Famously, no one has ever won the Par 3 Contest and then gone on to win the Masters in the same week.
AUGUSTA, Ga. — A Masters tradition since 1960, the Par 3 Contest takes centerstage Wednesday at Augusta National Golf Club.
Played on a nine-hole, par 27, 1,090-yard course, the contest is a family affair, with players mostly using wives, girlfriends, sons and daughters as their caddies.
Famously, no one has ever won the Par 3 Contest and then gone on to win the Masters in the same week.
Sam Snead on the first-ever contest on a course originally designed by George Cobb and club co-founder Clifford Roberts in 1958.
“I agree completely that the construction of this golf course will be an important contribution to the beauty of the place. The Par 3 would give us a pretty complete golfing layout.” — Bobby Jones, in a letter to Clifford Roberts regarding architect George W. Cobb’s plan for the Par 3 course
There have been 107 holes-in-one in the event’s history, including a record nine in 2016. There were five aces last year.
The Augusta National Women’s Amateur continues to grow and get better.
The Augusta National Women’s Amateur continues to grow and get better.
Introduced in 2019, it gave the world’s top female amateurs a shot at playing Augusta National Golf Club in what has become one of the premier amateur events on the calendar. And for the first time this year, players have a chance to participate in one of the signature highlights of Masters week.
During Friday’s practice round at Augusta National, ANWA participants were also able to play the Par 3 Course for the first time. The nine-hole layout was redesigned before the 2023 Masters, which rerouted holes 1-5 and took out trees for better patron viewing experiences.
Kokoro Nakamura of Japan putts on the No. 9 green on the Par 3 course during a practice round for the Augusta National Women’s Amateur at Augusta National Golf Club, Friday, April 5, 2024. Chloe Knott/Augusta National
And on Friday, every ANWA participants, even those who didn’t make the putt, got to add the Par 3 Course to their practice-round experience.
The lights on the #miniDunes short course can sync with music, offering a new cool experience in the desert.
Golfers looking to beat the heat this summer have a new option just south of Phoenix: Ak-Chin Southern Dunes has lit its par-3 course, named #miniDunes.
The six-hole short course sits on the range at Ak-Chin Southern Dunes in Maricopa, where the main 18-hole layout was designed by Brian Curley and Fred Couples – the course ranks No. 6 on Golfweek’s Best public-access course list in Arizona.
Holes on the short course stretch from 60 to 115 yards, and the layout features 15 lighting poles. The 88 LED lights can be synced to flash to music. Tee times become available April 26, and walk-ins are welcome.
The range serves as a normal practice area in the morning, then it is picked and holes are cut for afternoon play on the short course that was introduced in 2014 with new greens dotting the range. Night golf ramps it up another level in the desert setting, and the club’s restaurant will be represented at the short course with the Arroyo Grill – On the Go food truck/trailer.
“We are proud to offer the lighted #miniDunes as just the latest example of the commitment the Ak-Chin Indian Community has to creating memorable golf experiences for not only our local communities of Ak-Chin and Maricopa, but also for all of the region and its visitors who can now experience a taste of what Ak-Chin Southern Dunes has to offer at night,” Ak-Chin Indian Community Chairman Robert Miguel said in a media release announcing the night option. “I can’t wait to play golf under the lights with my friends and family.”
Bill Coore and Ben Crenshaw turn up the volume with The Chain at Streamsong.
BOWLING GREEN, Fla. – There are expectations for architects as they design a golf hole. Length, width, severity of contours, difficulty, placement of the green – there’s room for creativity, sure, but stray too far from tradition and a few eyebrows certainly will be raised.
Except for short par 3s. Great architects have long let their imaginations wander with the most miniature of holes on many acclaimed courses.
“It seems that’s there a theme that every wonderful, great course I’ve ever seen always includes a little short par 3 somewhere,” said Ben Crenshaw, the two-time Masters champion, golf historian and design partner with Bill Coore. “Short par 3s are pretty tantalizing for a lot of people. There’s so many brilliant examples of that. It just adds spice.”
Coore and Crenshaw have included many such holes on the dozens of golf courses they have designed together. Often not much over 120 yards or even shorter, these pint-sized par 3s are famed for offering intrigue as players plan for birdies but often pencil in bogeys or worse on their scorecards.
Soon comes a new chance to play a string of such holes as Streamsong opens all of its newest short course, The Chain, to preview play March 31. Until then, the resort is allowing limited preview play on less than the full course as it continues to grow in. The Chain is expected to fully open to resort play later this year.
The new par-3 course, The Chain, at Streamsong in Florida (Courtesy of Streamsong/Matt Hahn)
Built by Coore and Crenshaw, The Chain will offer 19 holes ranging from 41 to 293 yards, each offering a vast teeing area that allows players to pick a length. Want to play No. 8 with a driver? Step back to the huge metal chain link sunk into the ground and swing away. Want to play the same hole at 170? Go for it. It’s totally up to each group, or even each player. No. 1 can be 57 yards or 110, all the way to No. 19 at that ranges from 115 to 145.
The resort never refers to par for any hole, though the vast majority of them will require just one full shot for most players. Call them par 3s, or call them whatever you like – the resort’s operators don’t really care as long as players are having a blast.
The course was laid out in such a way that players can take a six-hole or a 13-hole loop, but resort operators expect most to play all 19. The Chain is a short walk from The Lodge at Streamsong, so late-afternoon tee times will be at a premium after many players tackle one of the resort’s highly acclaimed full-size courses – Red, Blue and Black – in the mornings. The Chain should prove especially popular during Streamsong’s peak winter season, when curtailed daylight might prevent a second 18-hole loop, and among players arriving to the resort mid-afternoon or simply those who just don’t want to stretch their golf to 36 traditional holes a day.
Nos. 18 and 19 of the new short course, The Chain, at Streamsong in Florida (Courtesy of Streamsong/Matt Hahn)
Also expect to encounter plenty of fun shots on The Chain. Coore and Crenshaw were granted a feast of freedom in designing the layout that maxes out at 3,026 yards, and they dreamed up plenty of internal contours and ground features that will only improve as the greens and their sandy surrounds continue to mature and become even more firm and bouncy.
“We can do things with a shorter course, where players are hitting shorter shots and you can be a bit more aggressive with the greens and some of the things,” Coore said recently after a tour of the layout alongside Crenshaw. “Things are in more of a reduced scale, and you can take more liberties and a few more risks to do greens and surrounds with interesting things that you might not be able to do with a regulation course. …
“For years, people have said (about full-size courses), ‘You can’t do that, it won’t be accepted, that’s too radical.’ With a par-3 course, you can kind of dispense with that a little and say, ‘It’s a par-3 course; we can do that.’ If you’re in our profession, it gives you freedom to work.”
The Chain includes a bunker in the middle of a green at No. 6, the aforementioned No. 8 that can play for many as a short par 4, and several trips across water and quarries at the former phosphate mining site. There are plenty of slopes that will help feed golf balls onto the putting surfaces and more devious contours that can sweep a ball off a green.
The tee markers at The Chain at Streamsong are huge chain links left over from mining. But instead of markers on each side of the tee, these links mark the front and back positions for each tee, which can stretch for dozens of yards, allowing players to select the yardage they will play each hole. (Jason Lusk/Golfweek)
The hole most likely to be relived over post-round beverages is the 209-yard (max) 11th, where a punchbowl green awaits on the opposite side of a pond, just a thin slit in the nearly vertical bank showing the putting surface from the tee. Players can try to just crest the forward mounds with their tee shots, or they can intentionally take it deep past the flag and trust that the ball will roll backward onto the green – this might be the safest route, and it’s a blast to watch balls scamper back toward the putting surface as if pulled by a string.
“Probably most people would point to that hole,” Coore said when asked what he anticipates will be the biggest talker among the 19 holes. “You play over the beautiful lake. It used to be a flat piece of ground out there, and we just mined a bunch of sand out of it and made a big hole.”
But don’t expect No. 11 to be a pushover, even with slopes on all sides of the green to feed the ball toward the hole – especially for players who flirt with the water short or right in trying to play a shot to the yardage instead of just hitting it long. Streamsong Black, the 18-hole design by Gil Hanse, already offers a famous punchbowl green, but The Chain’s variation is much smaller and tighter in scope, fitting with Coore and Crenshaw’s focus on right-sized targets for the par-3 course.
“I think the long punchbowl hole, in this little family of holes, will probably be maybe the toughest hole because it’s a long carry,” Crenshaw said. “It’s basically an old idea if you have a long shot across something, that you have a gathering green, a punchbowl. That may be one at the top of the list” that players remember.
The new Bucket putting course at Streamsong in Florida (Courtesy of Streamsong/Scott Powers)
Before or after a loop around The Chain, players can tackle The Bucket, the 2.6-acre putting course that sits within the par-3 course. Drinks and snacks also will be available onsite with the resort planning to add a clubhouse later, surely making the new complex a preferred hangout for resort guests.
Coore and Crenshaw also designed the Red Course at Streamsong, which opened in 2012 and ranks as the No. 2 Golfweek’s Best public-access layout in Florida and ties for No. 16 among all resort courses in the United States. The resort’s Blue Course by Tom Doak also opened in 2012 and ranks No. 3 among Florida’s public layouts and No. 20 among all U.S. resort courses, while the Black by Hanse opened in 2017 to become No. 4 in Florida and No. 23 on Golfweek’s Best resort list.
Coore said he’s always loved the allure of the site, where sand was piled high for decades as part of phosphate mining operations. The name of The Chain references the dragline chains used by miners, and The Bucket is so named because of the massive scoops once used to move earth at the mining site, one of which has been placed at the new putting course.
“People love it when they get here,” he said. “It’s a little mysterious the first time, but when they see it, they say ‘I’ve never seen anything like this in Florida.’ It has been so much fun to be a part of it.”
Crenshaw summed it up: “We do believe the Chain will be a positive extension of the journey.”
“I think we reserved a tee time there about 8:00 every night.”
Tony Finau admits the Mexico Open at Vidanta is one of his favorite events on the calendar.
He knows the course sets up well for his game. Look no further than when he won the event at Vidanta Vallarta last year for his sixth PGA Tour victory. But it’s also a great place for Finau to take his family, where there’s a little bit of everything for them to do, whether it’s hanging out at the pool, riding rollercoasters at the new theme park or watching dad play some golf.
Yet last year, Finau made waves when he was caught on social media caddying for his kids on the par-3 course the night after winning the event.
“I’m kind of a part-time golfer, full-time father, that’s kind of my thing,” Finau said last year. “My kids are only young once, and my boys are only young once. I want to make sure I’m there for them as much as possible. That’s also why I have them travel with me. It’s pretty dang cool that we’re able to share that special moment on the golf course having won the tournament, but then shooting straight over to the par 3 and then having that time with them was a lot of fun.”
Expect plenty of golf to be on Finau’s plate as he defends his title starting Thursday. During his pre-tournament press conference on Tuesday, Finau said his tee sheet will be filled during the day and at night.
“I think we reserved a tee time there about 8:00 every night, and we’ll be there with my boys playing pretty much every evening,” Finau said. “That’s definitely at the top of our list of things we enjoy here at Vidanta.”
The course at Vidanta is lit, meaning there’s plenty of time for Finau to head out and play with his kids after the grind of a round during the day. And if history is any indication, maybe it could help him defend his title.
“There’s definitely different feelings coming back to a golf course that you’ve had success,” Finau said. “Once you get on the golf course, you know it’s a course that you’ve had success and you’ve won before, so you definitely have that sense of confidence I think walking around a place that you’ve won before. Hopefully that’s the case this week.”
In five starts this year, Finau hasn’t missed a cut. He finished T-6 at the Farmers Insurance Open and is coming off a T-19 at the Genesis Invitational last week.
The Mexico Open at Vidanta is Finau’s first tournament in the next month he’ll be defending his title at, also the Texas Children’s Houston Open in March. With his game in a good place, he feels like a good week is on tap in Mexico.
“This golf course is high on my list as far as courses that look good to me and that I like, so I’ll be looking to definitely get after it again this week and try and defend this title,” Finau said.
Architect Jay Blasi shares how he reshaped Golden Gate Park Golf Course into a community treasure.
Editor’s note: Architect Jay Blasi works with Golfweek as a rater ambassador and contributes occasional stories.
Golden Gate Park Golf Course is what is right about golf. It is accessible, affordable, playable, sustainable and charitable.
Most importantly, it is repeatable. Every city in America, big or small, could have its own version of Golden Gate Park, and our communities and our game would be better off for it.
The course officially reopens Friday, Feb. 16 after The First Tee of San Francisco invested $2.5-million in a 2023 renovation that I had the good fortune to design.
Perched on a small parcel packed with sand dunes and majestic cypress trees just a few hundred yards from the Pacific Ocean, the course is expected to host 40,000+ rounds a year. Highlights and results of the work include each of the following:
Accessible: The course is located in San Francisco, within Golden Gate Park, a few hundred yards from the beach. Golfers can arrive on foot, by bike, by bus or by car. The course is nine holes of par 3s and is an easy walk for all. The clubhouse and practice greens will be open to all and are certain to become a community hub.
Affordable: The course will cost between $20 and $25 for locals or around $40 to $50 for out-of-town guests. Children – including those who participate in First Tee or Youth on Course programs – will pay even less. That’s compared to $75 to $120 at several other top par-3 layouts.
Playable: The tees, fairways and surrounds are all maintained at fairway height, and there are no forced carries. The course plays firm and fast, so balls roll – even topped shots. Players of all skill levels, including first-timers, will be able to enjoy the course. It can be played with just a putter if golfers want to try it.
Sustainable: The smaller footprint and use of fescue turf will make Golden Gate Park Golf Course one of the most efficient users of water and chemicals in the U.S. golf industry. The single height of grass allows the maintenance team to mow the whole facility quickly. The use of only one formal bunker means all raking can be done in one minute.
Charitable: The First Tee makes the course available to its students for practice and play. The kids are learning valuable lessons that will enrich the community for decades to come. By investing in the course and offering an architecturally interesting layout, beginners will get hooked on the game.
Repeatable: Golden Gate Park Golf Course sits on only 20 acres of land. It was designed in a way that the man-hour equivalent of 2.5 employees can maintain the course. The money invested in the course came from wealthy local golfers and corporations that wanted to support underprivileged kids through golf. This formula can work in New York, Dallas, Denver, Seattle and Atlanta. It also can work in smaller towns in every region of the country.
Already home to one of the best par-3 courses, Bandon Dunes will open a new layout on wild dunes.
Bandon Dunes Golf Resort, to a large degree, reinvigorated par-3 courses at resorts around the U.S. – and the world. The Oregon resort’s Preserve – opened in 2012 with a design by Bill Coore and Ben Crenshaw on cliffs above the Pacific Ocean – has proved to be a massive hit with guests looking for a non-traditional layout that promises plenty of fun. All five of the 18-hole courses on the property are among our top 11 resort courses on the Golfweek’s Best 2024 list.
In May, the Preserve will have a sibling. Bandon Dunes’ new 19-hole par-3 course, named Shorty’s, will open in wild dunes not far from Bandon Trails. Built by the WAC Golf team of Rod Whitman, Dave Axland and Keith Cutten, the layout will play down a large hill, around and through the dunes and back up to a new clubhouse. Holes will range from 60 to 160 yards.
The Doon Brae par-3 course will be the 11th course for Boyne Golf in Michigan.
Boyne Golf, already home to 10 golf courses in Michigan, is adding a new par-3 course to be designed by Ray Hearn. The lighted nine-hole layout will be sculpted into the ski slope behind The Highlands Main Lodge in Harbor Springs and is scheduled to open in the summer of 2024.
The course will be named Doon Brae, with Doon reflecting the act of descending, as in going into a valley, and Brae meaning a steep bank or hillside in Scottish. It will be in a location formerly used for the resort’s Cuff Links par-3 course.
“As far as I know, this is the first modern golf course ever built on a ski hill,” Bernie Friedrich, director of golf course renovations and development at Boyne Resorts, said in a media release announcing the course. “What excites me most is how beautiful and different it is. There are three or four stacked wall bunkers. Instead of using tee boxes, we’ll have just one marker on each hole and let guests play wherever they want.
“And the greens are inspired by some of the great ones around the world. They’re not copies of any specific greens, but they look different and are big. We also sodded all of the fairways, which will be well-maintained and surrounded by some tall fescue for that whisper look and feel. It’s going to be quite stunning.”
The plans for the new Doon Brae par-3 course at Boyne Golf in Harbor Springs, Michigan (Courtesy of Boyne Golf)
Hearn, a Michigan native, is working with the resort destination on several projects with its other courses. He also will design a 1.5-acre putting course alongside Doon Brae.
For Doon Brae, Hearn is focused on minimizing any uphill walks, even with the course on a steep slope. The layout will play between 678 and 993 yards, generally moving horizontally across the slope. Holes will range from 57 to 134 yards. Hearn said he was inspired by Royal County Down in Northern Ireland when designing Doon Brae, and also by many famous template greens.
“Boyne Golf is one of the top golf resort destinations attracting thousands of golfers annually from all over the country, and I wanted to make sure we were creating something fun and unique without being a difficult walk,” Hearn said in the media release. “We also considered all the families who would take their kids out. When you look at the routing, it works – No. 1 is a level hole, 2 is uphill, 3 is downhill, 4 is uphill, 5, 6 and 7 are kind of sidehill with 5 slightly uphill, with 8 and 9 playing downhill.”
The course also will feature fire pits, music and food service.
“Guests can gather for games and fun, while enjoying their favorite beverage and taking in all the beauty of Northern Michigan,” Josh Richter, senior vice president of golf operations for Boyne Resorts, said in the media release. “It’s going to be heck of space for all to enjoy in a way that is best for them. Having music playing as well will make it a fantastic entertainment environment.”
Alongside the Gulf of Mexico, the course is named for a turtle’s nest.
Laid out by Beau Welling and Chase Webb, a new 12-hole short course named The Clutch is scheduled to open on a to-be-determined date this year at South Seas, a resort on Captiva Island in southwest Florida near Fort Myers.
The name The Clutch is in reference to a turtle’s nest and was chosen to represent the island’s diverse wildlife.
“We are extremely proud of the course that we have created at South Seas and look forward to unveiling The Clutch,” Welling, president and founder of Beau Welling Design, said in a media release announcing the course’s impending opening. “The site is spectacular, and we were able to create a strategic and challenging, yet playable golf course that complements the beautiful surroundings with unobstructed water views on every hole. Working with South Seas, we were also able to create a unique and relaxed golf experience that promotes friends and families coming together through the game of golf to enjoy the stunning setting.”
From the media release:
Featuring interesting and undulating greens, The Clutch will present a challenge for experienced golfers, focusing on precision, preferred angles of play and shot values. The course will also offer a multitude of options for those newer to the game, utilizing short-cut green surrounds and slopes that will allow players to even play with just a putter.
Welling has worked on dozens of highly ranked courses around the world, including Fields Ranch West at the recently opened Omni PGA Frisco Resort in Texas and Bluejack National in Texas in partnership with Tiger Woods. He and Webb, a senior design associate, employed Clark Construction Company at South Seas.
The Clutch was built with a focus on being able to withstand intense rain, and the course features several palm trees that were rescued after Hurricane Ian pummeled the island in September of 2022. The resort has gone through a phased reopening starting in the summer of 2023 as the area continues to recover from the impacts of that category 5 storm.
“We’re thrilled to introduce our guests to this new golf experience,” South Seas general manager Shawn Farrell said in the media release. “Our goal is to offer more than just a game – it’s about enjoying the popular sport in the most beautiful setting imaginable.”
Our inaugural list of best par-3, short and non-traditional courses in the U.S. includes a bit of everything.
What makes a great short course? We posed that question to our huge network of course raters to establish the first Golfweek’s Best ranking of non-traditional courses in the United States.
We included par-3 courses as well as short courses that might have a few par 4s and even par 5s. Some are crazy, over-the-top fun meant to be played barefoot with a cold drink in hand. Others are more traditional in their design. They might be at an elite private club, or they might be a muni down the street. There might be 18 holes, or there might be only six — who cares when you’re having a blast?
Basically, they all fit the bill of not being a traditional-length, traditional-par course. And just like the best short courses, we threw out some of the rules used for rating traditional courses and asked the raters to submit one overall score for each course based on how much they enjoyed the design and the environment. Those individual ratings were then combined to form one average rating, which is listed for each course. Each course had to receive a minimum number of 10 votes, and there are several other great short courses that likely will make this list when they receive enough votes. We received nearly a thousand ballots in all for this inaugural list.
The Cradle at Pinehurst Resort in North Carolina (Courtesy of Pinehurst Resort)
And as for how we decided which courses fit the bill: All of these would be shorter than 2,700 yards if they were nine holes, compared to a traditional course typically being made up of nines measuring 3,100 to 3,800 yards. Short courses, particularly the public-access variety, are the most welcoming of all golf — everyone can take their shot.
And there’s more to come. Streamsong Resort in Florida is adding a new short course this fall called The Chain, and the newly renovated Cabot Citrus Farms (formerly World Woods) in Florida also will have one named The 21 when the resort opens in December. Bandon Dunes Golf Resort in Oregon, already home to one of the best short courses in the world, is adding another. There’s no end in sight for fresh additions.
One note: Many courses have also added large putting courses, but those are not included on this list.
For this list, we included each course’s rating on a points scale of 1 to 10. We also included their locations, the designers, the year they opened, the number of holes, the total length and the par. At the end of each entry, the letter “p” indicates a private club, “d” indicates daily fee and “r” indicates a resort.
