TRAVEL
at golf ’s presence in these three states, as well as South Carolina, which has emerged as a major golf destination, in part, because of the success of tournaments like The Heritage at Harbour Town Golf Links on Hilton Head Island. In any given year, there are at least four PGA TOUR events
played in California plus the occasional U.S. Open, PGA Championship, The Presidents Cup or Ryder Cup. Add to those, three Champions Tour events and two Nationwide Tour stops, and you realize just how big professional golf is in California— but then, it is a very big state. Still, when people think of golf in California, it’s only natural
that their thoughts turn to the magnificent Pebble Beach Golf Links, the site of the AT&T Pebble Beach National Pro-Am since 1947 and the Champions Tour’s First Tee Open at Pebble Beach since 2004, not to mention five U.S. Opens won by Jack Nicklaus, Tom Watson, Tom Kite, Tiger Woods and, last year, Graeme McDowell. Pebble Beach is as demanding as it is beautiful, and many
people consider it the world’s most-stunning course, set as it is against the backdrop of Carmel Bay. It is routinely ranked in the top 10 of Golf Digest’s prestigious and influential “America’s 100 Greatest Golf Courses” and came out sixth in the most-recent ranking. No less a figure than Jack Nicklaus, who also won a U.S. Amateur and three AT&Ts here, has said that if he had just one course to play for the rest of his life, it would be Pebble Beach. It’s true that the greens fees aren’t for the faint of heart, but if Pebble Beach is good enough for Jack, don’t you owe it to yourself to splurge just once?
The 17th green at TPC Sawgrass THE PLAYERS Stadium Course in Ponte Vedra Beach, FL.
The PGA TOUR makes five stops in Florida, but
increasingly when people check out the PGA TOUR schedule, one overwhelmingly compelling event is THE PLAYERS Championship, which began in 1974, moved to Sawgrass Country Club in 1977 and really earned a place in golf ’s national psyche when it found a permanent home at THE PLAYERS Stadium Course at TPC Sawgrass in 1982. TPC Sawgrass was created from a swamp—literally—in the
backyard of the PGA TOUR’s Ponte Vedra Beach headquarters. The diabolically brilliant Pete Dye was given the design assignment and succeeded brilliantly (if only eventually, according to some critics) with healthy assists from his equally brilliant if considerably more restrained wife, Alice, and then-PGA TOUR Commissioner Deane Beman, a fine player in his own right. The signature hole at TPC Sawgrass is the 137-yard, par-3 17th
with its island green, which may well be the most-recognizable hole in golf. When the players first caught sight of the hole, they unleashed a torrent of protests, but it accomplished exactly what Beman hoped it would. It helped guarantee a dramatic finish while helping to put the TOUR’s flagship course and tournament on the map. Like California and Florida, Texas has a wealth of great courses.
For example, Colonial Country Club, the site of the Crowne Plaza Invitational at Colonial, has been a PGA TOUR stop since 1946 and became the first club south of the Mason-Dixon Line to host the U.S. Open when Craig Wood won there in 1941. Colonial is a private club, but not far away is TPC Four Seasons, located about halfway between Dallas and Fort Worth, the long-time home
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