America— over 200 in our database— so this Valentine’s Day, we thought it would be appropriate to highlight some of the best golf resorts in America for couples. To do this, we came up with two criteria to whittle down the list. First, we wanted to find…

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Top Public Courses by Famous Architects

At Open Links, we are constantly thinking of ways to pull together information that is informative, useful, and inspiring to passionate golfers around the world. Recently, we polled our Instagram followers to request topics that they would be most interested in us writing about. The top vote-getter was to list out the top-5 public courses…

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Golf, Uninterrupted

Slowly but surely over time, housing and development has encroached on golf courses. One factor has been the result of natural economic and population growth, particularly as population centers expanded to previously rural areas. Another factor has been original plans to develop land in the first place. Residential golf community development started in the U.S.…

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Architect Profile: Devereux Emmet

Biography Devereux Emmet was born in 1861 in Westchester County, New York to a wealthy family who were one of the earliest families in America. Emmet graduated from Columbia University in 1883 and became deeply enamored with the game of golf after a trip to Scotland in 1884. Emmet was a great player in his…

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