Register now for 2026 tee time lottery at Bandon Dunes Golf Resort.
Dreaming of a first trip to Bandon Dunes Golf Resort in coastal Oregon to see what all the fuss is about? Already been, and itching to return? You better plan early – very early.
The incredibly popular resort, which features five 18-hole courses ranked highly among the best modern courses and resort layouts in the U.S., has announced a new pre-reservation methodology for scoring a tee time. Registration already is open for 2026. Yes, 2026.
Bandon Dunes Golf Resort has opened three registration windows for 2026 tee times, based on time of year in which a golfer hopes to obtain a tee time. The windows are:
Registration window closes Dec. 24: This first window is for tee times in January through April 2026.
Registration window closes Jan. 19, 2025: This second window is for tee times in May through September 2026.
Registration window closes April 20, 2025: This third window is for tee times in October through December 2026.
Within a couple weeks of the close of each window, there will be a random drawing to determine the order for reservation requests. Potential guests who are chosen in the random drawing will then be assigned a number that indicates their place in line, and Bandon Dunes Golf Resort’s booking team will call players when it’s their turn to select dates and courses.
All this is necessary because the resort has dealt with such a high call volume when previous booking windows have opened in recent years.
‘What happens to the ball when it lands is kind of a key part of design.’
What is minimalism in golf course architecture, anyway?
Several modern designers are frequently lumped into the same category of design under that stylistic banner, despite their sometimes wildly different products. Minimalism has become almost a catch-all for courses built by the likes of popular designers such as Tom Doak, David McLay Kidd, Gil Hanse, the team of Bill Coore and Ben Crenshaw, and several others.
The term is meant to contrast with the golf architects who came directly before them, designers who relied on heavy equipment and millions of cubic yards of earth moving to create new layouts. Greens would be pushed high above surrounding grade, hazards predominated and fairways would be sculpted by man. Think mounds – sometimes lots of mounds. Many of the courses built since the 1960s tried to create something out of nothing, or to greatly enhance what already lay waiting on the ground.
Minimalists, to the contrary, look for natural landforms to accent their designs, allowing and usually encouraging the ground to influence the path of the ball after it lands. Golf balls are round, after all, and they’ll roll if the architects and course conditions allow.
But is it fair to lump all of a designer’s work into one such category? Any of the top architects have laid down many courses that exude their own character. It’s not a copy-and-paste procedure. Is it appropriate to use the same term – minimalism – to describe courses of wildly differing routings and tone in various regions of the globe?
Doak, for one, is fine with it.
Check out our recent rater’s notebooks for several Tom Doak-designed courses and a restoration:
Tom Doak at Cabot Highlands, formerly known as Castle Stuart, in Scotland (Jason Lusk/Golfweek)
“The minimalist thing, I didn’t come up with that term originally, but I sort of like it from the standpoint of trying to use what we are given to work with as much as possible and kind of minimize the amount of artificial stuff that we have to do,” said the man behind top designs such as Pacific Dunes at Bandon Dunes Golf Resort in Oregon, Ballyneal in Colorado and Barnbougle Dunes in Tasmania, among dozens of others. His recent work includes the new Pinehurst No. 10 in North Carolina plus the short and fascinating Sedge Valley at Sand Valley in Wisconsin.
For Doak, it’s all about a philosophy. He lets the ground dictate how the game will be played on any given site instead of trying to force his will upon the ground by lifting and shoving. It’s especially true on rolling, firm and sandy terrain.
“When you’re building a new golf course, you’re pretty much always going have to build greens and green complexes,” he said. “But on a good site that has movement and drains itself, you really shouldn’t have to be doing a lot of other stuff. You shouldn’t have to be tearing things up and moving a lot of dirt in fairways. A good routing should solve most of that.”
Nos. 10 and 11, which are back-to-back par 3s, helped put Pacific Dunes and Tom Doak on the map after the highly-ranked layout opened at Bandon Dunes Golf Resort in Oregon in 2001. (Courtesy of Bandon Dunes Golf Resort)
It was a somewhat radical concept, somehow, when Doak left an associate’s job working for Pete Dye and hung his own shingle. His first solo design was High Pointe Golf Club in Michigan in 1989, and it almost was as if he had to defend his close-to-the-ground approach at the time.
This despite the fact that minimalism was nothing new. It was just largely forgotten in the United States. The old links courses in Scotland, Ireland and the rest of the United Kingdom were, in all respects, minimalist courses. They had to be, as their designers didn’t have heavy machinery with which to work in the late 19th century – can you picture Old Tom Morris on a bulldozer? Instead, they walked the ground and found the best golf holes, making tweaks where necessary while greatly limited by their reliance on teams of horses or men with shovels to move ground. A classic architect’s obstacles to construction were gifts that keep on giving to fans of true links golf.
Tom Doak’s philosophy
CommonGround in Aurora, Colo., near Denver was designed by Tom Doak and opened in 2009. The course was developed by the Colorado State Golf Association. (Jason Lusk/Golfweek)
Doak has come full circle, having just completed a renovation of High Pointe before its recent reopening after years of abandonment. What has he learned over the years, and how has his style evolved?
“I think my philosophy hasn’t changed very much over the 35 years since I built High Pointe,” Doak said. “My execution is a lot better, and I’m probably more flexible, more interested in hearing what the client says in the beginning. I try to use that to make the next project a little bit different than the last project instead of just saying, ‘This is my thing, I’m going to do this everywhere.’ I don’t really want to do that. …
“You know, I still have the belief that you can’t punish the average golfer too much between the tee and the green because it’ll just be too hard for them. So the place where you make the golf course more challenging, because people have a chance to deal with it physically, is around the greens.”
It is there, on and around the putting surfaces, that a course is best defined. The closer a player gets to the flag, the more a great architect’s influence is felt. When applying a minimalist approach without much earth moving, it’s on the greens and along the ground approaching them that an architect’s creativity is best revealed.
“Somewhere between 50 and 80 percent of golfers play a fair amount of their golf along the ground,” Doak said. “They can hit it in the air for a while, but they can’t make it stop like a really good player. So what happens to the ball when it lands is kind of a key part of design. That’s the thing we have to make things interesting. We’re trying to allow the people that have to play golf along the ground to still have a chance to get the ball close to the hole.”
With no master plan, Coore and Crenshaw are free to design the best golf holes without worrying about housing.
The team of Bill Coore and Ben Crenshaw, one of the premium firms in golf course architecture, have signed on to design a new 18-hole course at Palmetto Bluff in South Carolina.
Owned by developer and course operator South Street Partners, the private Palmetto Bluff is already home to an 18-hole Jack Nicklaus course named May River that is ranked by Golfweek’s Best as tied for No. 171 among all modern courses in the United States. Palmetto Bluff also recently opened Crossroads, a nine-hole short course designed by the team of Tad King and Rob Collins.
For the newest 18, Coore and Crenshaw were given free run of 500 Lowcountry acres to choose the best spots for golf holes without worrying about where houses might fit, South Street said in a media release announcing the course. The course will anchor what is to become Palmetto Bluff’s third village, to be named Anson. The layout, yet unnamed, will play through four types of forest with coastal and wetland views.
The new course, located on the east end of Palmetto Bluff, is slated to open in the winter of 2025-2026 with a temporary clubhouse. A later Phase 2 will include a full clubhouse
Davis Love III returns to the site of a big win for him to add a short course and a putting course.
Hazeltine National in Chaska, Minnesota, has announced a long-range plan for the club named Vision 2040 that includes in its first stage a new short course, putting course, performance center and more.
The private club announced Wednesday that Love Golf Design, headed by Davis Love III, has broken ground on the 10-hole, par-3 short course that will open in summer of 2025. Love also will design the putting course.
“It’s an exciting time for Hazeltine, and the future is bright,” Love said in an announcement on the club’s website. “We are very excited to see the finished products, and I cannot wait to tee it up out there.”
Hazeltine National’s main 18-hole layout is ranked by Golfweek’s Best as the No. 4 private course in Minnesota, and it ties for No. 77 among all modern courses in the United States. The course was designed by Robert Trent Jones Sr. and opened in 1962, and Jones’ son Rees Jones renovated it in 1991. Love Design also is developing a long-range master plan for the main 18.
Among other top-tier professional and amateur tournaments, the club has hosted two U.S. Opens (1970, won by Tony Jacklin; 1991, Payne Stewart), two PGA Championships (2002, Rich Beem; 2009, Y.E. Yang), two U.S. Women’s Opens (1966, Sandra Spuzich; 1977, Hollis Stacy) and the 2019 KPMG Women’s PGA Championship (Hannah Green).
The KPMG Women’s Championship will return in 2026. The club also hosted the 2016 Ryder Cup won by the American side captained by Love, and the club will again be the site of a Ryder Cup in 2029.
The massive casino property is owned and operated by the Oneida Indian Nation of New York.
VERONA, N.Y. – Matt Falvo has a natural way of sauntering around a golf course – armed with an impressive driver, a confident stride and a coy smile. When he’s walking one of the three championship courses at Turning Stone, a casino property in Central New York just east of Syracuse, he’s even more at ease. Now the director of golf courses and grounds, Falvo has worked for nearly a quarter-century at the property and he knows every in and out of this pastoral piece of paradise.
Falvo points to his house while playing the picturesque but inviting Shenendoah course, the one staffers often recommend as the resort’s best starting point. Also, his son is a 6-foot-4 defensive end for the local high school football team, which plays its games at a campus visible from the Turning Stone grounds.
And Falvo can share funny stories about when the complex – part of a massive and expanding casino property owned and operated by the Oneida Indian Nation of New York – was host to the PGA Tour’s Turning Stone Resort Championship from 2007 to 2010. For example, he won’t go into detail about John Daly’s brief appearance in the 2008 event, but when asked if the two-time major winner spent too much time in the casino before his opening round, Falvo stops and smiles.
Turning Stone
“All I’ll say is this,” Falvo quietly says with a smirk. “He only played seven holes. And it took a while to figure out that he was gone when he left.”
But for all his knowledge about the casino property, one that’s seemingly adding new pieces every summer, Falvo has no desire to trumpet how demanding the resort’s most difficult track is. In fact, he insists it’s not his place to do so. But he does know that when many players come off the Robert Trent Jones Jr.-designed Kaluhyat, they liken it to another famous New York State track nearly 400 miles away.
“It’s not my job to say so, but people love to tell me that this course is harder than Bethpage Black,” Falvo said in his relaxed style. “That’s them. Not me. But I hear it all the time.”
In fact, Kaluhyat’s slope is 145, which makes it one of the state’s toughest courses, although not the 155 of Bethpage Black. But there’s still room for debate about whether it’s as difficult as the municipal course hosting the 2025 Ryder Cup.
https://www.instagram.com/p/C4v96_jOt1M/
There is no sign warning players how difficult the challenge at Kaluhyat is, but there probably should be. And starters, staffers and pro shop attendants are all quick to check if you’re prepared for the course’s wrath before starting a round. I had three different people ask me if I was prepared to be bludgeoned.
And while it’s certain to damage your handicap, Kaluhyat offers up some incredible views and truly breathtaking holes. The tee box on the second hole is perched high and its fairway is tree-lined and tight, like so many during the round. Precision is truly in demand on this course, but those who find the short stuff can score.
For example, the short par-4 fourth hole teases players into bombing down the left side of the fairway over a small bunker, leaving an easy wedge approach. But even the slightest pull will find not just deep grass, but an impossible line of trees from which to dig your ball. And those who catch a bad break and roll through the fairway can find an equally impossible shot. The safe play is a mid-iron to the right side of the fairway, leaving a good angle and another mid-iron in.
Easy to say, difficult to mentally put into action.
And after you get a little weary from the grind that Kaluhyat delivers, the par-5 No. 13 offers a Bay Hill-like risk-reward, with a lake that allows you to bite off huge chunks if you’ve got the guts and the game.
Turning Stone
I played with my dad, who was clearly beaten and bruised by the experience, to the point where his normally reserved personality suffered a severe meltdown in a bunker on the incredible 16th hole, a par-4 with a blind tee shot that demands both distance and accuracy. To set up a second shot over a deep ravine, you need to place your tee shot deep and straight, as the fairway narrows approaching the dropoff. Miss even a little with your big stick and the potential to put up a huge number becomes likely.
This exact scenario played out with my father, who pulled his drive a little left and into the thick stuff, then had to lay up to the edge of the ravine. He missed left with his approach and found a massive bunker, and when he caught the top of the lip with his wedge and the ball rolled back to his feet, the nearby maintenance crew heard words I’d never before heard him utter.
Kaluhyat can do that to you.
But the real surprise for those who haven’t done their research is that Kaluhyat is not the course on which the Tour made its presence felt. That distinction lies with Atunyote, a Tom Fazio-designed parkland-style course with wide, gorgeous fairways and a sense that you’ve entered a private world, complete with an exclusive entryway that has almost no signage and a massive gate. To enter you approach a call box, like something from an ’80s CIA movie, and get buzzed through to the pro shop.
But once inside Atunyote, which means “eagle” in Oneida, you can see why this was a great venue for the Tour. Originally, Turning Stone filled in as the host site for the 2006 B.C. Open, after En-Joie near Binghamton – about 90 minutes away – was flooded just months before play was to begin. The site was so satisfactory that the resort was given a full-fledged event for the next few years and Atunyote, which was the site of Dustin Johnson’s first PGA Tour victory in 2008, forever became a piece of professional golf lore.
Turning Stone eventually lost the tournament, but to be fair, the rural setting makes it difficult to attract what the Tour now covets – massive crowds and loads of corporate involvement. The move away had nothing to do with the course, which ranks among the top 10 on Golfweek’s Best top casino tracks.
Turning Stone Resort Casino in Oneida County, New York.
While the course is open and inviting, it’s anything but easy, as is best evidenced by the par-5 12th hole that forces those with “atunyote” dreams to flirt with a pond that surrounds the right portion of the green. Also, the 14th hole follows a crooked creek that was manipulated by Fazio’s design team after a breathtaking waterfall was installed behind the green.
There is plenty to love about Atunyote, as the experience feels befitting of its place in Tour history (Matt Kuchar also won here), and Fazio’s elaborate touches help make the experience truly world-class.
While Kaluhyat and Atunyote get most of the attention, the popular and playable Shenendoah also offers plenty of bite. The host site for the 2006 PGA National Club Professional Championship, Shenendoah is a fun ride, some parkland-style holes, some with a links feel. As previously mentioned, this a perfect indoctrination into the Turning Stone family, and the closing hole, a long par 5, is a perfect way to prepare for what Kaluhyat and Atunyote have in store.
Of course, Turning Stone is a full-service resort, with impressive accommodations, gaming and the exquisite TS Steakhouse, which sits atop a 21-story tower with sweeping views that stretch as far as Oneida Lake. And there are plans for more additions in the near future, including a $400-million expansion that will add to the resort’s skyline with a new hotel and seafood restaurant that’s expected to rival the steakhouse.
And if the three big courses aren’t enough, Sandstone Hollow is a Rick Smith-designed short course that offers plenty of fun. Oh, and here’s a pro tip: The nine-hole Pleasant Knolls was originally purchased as a nearby addition to be folded into one of the current courses, but instead was maintained and improved upon. The course is a great romp and offers the cheapest beer prices on the complex.
Speaking of prices, how does the entire experience match up with other great golf destinations? As of this story’s publication, you could play rounds at all three of the championship courses, and both of the shorter courses, for about the same price as one round at TPC Sawgrass.
Well, that is if you don’t spend too many hours – like John Daly may or may not have done – at the resort’s many blackjack tables.
Tom Doak has routed Old Shores on sand dunes near Panama City, Florida.
After news was reported last week that a development order had been approved by Washington County for a new course in the Florida Panhandle, Dream Golf announced Friday the name and designer for the 18-hole project.
Architect Tom Doak has routed what will become Old Shores, assuming all necessary permitting continues to be approved. The course will be built 30 miles north of the Northwest Florida Beaches International Airport that services Panama City.
The course will be an easy drive from the 30A region of beaches in South Walton County between Panama City and Destin, which has grown at an astonishing rate in recent years. The property is about a 30-minute drive north of Panama City Beach.
Speculation about the course has swirled in recent years, as happens with any project by Dream Golf. The collection of properties includes Bandon Dunes Golf Resort in Oregon and Sand Valley in Wisconsin, with new projects on the way outside Denver and another in Texas.
The first step in planning for Old Shores has been approved by Washington County in Florida. (Courtesy of Dream Golf)
The development order was the first step in receiving official sign-off to build Old Shores. As reported by the Washington County News, the development order was for 80 acres for the golf course amid 1,438 acres that have been acquired. No plans for further development have been announced or approved.
The name Old Shores is a reflection of the sandy dunes on the site, which used to be shoreline before the Gulf of Mexico receded to its current boundaries to the south thousands of years ago. Dream Golf said there is no set timetable for construction or completion.
“This land just makes you want to get to the next bend or over the next hill,” developer Michael Keiser said in a news release announcing the name of the course and Doak’s involvement. “There is so much variety – it’s hard to believe you could experience so many environments in one place. Every time I visit, I discover a side I had never seen before. This is an amazing and unexpected site.”
The site for Old Shores to be designed by Tom Doak for Dream Golf, assuming all permitting is eventually approved, is about 30 miles north of the Panama City, Florida, airport. (Courtesy of Dream Golf)
Micheal Keiser is the son of Mike Keiser, the developer of Bandon Dunes. Michael and his brother Chris are the developers of Sand Valley, the in-progress Rodeo Dunes in Colorado and the in-progress Wild Springs Dunes in Texas.
“We are grateful for the reception we received from Washington County, and we are eager to continuing the process of presenting our plans for this extraordinary property,” Michael Keiser said in the release. “I’ve walked the routing with Tom Doak numerous times, and I know this will be world-class.”
Doak’s extensive resume includes building the Pacific Dunes course at Bandon Dunes Golf Resort, which is ranked by Golfweek’s Best as the top public-access course in Oregon and the No. 3 modern course in the U.S. Doak recently completed the now-open Sedge Valley course at Sand Valley, and he also constructed the Lido at Sand Valley, which brought back to life a famous but lost course on Long Island.
Groundbreaking plans will be announced in the coming months.
The nine-hole Sweetens Cove – ranked by Golfweek’s Best as the No. 1 public-access golf course in Tennessee – announced this week that it will collaborate with Reef Capital Partners to introduce a new par-3 course and much more.
Plans also call for stay-and-play cabins, a new winding putting green, a fishing dock, a skeet range, a restaurant and a distillery at the famously laid-back facility in South Pittsburg, about a 30-minute drive west from Chattanooga. Groundbreaking plans will be announced in the coming months.
Sweetens Cove had a tough 2024, closing for several months to replant greens and fairways after a particularly bad winter killed off much of the playing surfaces – its operators opted to shut down for repairs instead of presenting sub-standard conditions. The course reopened this fall with new grass that has grown in well, and the layout should regain its often fiery and bouncy playing conditions in 2025.
The masterplan for expansion at Sweetens Cove includes a par-3 course, shooting range, fishing dock, cabins, a restaurant, distillery, events space and more. (Courtesy of Reef Capital Partners)
Besides excelling as a nine-hole layout, Sweetens Cove is different than most courses in many other ways. Operators started several years ago offering all-day passes instead of traditional tee times, with players going round and round the course as often as they like. The dress code is basically non-existent, and music typically blasts from a patio overlooking the first tee and ninth green. The clubhouse is named the Shed because it is one, and it’s packed with much-loved merchandise sporting multiple logos. A patio built around a tree has been tagged as the heckle deck.
There have been discussions about expansion for years, with the biggest concern among die-hard fans being that the facility retains its vibe.
“Sweetens Cove grabs you the moment you step onto the course – there’s an energy here that you won’t find anywhere else,” Jared Lucero, CEO of Reef Capital Partners, said in a media release announcing the new partnership for which terms were not disclosed. “It’s not just about golf; it’s about the experience, the people and the simplicity of spending a day out here.
“We aim to preserve that unique charm while adding a place to stay, a bit more to do, including Sweetens at Night, and some amazing food and drinks. Those things will only make every visit even more memorable, whether you’re playing the course for the first time or the hundredth.”
The heckle deck overlooks the ninth green at Sweetens Cove in Tennessee, as seen after the course reopened following the re-grassing of its greens in 2024. (Jason Lusk/Golfweek)
Sweetens Cove opened in 2015 on the site of a former course, which was erased as a new course was laid out by the team of Tad King and Rob Collins. It quickly gained a following among Golfweek’s Best course raters and catapulted into the top 100 modern courses in the U.S., where it now is No. 90.
King and Collins soon took over operations of Sweetens Cove from its founding family, and investors have come onboard including sports stars Peyton Manning and Andy Roddick. The ownership group also has released a bourbon named for the course, with the planned small-batch distillery an extension of that.
“I’ve been with Sweetens Cove from the beginning, from designing and building the original course with Tad to being responsible for its operations and management for the last 10 years,” Collins said in the media release. “It is thrilling to me and everyone involved with Sweetens Cove to see how the expansion builds on that foundation and brings to life every big dream we ever had for the place.”
Sweetens Cove was built on the site of a former course, but the new design by Tad Kind and Rob Collins vaulted into the No. 1 spot among Golfweek’s Best ranking of public-access courses in Tennessee. (Jason Lusk/Golfweek)
Reef Capital Partners’ has been expanding in golf with its development of Black Desert Resort in Utah, which opened in 2023, jumped to the No. 1 spot among that state’s public-access courses and recently hosted an eponymous PGA Tour event. The company also is developing Marcella Deer Valley, which will include Tiger Woods designing his first mountain course.
“Reef Capital Partners has an incredible vision for this expansion,” Collins said in the media release. “They came to Sweetens to play the course and by the seventh fairway they had drawn up a model, envisioning a par-3 short course that offers flexibility and creativity. It’s not just a regular short course – you can play each hole in multiple ways, adding a cross-country style that you won’t find anywhere else.”
Sweetens Cove tee times are coveted and sell out incredibly quickly each year, a testament to the layout’s architecture as much as its atmosphere. King-Collins Golf Design has gone on to lay out several other courses around the country including Landmand, which opened in 2022 in Nebraska and has jumped to the No. 1 spot in that state’s ranking of public-access layouts.
“Sweetens Cove is a golf anomaly,” GM Matt Adamski said in the media release. “We’ve created a place where you can play all day with no tee times, no dress codes and no pressure. It’s a giant adult playground, where everyone can find something to love.
“(The expansion) will maintain our unique culture and enhance guest experience. The demand is incredible – we’re sold out through the end of the year. But even with this expansion, we’re maintaining our focus on a quality experience by keeping a limit on the number of daily passes to ensure that Sweetens Cove remains the special place people love.”
Which top courses are open, which are still closed after Hurricane Milton?
Hurricane Milton had different impacts on various golf courses along its path across the Florida Peninsula last Wednesday and Thursday, and some courses have reopened fully while others are waiting for water to drain before welcoming players.
Many people are still suffering mightily after the storm, with more than 400,000 Florida residents still without power. Food and water are in short supply in the worst-hit areas, lines are out of hand at some gas stations and federal agencies are trying to help as thousands of electric crews race to turn back on the lights, refrigerators and air conditioners.
It can seem like a weird time to think about a game, but golf is big business in Florida, and many people’s livelihoods depend on golf as the state begins its recovery. The National Golf Foundation reports there are more than 1,200 courses in Florida that serve nearly 1.6 million players, with an economic impact of $8.2 billion in 2022. More than 132,000 people work in Florida’s golf industry.
The biggest problem for most golf courses wasn’t Milton’s winds so much as its water. Some places in Florida received nearly two feet of rainfall overnight, and several courses are still under water in places. It can take weeks for that much water to recede from a low-lying course. It was especially damaging as Milton struck just two weeks in the wake of Hurricane Helene, which inundated Florida’s western coast with storm surge and dumped huge volumes of rain across the peninsula before hammering into Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina and Tennessee.
Flooding waters from Hurricane Milton surround the par-3 16th green at Forest Lake in Ocoee, Florida, near Orlando. (Jason Lusk/Golfweek)
As an example of water damage, this author received a close-up look at storm water Sunday on a round at the daily-fee Forest Lake Golf Club in Ocoee near Orlando. The course had standing water on many holes, deep enough to resemble ponds more than puddling. Course operators had cobbled together a new layout, playing one par 4 and one par 5 as par 3s to avoid saturated areas in fairways while they clean up after the storm and await water to recede. One par 3 across a pond was closed entirely as water had risen to surround the green like a moat and covered two-thirds of the putting surface. Players should expect to find such conditions at many courses across Florida as grounds crews work to restore normal playing conditions.
Hundreds of courses stretch along the path of Hurricane Milton. For a sampling of how those courses are doing after the storm, we checked on the layouts that appear in Golfweek’s Best rankings of public-access courses. These vary from daily-fee operations to huge resorts. Some have reopened with negligible effects from the storm, while others remain closed. At the bottom of this story is an update on several highly ranked private clubs, too.
Streamsong
Streamsong Red in Florida (Courtesy of Streamsong/Evan Schiller)
Home to three highly ranked courses – the Red by Bill Coore and Ben Crenshaw, the Blue by Tom Doak, and the Black by Gil Hanse and Jim Wagner – Streamsong received no major damage in the storm. The resort will reopen Tuesday after having been closed for several days as power was restored. The three courses on a former mining site feature very few trees to have blown down, and they were built atop huge piles of sand that expedited drainage. The Red is ranked by Golfweek’s Best as the No. 2 public-access course in Florida and ties for No. 37 among all modern courses in the U.S. The Blue is No. 3 in Florida and ties for No. 53 among modern courses, and the Black is No. 4 in Florida and ties for No. 67 among modern courses.
Bay Hill Club and Lodge
No. 17 at Bay Hill Club and Lodge (Gabe Gudgel/Golfweek)
Longtime home to the PGA Tour’s Arnold Palmer Invitational presented by Mastercard, Bay Hill in Orlando is still closed as it deals with flooding after Hurricane Milton. The club is waiting for water to recede – notably on the around-the-pond par-5 sixth hole and the downhill over-the-pond 17th – before announcing a reopening plan. The facility also suffered tree damage. Bay Hill ranks No. 6 among public-access courses in Florida. Bay Hill hopes to have its 9-hole course, The Challenger, opened in the next several days.
Innisbrook
The Copperhead (Courtesy of Innisbrook Resort)
The home of the Copperhead Course – longtime site of the PGA Tour’s Valspar Championship – is in Palm Harbor, just west of Tampa and closer to the Gulf of Mexico. The resort has posted on its website that limited dining options have reopened. The resort features four golf courses: Copperhead, Island, North and South. Of those four, nine holes reopened Monday. Those nine are a compilation of holes on the North and South courses. The Copperhead – ranked No. 9 among all public-access courses in Florida – has not reopened, and a timeframe is not mentioned on the resort’s website.
Southern Dunes
Southern Dunes (Courtesy of Southern Dunes)
The Steve Smyers layout southwest of Orlando in Haines City lost a few trees, but the course reopened Saturday with minimal damage. Southern Dunes sits on rolling sand dunes, which helps tremendously with drainage. Southern Dunes ranks No. 14 among all public-access courses in Florida.
PGA Golf Club
PGA Golf Club’s Dye Course (Montana Pritchard/The PGA of America)
PGA Golf Club in Port St. Lucie on Florida’s eastern coast – home to three courses ranked among the top 30 public-access layouts in the state – has reopened two of those courses, Dye (ranked No. 17) and Ryder (No. 30). The resort’s Wannamaker course (ranked No. 18) was closed well before the storm for a renovation, and it is scheduled to reopen in November as planned. A handful of holes on the two open courses are cart-path-only as the facility continues to dry out.
Orange County National
Panther Lake at Orange County National in Florida (Courtesy of Orange County National)
Home to two courses among the top 30 in the state, Panther Lake (No. 23) and Crooked Cat (tied for No. 27), this Winter Garden facility just west of Orlando reopened Friday after the storm. The property’s massive circular driving range was humming with business Saturday, as usual.
Celebration
Celebration Golf Club (Courtesy of Celebration)
Ranked No. 29 among public-access courses in Florida, this course southwest of Orlando is still closed after Milton. The club has posted on social media that it hopes to reopen Wednesday, as water continues to drain. Golfers can check the club’s Facebook page for more information and updates.
Grand Cypress
A longtime Central Florida golf icon, Grand Cypress is home to two courses – the Cypress and the Links – at the new Evermore resort southwest of Orlando next to Disney World. The Cypress is open for play now, while the Links is slated to reopen Tuesday as stormwater recedes. Formerly known as the New Course, the renamed Links ties for No. 30 among all public-access courses in Florida.
Private clubs
Belleair near Tampa shortly after a restoration of the Donald Ross-designed course by Jason Straka (Jason Lusk/Golfweek)
Calls to several top-rated private courses in especially hard-hit areas, such as Mountain Lake in Lake Wales and The Concession in Bradenton, went unanswered. Belleair, just west of Tampa along the Intracoastal Waterway, lost dozens of trees on its two courses, and its recently restored West Course reopened Monday while its East Course will take a few more days. Nearby, Pelican Golf Club – home to the LPGA’s The Annika Driven by Gainbridge scheduled for Nov. 14-17 – plans to reopen Wednesday.
The founders of Te Arai Links, Tara Iti join forces with business magnate on The Hills.
The developers of highly ranked Te Arai Links and Tara Iti golf clubs in New Zealand announced this week that they will partner with the owners of The Hills course near Arrowtown to redevelop the property.
The design team of Geoff Ogilvy, Mike Cocking and Ashley Mead – OCM – will rebuild the course. Plans also include the introduction of a golf training facility, fitness center, on-site accommodations, luxurious real estate and a remodel of the clubhouse.
The Hills was opened in 2007 by Sir Michael Hill, one of the most successful businessmen in New Zealand. The course was designed by Darby Partners and included a nine-hole par-3 course designed by Darius Oliver in 2019. The main course is notable for its inclusion of sculptures around the course, which will remain throughout the renovation.
Jim Rohrstaff and Ric Kayne, the developers of Tara Iti and Te Arai, will partner with Hill and his daughter, Emma Hill, on the work at The Hills.
Ric Kayne, Jim Rohrstaff, Emma Hill and Sir Michael Hill at The Hills (Courtesy of The Hills)
The private Tara Iti in Mangawhai was designed by Tom Doak and opened in 2015, and it ties for No. 9 on Golfweek’s Best list of top courses outside the U.S. The South Course at the resort-based Te Arai Links just down the beach from Tara Iti was designed by the team of Bill Coore and Ben Crenshaw and opened in 2022, and it ties for No. 23 on the list of best international courses. Doak also designed a course at Te Arai, the North, which should appear on the list of top international courses as soon as it receives enough votes.
As with Tara Iti, The Hills will be redeveloped as a high-end equity club with limited membership. The renovations, including a new routing, will take place over to the winters of 2026 and 2027, and the project should be completed in 2028.
OCM has been busy of late with a rapidly expanding portfolio of international work, having recently completed a redesign of Medinah No. 3 in Illinois. Based near Melbourne, Australia, the firm has done renovation work to such Sandbelt stalwarts as Kingston Heath, Peninsula Kingswood and Victoria. The team also renovated Shady Oaks in Texas, longtime home of Ben Hogan, and it also has a new course named Tepetonka Club under construction in Minnesota in partnership with broadcaster Jim Nantz.
Check out a selection of photos of The Hills as it currently sits, including two architectural sketches that show what the OCM design team have in mind.
David Love III will serve as a consultant to the Harbour Town restoration.
Harbour Town Golf Links at Hilton Head Island, South Carolina, announced it will close for six months in 2025 for a restoration of the Pete Dye-designed layout that opened in 1969.
Part of Sea Pines Resort, Harbour Town is ranked by Golfweek’s Best as the No. 2 public-access layout in South Carolina. It also is the No. 21 resort course in the U.S. and the No. 59 modern course built in the U.S. since 1960. Much of the layout plays tight through trees until reaching Calibogue Sound for its final holes, with the 18th playing along the water toward the famed lighthouse beyond.
The course will close May 5, 2025, and is scheduled to reopen in November.
The work is being done to restore championship-level conditions. The course has been home to the PGA Tour’s RBC Heritage Presented by Boeing (and all the tournament’s previous names) since the year it opened.
All the greens, bunkers and bulkheads will be rebuilt alongside improvements to agronomy and maintenance. The turf will remain as TifEagle Bermuda grass on the greens with Celebration Bermuda on the fairways, tees and rough.
“Everyone at The Sea Pines Resort is committed to honoring the legacy of Pete Dye’s design,” John Farrell, director of sports operations at Harbour Town, said in a media release announcing the restoration. “We will protect the shot values, both long and short, that have come to define Harbour Town Golf Links for nearly six decades.”
Davis Love III and his design company will serve as consultants to the restoration. Love won the RBC Heritage five times, and he designed the Atlantic Dunes course at the resort.
“I’m both honored and excited to be working with The Sea Pines Resort’s Harbour Town Golf Links team on the restoration of Harbour Town,” Love, who spent much of his youth on the island, said in the media release. “Given my success on the course over the years, it is a layout I know and love. We’ve already begun a thoughtful process for protecting the integrity of this Pete Dye masterpiece.”
