The Best American Courses To Never Host a Major

Much has been made this week about "the pros not liking Liberty National" -- and perhaps they don't. My take is that if you put 10-12 million dollars on the line, and promised the winner a seven figure check, I think that the pros would play in a cornfield as long as it had eighteen sticks and a crowd of 20,000 fans to watch.

This is especially true if the tournament is a US Open or a PGA Championship. For any golf course, hosting a major is a badge of honor, one that cements something in the minds of the membership something very near and dear to their heart: the greatness of their golf course.

For most clubs, anyway. Above and beyond some of very best courses in the US are clubs that have courses so great that they are world-renowned works of golfing art. And unlike "lesser" clubs, their memberships' don't particularly give a damn if they get attention from the golfing world. In fact, it can be safely said that they would prefer they didn't. These courses ought to host major championships, but don't, and that's something of a loss to the game itself. What if, for example, St. Andrews was private and decided it was too much of a bother for them to host an Open Championship every so often?

Here are my top 3 American courses that should have a major on them, not that the members are asking me:

1. Pine Valley, Camden County, NJ

With a modest 155 slope from the championship tees, it is said that members say that no one with a handicap higher than 5 will break 100 their first time on the course, and that on at least one hole, that player will score a quintuple -- or worse. That is, if they were even invited -- a rare event indeed.

Pine Valley is one of the most exclusive pieces of real estate in the entire United States -- and it wants to stay that way. Never having hosted any major events (not to be confused with a Major) the reason most often cited is that there is not enough room for spectators on the property. Perhaps, but rhe only time the course ever received much television exposure was a 1962 Shell's Wonderful World of Golf match between Gene Littler and Byron Nelson.

2. Sand Hills Golf Club, Mullen, Nebraska

The web site for this course is blunt: "The Sand Hills Golf Club is a private facility and does not accept any on-line requests for membership information or tee times." In other words, if you ain't already a member, don't bother us, kid.

Established in 1995, and designed by Bill Coore and Ben Crenshaw, this course regularly appears in the top 100 lists as well as the best new course in the last fifty years in the US. What it looks like is mostly a mystery to golf fans: the entrance road is some 55 miles long, making a stolen glimpse all but an impossibility. It has never (to my knowledge) hosted even a made-for-TV event.

As a club, Sand Hills is all about golf: there is only a tiny changing room -- no bodacious locker room with poker tables, a small clubhouse and no tee times. In fact, there are no clocks on the property. If you can play Sand Hills, you have the time.

3. Cypress Point, Monterey, California

Poor Pebble Beach.

Lauded as it is, Pebble Beach is not even the best golf course on the street it is on. That distinction would definitely belong to Cypress Point, the uber-private club down 17 Mile Drive from Pebble.

Cypress used to host tournament play up until the 1990's, when it was decided that the PGA's new diversity requirements were not amenable to the membership -- they felt it was they themselves who would decide who could be a member, and no one else. Rather than meet the PGA's requirements, they decided to drop out of the Crosby (now AT&T) course rota and keep their global Top 3 course all to themselves.

It is a shame, because this is Alistair MacKenzie's finest course -- better even than Augusta National. The reason for that? Augusta National doesn't lay hard aside the ocean, and Cypress Point does, giving it additional unmatched scenery and the additional element of seaside weather. On top of that, Cypress has pretty much stayed the way it was since it was built - a few tweaks here and there - and Augusta National has been re-engineered so many times that it is almost fair to say that neither MacKenzie or Bobby Jones would recognize the place were they to walk its fairways today.

This isn't the case with Cypress Point. It is what it is, and that is one of the top golf courses in the world, hands down, no additional discussion necessary. No one needed to "improve" the Mona Lisa by adding new paint when DaVinci finished it, and no one has needed to re-work Cypress Point. Perhaps that's because the pros don't bomb it with 330 yard drives, but then again, if the wind is up - as it is most days in the Big Sur - they would be unwise to do so anyway. If there is a heaven, and as a golfer you end up spending eternity there - it probably looks a lot like Cypress Point. But it has never hosted a US Open or a PGA Championship.

Augusta National Is Alister McKenzie's Second Best Course

"Being a Scotsman," McKenzie said, "I am naturally opposed to water in its undiluted state."

Don't get me wrong, I love Augusta National, and I think that the Masters is probably the best run tournament in the world. I also think that Augusta National is an incredible golf course.

Now that we've gotten that out of the way, I do have to say that I do tire of the endless hyperbole that comes with the Masters. It seems that every other sentence from the announcers must be a sycophantic kiss to the golf course, its upkeep and naturally, its membership. Most all of it is deserved, of coursebut goodness gracious sakes alive, it really goes over the top by about 3pm on Saturday afternoon. Anyone with a television can tell you how fantastic the National is.

Fantastic, But Perhaps Not The Very Best

In my opinion, Augusta National is not even the best golf course that Alister McKenzie designed. As beautiful as the parklands course of the National is, it is surpassed in almost every phase of the game by Cypress Point in California. That's because Alistair McKenzie was heavily influenced by St. Andrews' Old Course, and like the Old Course, Cyprus Point sits aside the sea. And the sea adds a dimension that simply is not available to Augusta National. To pay homage to the Old Course without the elements of the sea is like asking Van Gogh to paint without using yellow or blue paint.

The sea, they say, is as capricious as any woman, liable to change its mood on a whim and with no notice. And near Monterey Bay, where upwelling ocean currents mix with relatively warmer shallower waters, that romantic description is incredibly accurate. The weather can change from hole to hole on courses located along the bay and its nearby waters. This adds another layer of complexity to Cyprus Point and requires a flexibility and adaptability rarely needed at inland courses.

If you like #12 at the National, and if you love Amen Corner, consider #16 and #17 at Cypress Point. Not only are the holes more dramatic, they also have an additional element the National can never have: seaside winds that can be as gentle as a butterfly kiss or as raw as a hurricane's fury. And that's on the same afternoon. Anyone who has played Cyprus will tell you: any golfer - and that's any golfer - will need every bit of their game to get round and score on those links.

Consider this: how rousing would it be to watch the pros hit driver on a 3-Par with a major on the line? That's often the case at Cyprus's #16. That, my friends, is goat or glory riding on a single swing and a rub of the green. And don't think that the course is only those holes -- it's an 18 hole roller coaster than makes its brother down the street, Pebble Beach, look easy by comparison.

Also consider this: Cyprus Point is so exclusive a club they feel no need whatsoever to host a tournament and display their embarrassment of golf riches. They used to, back when the Tour was smaller, and Cyprus was part of the rota of courses for the old Crosby. After 1990, however, Cyprus members said, "thanks but no thanks" to diversity requirements by the PGA Tour. This is a threat oft-made by the Men of the Masters, but it is one that has been carried out by the members of Cyprus.

I also find it deeply ironic that Cyprus was created at the behest of a woman, Marion Hollins. Hollins and Mackenzie built Cypress together. Now, in our supposedly enlightened time, the beauty and challenge of Cyprus Point is the exclusive domain of men - on a course founded by a woman. Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose.

(For the record, I think that the 250-odd members of Cyprus Point were wrong to take the tack they did. I personally would never be a member of a club where minorities or women weren't allowed as full and regular members. It's the 21st century, not 1935, and it is time to go up and accept people for what their character is, not their color or sex.)

The 1990 decision was a shame from golf's point of view: now golf fans only know Cyprus through iconic photos, thus missing one of the world's gems. And depending on the conditions, Cyprus gave a pro a chance to shoot in the fifties -- or over 100. Depending, of course, on the weather and on the golfer's skill grappling with Old Man Par on a masterpiece of a golfing test.

I'd love to see a US Open battled at Cyprus. Sure, it would need to be lengthened from its current length of 6,600 yards, and the members will never do it, even if it were possible. Besides, I doubt Cypress's members would ever let the USGA come in an monkey with their course the way they do for any course hosting a US Open. But I can dream.

For that matter, I would love to see The Open at Old Head or the European Club, but that's just me. More about that when the time draws closer.