Indeed, GOLF writers enjoyed golf in a variety of places in 2025. Recently, seven GOLF staffers wrote about their favorite spots, and below are excerpts from those stories.
2 greens in 1 hole?! Why this famous US Open site added a surprising quirk
Here’s a fun wrinkle, though: Balty membership doesn’t gravitate toward the higher and higher ranking of the two (lower) courses, but rather the “other” option – the upper. That’s not to say that club members aren’t proud of their most famous offering or that they still enjoy testing their games there; it’s just that whether they’re sneaking out for a quick nine after work or playing a Saturday morning friendly, most members prefer to do so in the least bruised top.
That’s more true than ever today thanks to a recent restoration by restorers du jour Gil Hanse and Jim Wagner, who also helped return the Lower course to its Tilly-rich roots through a restoration job they completed in 2021. this year. “Upper was a sleepy little golf course that sat up there.”
Sleepy but deeply loved! While Lower scares you with its length and imposing hazards (like the Sahara bunker complex on the par-5 17th), Upper delights you with more variety in hole settings and designs, due to its home on the side of a mountain. (I enjoyed it anyway; my summer round at Upper was my favorite round of 2025.) Working with a trove of archival photos and maps, Hanse and Wagner expanded the greens to their original dimensions and removed trees to open sight lines, but never strayed from Tillinghast’s original intent. Read Alan Bastable’s full story here.
Why the best course I played in 2025 was the one I played backwards
One of the funny parts about letting go of your childhood is learning the little lessons you managed to keep.
I don’t know how old I was when my father first dropped his favorite pearl of wisdom. I don’t remember why he said it. But I can still hear the phrase in my mind, spoken in the father’s playful intonation, as if to emphasize its inherent truth. I doubt I always will.
“If you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change.”
It took me a while to understand the meaning of those words, and even longer to understand that they were referring to me. But the answer came when I least expected it: On a golf course he headed in the wrong direction. Read James Colgan’s full story here.
This pristine public 9-hole in New York’s premier capital topped my 2025 list
There are many benefits to having a cheap and easy public course close to home. Quick rounds at sunrise, or to beat the darkness before sunset. It rotates at spontaneous speed when an unexpected window opens. Familiarity. The community. There is no dress code.
With all this to offer, you don’t need to ask too much from the course itself. With relatively smooth greens and little fairway grass, you’re good to go.
But Green Acres Golf Course in Kingston, NY, offers much more than that. For the price of a goat course, any golfer arriving at Green Acres will be treated to near-pristine conditions, a friendly and welcoming staff, a short but varied layout and, at least with autumn setting in this year, the fastest and softest greens I’ve ever putt on. Read Kevin Cunningham’s full story here.
Why this heralded PNW Muni was my favorite course to play in 2025
I was lucky enough to play many new-to-me courses in 2025, but my venture at Chambers Bay, darling of the Pacific Northwest and home of the 2015 US Open, was easily my favorite for one simple reason:
I didn’t know what to expect, and it completely exceeded any expectations I ended up having.
You see, three factors had shaped my image of Chambers Bay:
1) That 2015 US Open won by Jordan Spieth, where pros and fans alike bemoaned bumpy greens, a strange set-up with a variable par and a sketchy Dustin Johnson three-putt to close it out;
2) My dad’s experience with the course and he told me he didn’t like it – tough way to start for ole muni;
3) The recent glorification of the course (championed by GOLF’s own Seattleite Dylan Dethier), which had its greens renovated and has since hosted the 2022 US Women’s Amateur.
But, it’s golf, and when I scheduled a trip to Bend, Ore. and then in Seattle last November, I knew I had to get down to University Place and check out the course for myself. Read Jack Hirsh’s full story here.
My favorite course of the year offers an incredible summer deal
One of the great ironies of living in a winter paradise like Phoenix is that just when the weather turns gorgeous, the prices turn wild.
This is a very unwelcome development for someone like me who tends to be a bit price sensitive when it comes to paying for golf. With two small children at home, shelling out more than $100 for a routine round at a local course hurts my wallet and my conscience.
That’s why summer in Arizona is really my time to shine—at least, in the golf sense. Because the deals available on courses that routinely charge a lot of money for rounds in the high season drop to lower prices. The only caveat? You have to play in 100 degree heat. But remember – it’s a dry heat. Really, it’s not bad!
This year, my mom and I bought summer passes to Starfire Golf Club in Scottsdale—an original Arnold Palmer design that once included three nines but has since been renovated to feature a short nine-hole course (Mulligan—a great option for families) and a full-size, 18-hole King option. Read Jessica Marksbury’s full story here.
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My favorite course played in 2025? It’s inside a prison
One doesn’t fully understand the pressure, I believe now, until they’ve stood inside a prison yard enclosed by 15-foot barbed wire fences, facing a dozen inmates, an officer, and a warden, and had to throw a ball of manure onto a green carpet about 25 feet away with a 56-degree wedge.
piece it?
Trash talk.
Thin it out?
Trash talk.
Put the ball on the putting surface? I kind of did that at the end of a pitching contest – and I still heard about it.
Of course the golf writer wins. I mean, he writes about golf. He better win big!
Can’t argue that. AND a golf story it was why, in late July, I was at Cedar Creek Correctional Center, a minimum-security prison outside Olympia, Wash. Tim Thrasher, the aforementioned superintendent, had started what is now called Cedar Creek Golf Club, hoping that its members would be rehabilitated through what golf romantics like Thrasher believe makes good golf. Whether this is possible won’t be known for a while, as the CCGC is only a few years old and the process is by no means linear. Read Nick Piastowski’s full story here.
My favorite course from 2025 made me want to go D1
One of my worst rounds of 2025 came on a course I instantly fell in love with – the Warren Course on the campus at Notre Dame.
It was Friday morning of Labor Day weekend, the last day of Welcome Week, so the campus was still quiet when we arrived in South Bend, Indiana. But therein lies one of my favorite aspects of Warren—it’s as close to campus as the undergraduate courses. The layout is located just across the street from the Notre Dame fields, and just a few hundred yards from Dunne Hall, a dormitory named after American golf baron Jimmy and his wife, Susan. Before I even hit a shot, I was already jealous of that closeness. I attended UW-Madison, which has an equally great university course, University Ridge, but it’s nine miles from any other university building.
We checked into the pro shop, just ahead of the husband of Notre Dame coaching legend Muffet McGraw, who enjoys her time on the course here and there. During my 15 minutes inside, the phone was constantly ringing, and with good reason. Game times can be made up to two weeks in advance, and we were two weeks away from Texas A&M football’s visit to Notre Dame Stadium. There was another cool aspect: the course is open on home game days, but with a general deal, $135. Instead of having course staff show up early, work all day and close late, the course schedules a shotgun start in the morning and closes in the afternoon. Patrons can reserve a seat, get their 18 holes and head straight to the stadium afterwards. Read Sean Zak’s full story here.
And some thoughts just to play – period
One of the reasons for this story is to create options for you, but that assumes you can find time to play, so we thought we’d wrap things up here – Dylan Dethier’s article titled “I Played Disastrous Little Golf This Year. Here Are 5 Ways I Want To Change.” You can read it here.
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