Younger designers have chance to shine on their own at Cabot Citrus Farms in Florida.
Cabot, the developer and operator of several golf resorts around the world, has selected the golf architects who will tackle the Canadian company’s latest venture in Florida – and several younger designers have a chance to shine.
Kyle Franz and the team of Keith Rhebb and Riley Johns will renovate the two 18-hole courses at Cabot Citrus Farms, the former World Woods, an hour’s drive north of Tampa. Cabot also tagged Mike Nuzzo to build a short course, a new nine-hole course and the practice facilities.
There had been much speculation among golf architecture fans of who might land the jobs to redesign the two 18-hole layouts originally built by Tom Fazio nearly 30 years ago. Cabot announced in January that it had purchased the 1,200-acre property with plans to reimagine the entire experience. Those initiatives include real estate development, retail operations, restaurants, fitness and spa amenities, communal gathering points and a farmer’s market.
Pine Barrens at World Woods in Florida, which will be turned into Cabot Citrus Farms (Courtesy of Cabot/Evan Schiller)
Cabot, co-founded by Ben Cowan-Dewar and Bandon Dunes founder Mike Keiser, also owns Cabot Cape Breton, site of Cabot Cliffs and Cabot Links, the two highest-ranked courses on Golfweek’s Best Modern Canadian Courses list. The company plans to open Cabot St. Lucia, with 18 holes designed by Bill Coore and Ben Crenshaw, this year in the Caribbean. The company also is building Cabot Revelstoke, an 18-hole layout by Rod Whitman scheduled to open in 2024, in the Monashee and Selkirk mountain ranges near the city of Revelstoke in British Columbia in western Canada.
Franz will tackle the renovation of the Pine Barrens 18 at the former World Woods, which at one point was ranked by Golfweek’s Best among the top 50 modern courses in the U.S. but by 2021 had fallen to No. 172 on that list and No. 5 in Florida on Golfweek’s Best Courses You Can Play list for public-access layouts.
“Cabot Citrus Farms is going to be an extraordinary destination, and we are thrilled to be a part of this effort,” Franz said in a statement announcing the news. “Our goal for Pine Barrens is to take its dramatic, sandy land and maximize it into one of the most spectacular golf courses in the region and country.
“In our view, the perfect formula for Pine Barrens combines rugged sandscapes and vegetation that meld with the natural topography, classical contouring and creative short-grass recovery shots around the greens, wider corridors of play and multiple strategic routes to the pin, fascinating grassing patterns and varied tee box placements so that players get a fresh look at the different options every time they tee it up.”
Franz worked for years for famous designers such as Tom Doak, Gil Hanse and the team of Bill Coore and Ben Crenshaw. His solo efforts in recent years include such highly acclaimed courses as Mid Pines, Pine Needles and Southern Pines – all near Pinehurst, North Carolina – and the Minikahda Club in Minneapolis.
Rolling Oaks at World Woods in Florida, which will be turned into Cabot Citrus Farms (Courtesy of Cabot/Evan Schiller)
Rhebb and Johns will renovate the Rolling Oaks 18, which ranked No. 22 among Florida’s public-access layouts in 2021. The pair has worked for years on projects with Coore and Crenshaw, and their independent efforts include the much-heralded Winter Park Country Club near Orlando, Point Grey Golf and Country Club in Vancouver and the new Bootlegger par-3 course at Forest Dunes in Michigan. Rhebb, in particular, has spent much of the past two years working for Coore and Crenshaw at the new Cabot Saint Lucia.
Nuzzo’s largest success has been Wolf Point Ranch, which Golfweek’s Best ranks as No. 7 among private courses in Texas. As with all the architects selected to rework the former World Woods, he expressed his excitement to work in such a sandy site that allows for extreme creativity.
“Both the site and the client are essential to creating a special golf course,” he said in the media release announcing the designers. “With Cabot Citrus Farms, we have the best of both worlds, a natural sandy site and an innovative, forward-thinking client. Having fewer traditional golf constraints for our portion of the project presents an extra layer of opportunity for creativity. We’re looking forward to seeing the whole project come together!”
Count down the top 30 courses of the past three decades, as judged by Golfweek’s panel of raters.
It’s been a crazy string of decades in golf design, with construction going gangbusters through the 1990s and early 2000s before grinding nearly to a complete halt after the financial crisis of 2007 and ’08. Things have picked up a bit in recent years, especially when considering high-end destinations scattered in far-flung locales around the U.S.
Through it all, these are the best 30 courses opened in the past 30 years in the U.S., as voted by Golfweek’s Best panel of raters.
The hundreds of 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, cumulative rating.
This ranking is compiled from data included in the 2021 Golfweek’s Best Modern Courses list, and it focuses on the golf courses themselves, not on resorts or private clubs as a whole or other amenities. Each golf course included is listed with its average rating from 1 to 10, its location, architect(s), the year it opened and its status as a private club (p), a resort (r), a daily-fee operation (d) or a real estate development (re).
Puttview’s hole-by-hole maps of Sea Island’s Seaside Course provide a peek at the challenges PGA Tour players face this week in Georgia.
Sea Island’s Seaside Course, site of this week’s RSM Classic on the PGA Tour, originally was laid out by famed designers Harry S. Colt and Charles Alison in 1929 and was redesigned by Tom Fazio in 1999.
The event also will be played on the resort’s Plantation Course, which was renovated by Davis Love III in 2019. The first two rounds will be split between the courses, with the final two rounds after the cut being played on Seaside.
The Seaside will play to 7,005 yards with a par of 70 for the RSM Classic, while the Plantation will play to 7,060 yards with a par of 72.
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 face this week on the Seaside Course. Check out the maps of each hole below.
Tom Fazio designed The Summit Club west of the Las Vegas Strip. Take a look at Puttview’s hole-by-hole maps of the private club.
The Summit Club in Las Vegas, host of this this week’s CJ Cup on the PGA Tour, was designed by Tom Fazio and opened in 2017 about 10 miles west of the Strip near Red Rock Canyon National Conservation Area.
The private desert course is a Discovery Land Company property and offers high-end homes in a 555-acre development. The course features more than 300 feet of elevation changes and, reaching around 3,000 feet above sea level, can play slightly shorter because of the thinner air. It will play to 7,431 yards with a par of 72 for the CJ Cup.
Fazio has built several courses around Vegas including Shadow Creek, Golfweek’s Best top-rated casino course in the U.S., and the recently reopened Wynn Golf Club. The Summit Club has not yet received enough votes from Golfweek’s Best national panel of raters to appear in the various course rankings.
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 face this week. Check out the maps of each hole below.
Check hole-by-hole maps for the Tom Fazio design that has been host of a U.S. Senior Open, the U.S. Mid-Amateur and two NCAA Championships.
Caves Valley Golf Club, site this week of the PGA Tour’s BMW Championship as the second FedEx Cup Playoffs event, was designed by Tom Fazio and opened in 1991.
Just north of Baltimore in Owings Mills, Maryland, Caves Valley was recently updated – length was added, bunkers were renovated and the nines were flipped to promote better spectator views on the closing holes. It will play 7,542 yards at a par of 72 for the BMW.
The Baltimore area hasn’t been host to a PGA Tour event in decades, but Caves Valley does have a championship track record. Jerry Courville Jr. won the 1995 U.S. Mid-Amateur there, and in 2002 Don Pooley beat Tom Watson in a five-hole playoff there to win the U.S. Senior Open. Caves Valley also was host to the 2005 NCAA Men’s Championship won by Georgia and the 2009 NCAA Women’s Championship won by Arizona State.
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 face this week. Check out each hole below.
Kasumigaseki Country Club dates back nearly a century, but it was a Fazio renovation in 2016 that prepared the course for the Olympics.
Kasumigaseki Country Club and its East Course, host site for golf in this year’s Olympic Games, was founded in 1929 and renovated a few years later by British designer C.H. Alison before being closed during World War II. The U.S. Air Force took over the property following the war, and the East and a new West Course were re-established in the following years.
The East featured two greens on each hole for decades, with one green covered in a winter grass and the other in a grass that thrived during the warm summers.
All that changed with a 2016 renovation by American architect Tom Fazio and his son, Logan, who converted the private Kasumigaseki’s double greens into single greens. The Fazios also repositioned fairway bunkers to challenge modern professionals, and they reframed several holes in their existing corridors. The greens are now covered in bent grass, with zoysia in play on the rest of the course.
A 2017 aerial photo of Kasumigaseki Country Club in Kawagoe, outside of Tokyo, Japan (Miyuki Saito/Kyodo News via AP)
The course will play 7,447 yards for the men July 29-August 1, and it will play 6,648 yards for the women August 4-7.
Kasumigaseki has been the host of several notable golf events, including several Japan Opens and various top amateur events. It hosted the 1957 Canada Cup, a precursor to the World Cup, and Hideki Matsuyama won the Asia-Pacific Amateur Championship on Kasumigaseki’s West Course in 2010. Now the Masters champion, Matsuyama is a favorite in these Olympics.
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 and next. Check out each hole below (yardages will be adjusted for the women), and follow this link to the club’s website to see drone footage of each hole, with narration by Tom Fazio.
Donald Ross and Tom Fazio stand out for the number of their courses to appear on Golfweek’s Best most elite lists of rankings.
Whose likenesses would be shaped from rock if there existed a Mount Rushmore for golf course designers? It’s a hard call to decide who fills out that most illustrious foursome, but two designers would be locks.
First, some background. It’s impossible, of course, to judge a designer’s portfolio based solely on number of courses built. Likewise, it would be impossible to add some less-prolific designers to any such shrine because the influence of their work lacks scale – their courses might be incredible, but there simply weren’t enough holes built for some designers to reach the highest peaks.
Better to use Golfweek’s Best 2021 top-200 lists of Classic and Modern Courses in the United States, with 1960 as the demarcation point between the two. These two lists represent the elite of the elite. And while there are dozens of architects who have earned at least partial credit with their names listed on these top courses, the top 20 designers on the two lists have combined credits on more than 300 of the 400 courses listed.
Golden-era course designer Donald Ross designed Seminole Golf Club in Florida, which is pictured atop this story. (AP files; Mike Ehrmann/Getty Images for the top photo)
At the apex are clear leaders – as judged by volume of top courses in the U.S. – for both the Classic and Modern lists: Donald Ross earned design credit for 65 of the top 200 Classic Courses, and Tom Fazio earned credit on 46 Modern Courses as well as two Classics that he redesigned or renovated.
Any count of this type can be complicated by complete redesigns, renovations, restorations and a thousand shades of gray between the three. Particularly for the older Classic Courses, multiple designers are credited with contributions as some layouts have evolved. Singular design credit is more rare on these Classics than on the Modern tracks.
Work has continued on many of the Classics since 1960, so even Modern architects might appear in the credits for several of the Classics. A great example is the Country Club of Detroit, for which Charles H. Alison, Harry S. Colt, Robert Trent Jones Sr. and Tom Doak all appear in the design credits, with Doak working in 2011 to restore the course more closely to Alison and Colt’s original intent.
Pinehurst No. 2 was designed by Donald Ross. (Courtesy of Pinehurst Resort)
There are dozens of similar examples throughout the Classic list, and the presence of more than one designer in the credits of any course is in no way intended to diminish the contributions of other listed designers, even though a particular designer’s influence may have been reduced.
Other courses have only one designer listed, even as those layouts have been tweaked since they opened. Pinehurst No. 2 in South Carolina is a prime example. Originally created by Ross, the course was altered multiple times before the talented design team of Bill Coore and Ben Crenshaw in 2010 completed a restoration to more closely match Ross’s original design.
Next door to Pinehurst No. 2, Ross’s No. 4 course also saw decades of change before Gil Hanse and Jim Wagner in 2018 completely renovated the track, with Ross still in the credits. Hanse and Wagner installed new hazards and greens – and even several new corridors – making what Hanse has called “an entirely new course” on the same property. Hence, the course was placed on the Modern list even though golf began on that ground more than a century ago.
Clearly, there are many gray areas when it comes to who built what and who deserves how much of the credit. Instead of diving too deep into those weeds, this story focuses on any designer credited with significant alterations to top courses – the same as the Golfweek’s Best rankings do.
These rankings also focus on the best successes for each designer, as is the inherent nature of rankings. Some designers build fewer courses, earning a higher percentage of representation on the lists than do other designers. Golfweek’s Best lists are not intended to compare designers’ efforts as a percentage of their total work, only to recognize great courses regardless of who designed them.
What is not in doubt is Ross’s influence on American golf. Born in 1872 in Dornoch, Scotland, Ross is credited with the design or renovation of more than 400 courses around the world. His lay-of-the-land style – before the advent of heavy, mechanical earth-moving equipment – has shaped the ethos for many of the best modern designers.
And it wasn’t just volume for Ross. His top courses include No. 2 at Pinehurst (where he served as the golf professional and where he died at age 75), Seminole and Oakland Hills’ South, and he designed almost a third of all the top 200 courses on Golfweek’s Best Classic list for the U.S., including 30 of the top 100 Classics.
Tom Fazio pictured in 2001 (Mark Boster/Los Angeles Times via Getty Images)
Fazio, who has built more than 200 courses around the world, has a similar grip on much of the Modern list for courses built in or after 1960 in the U.S. Born in 1945, Fazio started his career in the family design firm before striking out on his own in 1972. He has earned credit on 46 of the top 200 Modern Courses, including 21 in the top 100 on that list, as well as done significant work on two Classic Courses on that list’s top 100.
An interesting way to think about it: That’s almost 200 miles worth of great golf holes, just counting Fazio’s courses on the top 200 lists.
“For me, when we get hired, I know the expectation of the person that’s hiring us. They expect it to be the best it can be,” Fazio told Golfweek in March. “That sounds so trite, so automatic, but it’s not. It’s true. … It has to be as good, better than anything you’ve ever seen. …
“It’s motivation, the expectation for how you’re going to live your whole life. From the time I started in the ’60s, it’s always been that whatever you do, it’s going to be the best it can be. And it just keeps going that way. … Call it luck, God, whatever. Somehow you get the job done. That’s why we get paid very well … And that’s what the expectation is. And I’m always looking at, what’s next?”
Estancia in Arizona was designed by Tom Fazio (Courtesy of Estancia)
Fazio is just as interested in his courses that don’t make the top-200 lists as those at the top, believing many of them to be worthy of higher ranking.
“I’ll also say one other thing, not a facetious thing but on the other side of that list that has many of those top golf courses,” he said. “I have many golf courses not on that list still, or down on the bottom of it, and they’re just as good as the top ones. So it’s just a matter of opinion sometimes, because there’s a lot of good golf courses out there.”
He’s right. Ranking courses is a game of opinions. But Golfweek’s Best incorporates the opinions of more than 850 raters who scour the nation to sample courses, and the cumulative opinions show clear affinity for his – and Ross’s – work.
Golfweek’s experts have ranked the Top 200 courses built since 1960, such as Bandon Dunes, Whistling Straights, Kiawah, Shadow Creek and more.
Welcome to the Golfweek’s Best 2021 list of the top 200 Modern Courses, built in or after 1960 in the United States.
Each year we publish many lists, with this Top 200 Modern Courses and the accompanying Top 200 Classic Courses lists being the premium offerings. Also extremely popular and significant are the Best Courses You Can Play State by State and Best Private Courses State by State.
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 together to produce a final rating for each course. Each course is then ranked against other courses to produce the final rankings.
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 top 100 courses also note in parenthesis next to the name of each course where that course ranked in 2020. After the designers are several designations that note what type of facility it is:
p: private
d: daily fee
r: resort course
t: tour course
u: university
m: municipal
re: real estate
c: casino
* Indicates new to or returning to this list.
(Pictured atop this story is the Sheep Ranch at Bandon Dunes Golf Resort.)
TPC Sawgrass Players Stadium Course is No. 1 on Golfweek’s Best Courses You Can Play in Florida, with Streamsong claiming Nos. 2, 3 and 4.
Sure, we all know about the 17th hole of the Players Stadium Course at TPC Sawgrass. That island green soaks up much of the attention every year in the PGA Tour’s Players Championship.
As the No. 1 course in Florida on Golfweek’s Best Courses You Can Play list for public-access layouts, the Players Stadium is the epitome of golf in the Sunshine State. Built by Pete Dye – with plenty of inspiration from his wife, Alice Dye – on flat, swampy ground and opened in 1980, it is a perfect example of the challenges that often face course designers in golf-rich Florida and the creative ways in which architects attempt to address them.
Golfweek ranks courses by compiling the average ratings – on a points basis of 1 to 10 – of its more than 750 raters to create several industry-leading lists of courses. That includes the popular Best Courses You Can Play list for courses that allow non-member tee times. These generally are defined as layouts accessible to resort guests or regular daily-fee players.
The Players Stadium Course at TPC Sawgrass is No. 1 on that list, and it can be a beast for amateurs in the 51 weeks a year the course does not host the Tour’s best. Water, long rough, plenty of length – there’s no shortage of challenges. But it’s the creativity of the shaping and the demands on shotmaking that set the layout apart from most courses in Florida.
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That famed 17th green is a perfect example of the Dyes’ creative thinking to handle the challenges architects often face when building in Florida. Designers frequently dig ponds all around a course, both to handle drainage from frequent heavy rains and to supply building material to lift fairways and greens above the water table. Dye’s island green certainly wasn’t the first in Florida – it wasn’t even the first on that stretch of A1A, as that honor goes to No. 9 at the nearby Ponte Vedra Inn and Club’s Ocean Course – but the 137-yarder he created faces players at a critical time in one of the Tour’s largest events.
For Pete and Alice Dye, No. 17 was a perfect opportunity to make something special instead of having just another pond – if you must have all that water, why not stick an island green in it? The results have had players shaking over their 9-irons ever since.
Streamsong Red in Florida (Courtesy of Streamsong/Laurence Lambrecht)
Water wasn’t nearly as big a part of the equation at the next four courses on Golfweek’s Best Courses You Can Play list in Florida. Streamsong Resort in Bowling Green and World Woods in Brooksville had something even better: sand. Lots and lots of it.
Within the past decade, Streamsong has opened three courses built on sand. The Red, designed by Bill Coore and Ben Crenshaw, ranks No. 2 on Golfweek’s Best list for public-access tracks in Florida. The Black by Gil Hanse is next at No. 3, followed by Tom Doak’s Blue at No. 4. Built largely on old phosphate-mining spoil, the layouts at Streamsong stand out because of their other-worldly topographies created by all that sand, which once was an ancient seabed – the place is littered with shark teeth – and that provides an ideal playing surface.
Streamsong Black (Courtesy of Streamsong Resort/Laurence Lambrecht)
On top of some of that sand sits new green surfaces for the nearly decade-old Red and Blue courses. Streamsong installed new Mach 1 putting surfaces on those two courses in 2020, ensuring its oldest layouts – dating to 2012 an hour southeast of Tampa or 90 minutes southwest of Orlando – remain fresh and provide world-class conditioning.
Streamsong’s threesome also has broken into Golfweek’s Best Modern Courses list. The Red is No. 39 on that listed, followed by the Black at No. 46 and the Blue at No. 57. The trio also made it into Golfweek’s Best Resort Courses list for the U.S., with the Red at No. 15, the Black at No. 18 and the Blue at No. 21, making Streamsong one of the premium three-course destinations in the world.
Streamsong Blue (Courtesy of Streamsong Resort/Laurence Lambrecht)
Tom Fazio’s Pine Barrens course at World Woods north of Tampa also utilized sand instead of water. Opened in 1993, Pine Barrens’ native, rolling terrain and large sandy waste areas offer a non-traditional Florida experience. Rolling Oaks, the second 18 at World Woods, ranks No. 20 in Florida on Golfweek’s Best Courses You Can play.
So while the Players Stadium Course has made the most of its water, the next four public-access layouts in Florida on Golfweek’s Best rankings took advantage of their sandy environments. For a state that prides itself on beach life, these five layouts are a perfect meeting of water and sand.
Each year, we publish the three lists that are the foundation of our course-ratings program: Golfweek’s Best 2020: Top 200 Classic Courses, Golfweek’s Best 2020: Top 200 Modern Courses and Golfweek’s Best 2020: Best Courses You Can Play.
These are the best courses you can play in Florida.
TPC Sawgrass (Players Stadium), Ponte Vedra Beach (No. 22 m)
Streamsong (Red), Bowling Green (No. 39 m)
Streamsong (Black), Bowling Green (No. 46 m)
Streamsong (Blue), Bowling Green (No. 57 m)
World Woods (Pine Barrens), Brooksville (No. 171 m)
Trump National Doral Miami (Blue Monster), Doral (m)
Black Diamond Ranch (Quarry), Lecanto (m)
Bay Hill Club, Orlando (m)
Innisbrook (Cooperhead), Tarpon Springs (m)
Hammock Beach Resort (Ocean), Palm Coast (m)
PGA National Resort & Spa (Champion), Palm Beach Gardens (m)
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 together to produce a final rating for each course. Then each course is ranked against other courses in its state, or nationally, to produce the final rankings.
Golfweek’s Best rankings loaded with courses in Cabo San Lucas: Twin Dolphin, Quivera, Rancho San Lucas, Costa Palmas and more
The golf scene at the southern tip of the Baja Peninsula in Mexico is unlike any other in North America. The area is home to 16 courses designed by the likes of Jack Nicklaus, Tiger Woods, Greg Norman, Tom Fazio and Robert Trent Jones Jr. – all built within the last 25 years.
But it’s not all about the golf.
First-time visitors will experience sensory overload from the turquoise water of the Pacific Ocean and Sea of Cortez, the dramatic rock formations along the water’s edge, the white sand beaches and giant dune systems. Just above that coastline is a desert landscape highlighted by arroyos and saguaro cacti, and from there climb mountains that reach as high as 6,500 feet in elevation.
Simply put, there is beauty in every direction. But it’s not all about that beauty, either.
There’s a vibe to Cabo, an invitation to relax, to enjoy oneself, that takes the sum of its parts – golf, coast, mountains, views – to deliver something even greater as a whole.
Quivera in Cabo San Lucas, Mexico (Courtesy of Quivera/Brian G. Oar)
Want to party? Check. Want to relax at the beach between rounds? Check. Want to go all-in with a second home at a resort-style community that offers all the trimmings? Check. Cabo offers all that and more.
That vibe starts before visitors leave the airport. After the frenzy of customs, claiming bags and avoiding the dozens of timeshare hawkers, you step outside and are bathed in sunshine and offered a drink. Even before you grab a taxi or climb into a shuttle, there is a curbside bar filled with happy tourists – apparently the fun can’t wait in Cabo.
The drive from the airport to the hotel areas is about 30-45 minutes. Most guests will stay at a large hotel or resort in one of three areas; the Corridor, the Marina District or the Pacific side of the peninsula.
The Corridor is a 15-mile stretch between San Jose Del Cabo and Cabo San Lucas filled with mega-hotels, each with hundreds of rooms, pools, restaurants and activities. Many are set up as all-inclusive, and some guests never venture outside their resort.
The Marina District is where the town of Cabo San Lucas meets the beach. There are shops and restaurants nestled up to fishing boats and yachts at the marina. Tourists can sign up for whale watching, sport fishing, a ride on a glass-bottom boat, a sunset cruise and more at the Marina. A few blocks inland are the nightclubs and bars that give Cabo its reputation as a spring break-bachelor party hot spot. A walk from the Marina up the beach takes you past bars and restaurants in the sand, alongside large condos and hotels, and gives you the best view of Land’s End, the iconic rock formation that dives into the sea at the southern tip of the Baja Peninsula.
Rancho San Lucas in Cabo San Lucas, Mexico (Courtesy of Rancho San Lucas/Brian G. Oar)
Around Land’s End is the Pacific side, another dramatic meeting of land and sea where numerous hotels, resorts and developments have popped up in the past 20 years. The Pacific side is a little more quiet and offers amazing sunsets, and it is home to some of the newer golf courses in Cabo.
The golf experience in Cabo is resort golf through and through. Arrival at a course usually includes a cocktail, everyone takes carts, there is often music on the range and many courses are arranged as roughly six-hole stretches between comfort stations where golfers indulge on cocktails and local-fare appetizers. Shorts and flip flops might be seen alongside an Airstream kitchen serving tacos and a VW Bus offering margaritas. The vibe is frequently much more beach club with a golf course added on.
Cabo’s roots are a fishing village, but golf crashed the party in the 1980s. The game exploded in the area in the ’90s with the addition of Cabo Del Sol designed by Nicklaus and Tom Weiskopf, El Dorado by Nicklaus, Palmilla by Nicklaus, Cabo Real by Jones Jr. and Querencia by Fazio.
In the past decade more courses were built: Diamante Dunes by Davis Love III, El Cardonal at Diamante by Woods, Quivira by Nicklaus, Twin Dolphin by Fred Couples and Todd Eckenrode, and most recently Rancho San Lucas by Norman, which opened in early 2020.
In addition to all these fresh courses near Cabo, Costa Palmas by Jones Jr. opened in 2019 at the East Cape roughly 90 minutes away but equidistant from Los Cabos International Airport.
And finally, Cabo Del Sol has changed its Ocean Course to a private layout now called Cove Club, for which Nicklaus redesigned multiple holes and renovated the greens and bunkers. And in the spirit of nothing standing still for long in Cabo, Weiskopf’s Desert Course at Cabo Del Sol is slated to be redesigned by the team of Dana Fry and Jason Straka.
Costa Palmas in Cabo San Lucas, Mexico (Courtesy of Costa Palmas/Evan Schiller)
All told, golf in Cabo is unique. The golf purists and architectural aficionados may see Cabo as a missed opportunity. Great land with sandy soils and a dramatic coastline has been the scene for many of the game’s best modern courses. Mike Keiser – founder of Bandon Dunes Golf Resort in western Oregon, as well as several other top golf-focused destinations – has developed a formula of a resort where golf gets the best land and the lodging is set away from the water, and that model has worked extremely well in tougher spots.
But Cabo’s climate is much better than Bandon’s, and it’s easier to get to. Despite proven examples of focusing on golf in other locales, to date every development in Cabo has been real estate or resort first and golf second, with much of the best land distributed accordingly. That also may explain why all the courses in Cabo have been designed by big-name celebrity architects as opposed to the smaller, hands-on shops that produced many of the top layouts of our time.
Will the model change in the future? Only time will tell. For now, Cabo is an ideal spot for a couples getaway or an all-purpose trip with your most fun travel buddies.
This is not Pine Valley or Seminole. This is Cabo. Untuck your shirt, grab a margarita, crank up the tunes, forget about your score and enjoy.
A sample of Cabo’s new courses
New courses and big renovations in the past few years around Cabo have produced what is likely the biggest golf boom outside Vietnam. In October a group of 28 Golfweek’s Best course raters spent a week checking out several layouts and found positive takeaways at each.
Rancho San Lucas in Cabo San Lucas, Mexico (Courtesy of Rancho San Lucas/Brian G. Oar)
Rancho San Lucas
Designer: Greg Norman
Opened: 2020
Affiliated with: Rancho San Lucas resort community
2021 Golfweek’s Best ranking: Tied for No. 12 among courses in Mexico, Caribbean, Atlantic and Central America
The details: A very playable layout on what was likely the best site of the four new courses we played. Each nine features a few desert, dune and beachfront holes. The par-3 17th to an island green with a waterfall behind, just a few hundred yards from the Pacific Ocean, was a head-scratcher.
The raters say: “A fun place to just sit and enjoy the views.” – Mark Hildahl, New Hampshire
Twin Dolphin in Cabo San Lucas (Courtesy of Twin Dolphin/Evan Schiller)
Twin Dolphin
Designers: Fred Couples and Todd Eckenrode
Year opened: 2018
Affiliated with: Montage Las Cabos
2021 Golfweek’s Best ranking: No. 15 among courses in Mexico, Caribbean, Atlantic and Central America
The details: A more traditional desert course set a mile or two above the sea. Wide corridors and engaging green complexes make the course one to be enjoyed on a day-to-day basis.
The raters say: “Terrific green complexes that offer all kinds of options.” – Ed Oden, North Carolina
Quivera in Cabo San Lucas (Courtesy of Cabo San Lucas/Brian G. Oar)
Quivira
Designer: Jack Nicklaus
Year opened: 2014
Affiliated with: Pueblo Bonito Resorts
2021 Golfweek’s Best ranking: No. 25 among courses in Mexico, Caribbean, Atlantic and Central America
The details: A wild journey along the Pacific with holes in a few different zones on the property. The 2-mile cart ride from No. 4 to No. 5 was broken up by a comfort station built into a cliff overlooking the ocean.
The raters say: “Several of the most visually spectacular holes in golf.” – Todd Jones, Ohio
Costa Palmas in Cabo San Lucas (Courtesy of Costa Palmas/Evan Schiller)
Costa Palmas
Designer: Robert Trent Jones Jr.
Opened: 2019
Affiliated with: Four Seasons
2021 Golfweek’s Best ranking: Tied for No. 39 among courses in Mexico, Caribbean, Atlantic and Central America
The details: A low-lying layout with three distinct environments; dunes, forest and marina. The course offers wide fairways, dramatic bunkering and rolling green contours throughout. The large driving range can be converted into a six-hole short course for early-morning or late-afternoon fun.
The raters say: “Exceptional variety of strategic shots.” – Kristy Medo, Wisconsin
The view from Cliffhouse at Quivera (Courtesy of Quivera)
Perfect pit stops
Perhaps as memorable as the golf is the comfort station experience in Cabo. Many of the courses offer small snack shacks with a full bar and prepared food, and it seems each property aims to outdo its neighbors. Some of the more memorable comfort stations we experienced were:
Cliffhouse at Quivira: Set before the fifth tee a few hundred feet above the Pacific and built into a cliff, guests are offered a margarita and fish tacos with a million-dollar view.
Red Door 5 at Twin Dolphin: After the fifth hole, golfers can settle into a gracious outdoor room with tables, a firepit and tv, or they can belly up to a bar where the left wall is filled with sweets and the right wall is filled with booze. For early players, breakfast is served: Pastries, fresh fruit, chorizo breakfast taquitos, pancakes, mimosas, Bloody Mary’s and fresh mango yogurt can make you forget about golf.
Lucha Libre at Costa Palmas (Courtesy of Costa Palmas)
Lucha Libre at Costa Palmas: Golfers finishing either No. 7 or 13 can sample a little outdoor bar that feels like a spot you might find along the beach where your choose to hang out. Upon arrival, we were greeted with a mango-scented cold towel and a full Pizza Al Pastor fresh out of the custom brick oven. Margaritas with fresh lime juice and mini popsicles of local flavored ice creams also were on offer.
– This story originally ran in Golfweek’s 2021 Ultimate Guide.
