Come along for the full 18 at Belvedere Golf Club in Michigan.
CHARLEVOIX, Mich. – The past several weeks at home in still-steamy Florida have me dreaming of golf in different climates and some of the cooler places, both literally and figuratively, I have visited in recent months. In my mind, I keep hitting on the spots that offer a classic vibe, a great course and just a perfect atmosphere for golf.
Belvedere Golf Club in northern Michigan ticks all those boxes. Nestled inland between Lake Michigan and Lake Charlevoix, its nines divided by a two-lane road, Belvedere is a step back in time with a central ridge that keeps balls rolling up and down hills the entire round.
Built by William Watson and opened in 1927, the layout was restored by Bruce Hepner starting in 2016. Hepner and longtime course superintendent Rick Grunch (who has since retired) received a blessing when Watson’s original drawings were uncovered in an old building nearby, giving them the blueprint for a restoration. The greens were returned to their original dimensions, their internal contours paired with frequent runoffs to keep players on their toes.
The back nine at Belvedere Golf Club in Charlevoix, Mich. (Golfweek)
Belvedere ranks No. 6 in a very stacked Michigan on Golfweek’s Best list of top public-access courses in each state, and it also ties for No. 192 among all classic courses built before 1960 in the U.S.
Rankings aside, it’s just a very cool place to spend a day. There’s the right-sized clubhouse, its pro shop lined with photos of top professionals who have ambled through. It’s a private club that accepts some outside play, and it’s the type of course that surely makes every guest ponder a membership application. The peak guest green fee for walkers is listed as $125 in 2023, and the offseason rate is half that – a bargain for the experience.
I was lucky enough to play it for the third time this summer, and the experience was too good not to share. So here goes: photos of every hole at Belvedere, with multiple shots of some holes.
Golfweek’s experts have ranked the Top 200 courses built before 1960, such as Augusta National, Pebble Beach and more.
Are you a big fan of Golden Age golf architecture? You’re in the right spot. Welcome to the Golfweek’s Best 2023 list of the Top 200 Classic Courses opened before 1960 in the United States.
The hundreds of members of our course-ratings panel continually evaluate courses and rate them based on 10 criteria on a points basis of 1 through 10. They also file a single, overall rating on each course. Those overall ratings are averaged to produce these rankings. The top handful of courses in the world have an average rating of above 9, while many excellent layouts fall into the high-6 to the 8 range.
To ensure these lists are up-to-date, Golfweek’s Best in recent years has altered how the individual ratings are compiled into the rankings. Only ratings from rounds played in the past 10 years are included in the compilations. This helps ensure that any course in the rankings still measures up.
Courses also must have a minimum of 25 votes to qualify for the Top 200 Modern or the Top 200 Classic. Other Golfweek’s Best lists, such as Best Courses You Can Play or Best Private, do not require as many votes. This makes it possible that a course can show up on other lists but not on the premium Top 200 lists.
Each course is listed with its average rating next to the name, the location, the year it opened and the designers. The list notes in parenthesis next to the name of each course where that course ranked in 2022.
After the designers are several designations that note what type of facility it is:
Visions of sugar plums? We’re guessing you’ll have visions of your next golf trip in your head tonight. These lists will help.
Sure, the kiddos are said to have sugar plums dancing in their heads tonight, but we know what will be bouncing around in yours — a future golf trip.
For the final days of 2022, we’ve been offering up a snapshot of the top 10 stories from each of Golfweek’s most popular sections, including travel, the PGA and LPGA tours, instruction and fitness. Here’s what we’ve already counted down.
Today, we’re focusing on one of our most important areas — golf course lists. The tracks featured in these lists are from all around the globe.
Here’s a look at the top 10 golf course lists, as clicked on by you:
These photos of a restored Cherry Hills will have you dreaming of Colorado golf.
It’s happy 100th to Cherry Hills Country Club near Denver.
The club in Cherry Hills Village, Colorado – where Arnold Palmer won his only U.S. Open in 1960 – has completed a decade-long restoration of its William Flynn-designed course that opened in 1923. Among many large events, Cherry Hills has been the host site of three U.S. Opens, two PGA Championships, one U.S. Women’s Open and two U.S. Amateurs, and it will again host the Amateur in 2023.
Architect Tom Doak and his Renaissance Golf Design team, largely under the direction of Renaissance associate Eric Iverson on the ground, have restored several greens to their original size matching Flynn’s intent, and bunkers were reworked to reintroduce their original intent. The cross bunkering on the 17th hole, for example, was restored on what was the first par 5 to feature an island green in the U.S.
Perhaps most striking: Little Dry Creek, which in no way is actually dry, was brought more into play on several holes.
The club commissioned Doak in 2007 to develop a restoration plan to focus on strategy while adding length where necessary for future championships. Before completion of the restoration, Cherry Hills tied for No. 70 on Golfweek’s Best 2022 list of classic courses built before 1960 in the U.S. and was the third-ranked private course in Colorado.
Nos. 7 and 14 of the restored Cherry Hills Country Club in Denver (Courtesy of Cherry Hills/Brian Walters)
“The transformation that Tom Doak and Eric Iverson of Renaissance Golf Design have brought to William Flynn’s classic design brings extraordinary pride to our membership,” Cherry Hills president David Keyte said in a media release announcing the completion of the project. “In 2022 we celebrated 100 years as a club, and in 2023 we will be celebrating the centennial of our first round of golf at Cherry Hills, which coincides with us hosting the U.S. Amateur, which is very exciting. The restored shot values on display next summer will certainly remind the golfing world of Cherry Hills’ timelessness and stature as a world-class championship venue.”
More from the media release:
“The Renaissance team also reintroduced the famous cross bunkering on the 17th hole (which features the first island green on a par 5 built in the U.S.) and other strategic bunker work on the first, second, fourth, fifth, seventh, ninth, 14th and 16th holes. The green complexes on holes three and 13 were completely restored while other greens have been brought back to their original forms to ensure all green complexes match the original Flynn plans. A major tree-management program was also implemented, and several holes were lengthened to accommodate the advances in the modern game. This includes new tee boxes on holes five, nine, 10, 11, 13, 14 and 16.
“Flynn’s ingenious routing of Cherry Hills is truly unique among Top 100 courses. The opening nine weaves as a figure eight on the inside of the property while the second nine wraps in a counterclockwise circle around the perimeter. Cherry Hills is one of only a handful of courses with this unique “Muirfield Plan” routing, named after famed Muirfield in Scotland.”
One major part of the restoration was the return to the original orientation of Little Dry Creek, which runs through the property and was re-engineered to reduce flood potential and manage water flow. It was rerouted from its recent banks to come more into play next to the seventh green, tightly alongside the redesigned eighth hole, in front of No. 14 green, closer to the front of the 15th green that was restored to Flynn’s original dimensions, then down the 16th fairway and alongside that green.
“You can see from all the hole drawings that Flynn routed the holes and implemented strategy based on Little Dry Creek,” Iverson said in the media release. “The way the creek plays now on these key holes brings exceptional strategy and challenge to these iconic approach shots. Holes 14 and 16, for example, are two of the finest and most difficult par 4s in the country, but now with the creek coming in closer to each green, the shot values and premium on the angles into the green are off-the-charts.”
Flynn’s other designs include Shinnecock Hills on Long Island, New York; The Country Club at Brookline, Massachusetts; the Kittansett Club in Marion, Massachusetts; and significant contributions to Pine Valley in New Jersey and Merion in Pennsylvania.
Check out a selection of shots of Cherry Hills by photographers Brian Walters and Evan Schiller below.
The Country Club in Brookline, Massachusetts – site of this week’s 122nd U.S. Open – opened in 1893 as a three-hole layout. Willie Campbell, a Scot and head professional at the club, extended the course to nine holes and then to 18 in 1899.
Several designers have worked on The Country Club over the decades, most recently Gil Hanse and Jim Wagner before the 2013 U.S. Amateur.
The layout used for the U.S. Open – which features small greens and thick rough among its considerable challenges – is actually a composite of two courses, the Main course and the club’s Primrose nine. Three holes of the Primrose (No. 9 Primrose playing as No. 9 of the Composite, a combo of Nos. 1 and 2 Primrose playing as No. 13 on the Composite, and No. 8 Primrose playing as No. 14 of the Composite) will be used for the national championship.
The Composite ranks No. 1 on Golfweek’s Best 2022 list of top private courses in the state, and it is No. 24 among all classic courses built in the U.S. before 1960. It will play to 7,264 yards with a par of 70 for the Open.
Thanks to yardage books provided by StrackaLine – the maker of detailed yardage books for thousands of courses around the world – we can see exactly the challenges the players face this week. Check out the maps of each hole below.
The Curtis Cup will be contested at National Golf Links for the first time in 2030, the USGA has announced. The famed Charles Blair Macdonald design in Southampton, New York, hosted the inaugural Walker Cup in 1922, and the matches returned there in 2013.
National Golf Links will become only the fourth club to host both the Walker Cup and Curtis Cup, joining Merion Golf Club, The Minikahda Club and Quaker Ridge Golf Club.
From June 10-12, the 42nd Curtis Cup will take place at Merion for the second time.
This will be the first time a women’s USGA championship will be contested at National Golf Links, which ranks No. 5 on Golfweek’s Best Classic Courses.
Private Golf Course in NY
The Curtis Cup, held biennially, features two teams of eight female amateur players, with one representing the United States and the other representing Great Britain and Ireland. The USA leads the overall series, 30-8-3.
After Merion next month, upcoming Curtis Cup venues include England’s Sunningdale Golf Club in 2024 and Bel-Air Country Club in Los Angeles in 2026.
“We’re thrilled to be able to welcome back the USGA, the R&A and some of the finest amateur players in the world,” said Michael X. McBride, chair of the Golf Committee for National Golf Links. “George Herbert Walker truly valued the camaraderie and level of play involved in team competition, and for National Golf Links to now be involved in support of the women’s amateur game is a special moment for all of us associated with the club.”
Stanford’s Rose Zhang and Rachel Heck are among those headlining this year’s U.S. Curtis Cup team, along with Amari Avery, Latanna Stone, Emilia Migliaccio, Megha Ganne, Rachel Kuehn and 2021 U.S. Women’s Amateur champ Jensen Castle.
From links layouts to parkland courses, these are the best courses built before 1960 in Great Britain and Ireland.
Welcome to Golfweek’s Best rankings of the Top 50 Classic Courses in Great Britain and Ireland – built before 1960 – as determined by Golfweek’s Best Raters for 2021 (pictured atop this story: Royal Dornoch in Scotland).
The members of our course-ratings panel continually evaluate courses and rate them based on our 10 criteria. They also file a single, overall rating on each course. Those overall ratings on each course are averaged to produce a final rating for each course. Then each course is ranked against other courses in Great Britain and Ireland to produce the final rankings.
Take a detailed look at each hole for this year’s U.S. Open at Torrey Pines South, courtesy of Puttview.
The South Course at Torrey Pines in La Jolla, California, is the site of this week’s U.S. Open, bringing back memories of Tiger Woods’ dramatic 2008 major victory over Rocco Mediate. The course is also the annual home of the PGA Tour’s Farmers Insurance Open.
The South originally was designed by the father/son duo of William P. Bell and William F. Bell, and the layout opened in 1957. Previously, the site near San Diego had been a World War II U.S. Army installation named Camp Callan, and it also served as an auto racetrack after that war before being converted into a golf course.
With one of the best cliffside settings imaginable for golf, the South has been renovated several times. The teams of Billy Casper-David Rainville and Stephen Halsey-Jack Daray Jr. worked on it, and in recent decades Rees Jones made many changes – most lately in 2019 to several holes. The layout can be stretched to 7,802 yards off the back tees.
Thanks to yardage books provided by Puttview – the maker of detailed yardage books for more than 30,000 courses around the world – we can see exactly the challenges that players will face this week. Check out each hole below.
