My year in golf travel: Big resorts, short munis and a competitive dream that lives on for 2023
I have one of the best jobs in the world, but don’t tell my boss that I acknowledged such. Truth is, plenty of people would line up to do this travel job for free. Play golf around the world and write about it – just about a perfect gig.
There are some downsides. The 3 a.m. wakeup calls, the flight delays, the time away from family, the late nights staring at the keyboard, not to mention all the bogeys. But these are niggles, easily dismissed.
I played 79 golf courses so far in 2022, and I am likely to add at least one or two more before the calendar flips. There were affordable munis, high-end private clubs and plenty of top-dollar resorts. I see the full spectrum of golf in my travels, from dirt fairways to perfect putting surfaces. They all were among the 250-plus stories I filed in 2022, and I remember just about every shot from each round – my wife calls this ability to recall and fret about shots I struck months ago a major character flaw.
The author hits a tee shot on the Castle Stuart Course at Cabot Highlands on his trip around Scotland in October. (Courtesy of Cabot Highlands)
With the year wrapping up soon, it’s time to take a look back at several of my favorite experiences of 2022. I played from California to Scotland, and some days, courses and golf holes just stood out.
Favorite new course I played in 2022
The 11th fairway (center) of the Lido at Sand Valley is flanked on either side by Nos. 17 and 2. (Golfweek)
The Lido at Sand Valley in Wisconsin doesn’t officially open until 2023, and it will be a private course that allows limited play for resort guests. My advice: If you’re not fortunate enough to have been one of the founding members, get your name on that limited resort tee sheet.
This new Lido was built by Tom Doak with input from golf history buff Peter Flory, who signed up in 2022 as an ambassador to host Golfweek’s Best course raters at events around the country. The original Lido on Long Island was designed in 1914 by Golden Age architects C.B. Macdonald and Seth Raynor, with several individual holes designed by contestants in an architecture contest that included Alister MacKenzie.
The new Lido is as close as Doak and his team could get it to the original, and it’s a strategic test that features plenty of width and tons of options in negotiating a path to the hole around a minefield of bunkers and other bothers. Click here for photos of the new layout in progress.
Favorite course I played in 2022
Royal Dornoch’s Championship Course in the Scottish Highlands (Courtesy of Royal Dornoch Golf Club)
For those who have played it, it’s painfully obvious that Royal Dornoch Golf Club’s Championship Course in the Scottish Highlands is a near-perfect layout. The Golfweek’s Best rankings back this up. For anyone who hasn’t played it, well … all I can tell you is to buy an airplane ticket and get yourself there.
This was a tough call, a choice between Royal Dornoch and the Old Course at St. Andrews, both of which I saw on a dash about Scotland in October. Neither disappointed as I made my way around from the north of the country, wrapping south and east into St. Andrews on a track that saw me play 11 unbelievable links layouts in eight days. But if I had to choose? Dornoch is a members club that welcomes guest play, and the vibe there was sublime – perfectly comfortable clubhouse, incredible ocean views, incredible links conditioning. The scene at St. Andrews is different, not to be missed by any traveling golfer but a bit more crowded.
And the terrain at Dornoch is better, among the best in the world. The golf holes themselves at the Old Course are among the top tests of strategy in golf, but the overall terrain is flatter and the water views aren’t as strong. This is, of course, not a case of comparing apples and oranges – this is more a case of comparing one gold standard to another gold standard.
Playing along a high ridge on the way out before returning closer to the water, Dornoch’s Championship Course offers more elevation changes with water views at every turn. The layout and routing are among the best in the world, particularly the long par 4s on the back nine. There are no superfluous design elements, no wasted efforts. Just pure, beautiful, dare-I-say-joyous links golf.
Most surprising golf hole I played in 2022
No. 6 green at Brora Golf Club in the Scottish Highlands (Jason Lusk/Golfweek)
Brora Golf Club, not far from Royal Dornoch in the Scottish Highlands, might be best known among some golfers as the links course with electrified wires surrounding each green to keep the sheep away. Players have to step over the knee-high wires when approaching and leaving each green – it’s easy to allow all that high-stepping to define the Brora experience.
But to focus entirely on the wires and the sheep would be to miss one of the best par 3s I saw all year on a perfectly wrinkled piece of links golf ground alongside an ocean.
After playing along the water for five holes, the front nine juts inland on the par-3 sixth, named Witch. Having joined up with an American father-son twosome, I sauntered onto the tee box not knowing what to expect, but after 30 seconds staring at that green 190 yards away, I was even more in love with Brora.
No. 6 rises slightly toward the green, playing between two pot bunkers to the left and one to the right, with a putting surface that features a false front and a valley through the middle – it kind of resembles a Pringles potato chip. A flag in that valley is easily approachable as shots funnel in, but any hole perched atop the green’s flanks presents all kinds of options and difficulties. That beautifully designed green made the Witch one of my favorite par 3s on my Scottish trip.
Resort I saw in 2022 where I want to take my family
Mystic Rock at Nemacolin in Pennsylvania (Courtesy of Nemacolin/Evan Schiller)
I sort of knew what to expect of the two Pete Dye-designed courses, Mystic Rock and Shepherd’s Rock, at Nemacolin in rural Pennsylvania – the layouts rank No. 1 and No. 5 among all public-access courses in the state. And I had read and heard that the resort was top notch. But as I prepped for my first trip to Nemacolin, I had not even come close to imagining the full scale of the place.
The options at the resort are staggering. Pools, spas, restaurants, bars – all the regular resort features, and all done first-rate. Then there’s the rock wall climbing, car museum, axe throwing, target shooting, zip lining, trout fishing. The list goes on and on with enough outdoor activities to make you forget the resort is also home to a casino.
It can be tough for a hard-core golfer to take family to a golf resort – my wife and teenage daughter don’t play golf. But at Nemacolin, they wouldn’t even know I snuck out for a morning 18; they’d be plenty busy exploring on their own. This place moves high onto my list of places that I want to show off to my girls.
Best single day of golf in 2022
The second green at Bandon Trails is covered with hail as the author lines up his birdie putt on what turned out to be a perfect day at Bandon Dunes Golf Resort in Oregon. (Jason Lusk/Golfweek)
In April, I attended the media day for the 2022 U.S. Junior Amateur at Bandon Dunes Golf Resort in Oregon. The trip west included a perk: a round of golf with the then-defending champion Nick Dunlap on the resort’s Bandon Trails layout.
Bandon Dunes has become a mecca of American golf, not to be missed by anyone who loves the game. Each of the five full-size 18s at the resort rank among the best modern and public-access courses in the U.S., and while Pacific Dunes and several others rank slightly higher on the Golfweek’s Best lists than does Trails, the Bill Coore-Ben Crenshaw layout is the favorite of many, particularly among better players.
Something clicked that day for me, a short-hitting scratch golfer who somehow shoots 80 more often than 70. Playing the back tees, I made five birdies and shot 69 in the wind, cold and occasional hail. I didn’t want the day to end.
I tried to convince the rest of our group to keep going, but after soup in the Trails clubhouse, nobody wanted to join me that afternoon on Pacific Dunes for a bad-weather bonus round. So I did it alone, with almost no other groups on the course as the temperature started in the very low 40s and kept descending all the way to freezing.
Normally, I follow a great round with a dog of a second 18. Not so that day. Shot even-par 71 on Pacific Dunes from the back tees, driving one downwind par 4 (No. 6) and reaching two of the par 5s in two – rare for me these days. I didn’t have any observers, nobody to sign the card for me. But those three hours with Pac Dunes all to myself were as close to perfect as I can imagine any solo golf experience. As darkness fell on the 18th green, I recorded a short video for my wife, telling her that if my airplane went down the next day on my return home, not to worry for me, I was completely fine with whatever after one of the best days of golf in my life.
I used just one ball for the whole day. I travel a fair bit and can’t keep many souvenirs of all the courses I play, as they would just pile up too deep in my home office. But that ball from Bandon Trails and Pacific Dunes has earned a place of honor among all my keepsakes.
My dream for 2023
No. 6 at Winter Park Golf Course in Florida (Courtesy of Winter Park Golf Course)
Renovated municipal courses have drawn a huge amount of acclaim online and in social media, with the best of them providing great experiences and solid architecture at a man-of-the-people price point. The nine-hole Winter Park Golf Course near Orlando, frequently known as the WP9, is among the best of such munis. Short and flat but with some of the best green complexes in Florida, WP9 is worth all the fuss.
Much of this story has included expensive, bucket-list destinations. WP9 is there for anyone at under $20. I played it 17 times in 2022, which is actually less frequent than in previous years – I blame a busy schedule, cases of COVID and the flu, and a frequently packed tee sheet for my dip in WP9 rounds.
I played the Friday skins game at WP9 a handful of times in 2022, but by far my favorite event is the Winter Park Amateur Golf Championship, a two-day title hunt that is entered early on my wall calendar with permanent ink. I want nothing more in this game than to win that tournament. The course is perfect for my short-hitting golf swing, and the greens require a ton of imagination – especially with the almost crazy hole locations each April or May for this tournament. I shot 34-37 for a two-day total of 71 to finish in sixth place this year, breaking my string of top-5s. Not totally bad for my old-man game, but I am desperate to make a few putts for once and win the whole thing some year.
Tournaments make golf more fun, even small local events. They sharpen the focus, give you a reason to practice. The score is going on the board, and nobody wants to lay an egg up there. For anyone who never plays tournaments, I hope they give it a try in 2023.
So until April and my personal major championship at the WP9, I’ll be out practicing my putting.
