Best courses of 2011

The writers for Cybergolf, the popular website to which I contribute, were asked to name the top five golf courses they played in 2011.

Here was my submission; read the rest of our writers' choices at: www.cybergolf.com/golf_news/cybergolf_writers_top5_courses_of_the_year.

Having teed it up on 151 golf courses this year through Dec. 17, it is difficult to determine which ones were my top 5 or even how to set the criteria for judging those that were best. I like golf, and I like playing golf so spending day after day on the links is my definition of nirvana.

So I decided to list here a quintet of courses on which I had the most fun, separated into categories rather than just listed as a whole. These five courses meant the most to me in 2011 or they were a surprise (aren’t those always the most treasured?). But when reading this please remember that, for me, just about any day on the course is a cherished memory.

Best Short Course – Monarch Dunes’ Challenge Course, Nipomo, CA
Designed by Damian Pascuzzo and Steve Pate, this 12-hole, par-3 course (below) on the central California coast is a treat, filled with holes measuring from 82 to 242 yards with loads of undulation, water, dunes and fescue. I played the course with the architects and five other golf journalists as an eight-some in an hour and 40 minutes. This is a great concept and an even better example of the concept done correctly.



Best Surprise Course – Kokopelli Golf Club, Apple Valley, UT
This Bruce Summerhays-design (below) sits about 30 miles east of St. George and wows with spectacular views of Zion, Gooseberry Mesa and some of southern Utah's most incredible sandstone formations. The course, opened in 2010, has five holes routed up, down and across a mountain and others that play across lava fields and gorges. It knocked my socks off.



Best Municipal Course – Conquistador Golf Course, Cortez, CO
Something needs to be said about city-owned golf courses that have the right formula and put it into practice day in and day out. That’s what the golfer gets at this Press Maxwell-designed jewel. You can view La Plata Peak, Mesa Verde and Sleeping Ute Mountain from virtually everywhere on the course as long as you’re not in the Ponderosa pine and piñon trees that line the fairways. The track was in flawless condition and a blast to play.

Best Overall Course (Domestic Category) – TimberStone at Pine Mountain, Iron Mountain, MI
This Jerry Matthews-designed track is in the western Upper Peninsula of Michigan has a little bit of everything, including the rare 5-star rating from Golf Digest. Isolated, serene and tough (but not severely so), TimberStone is sprawled out across 105 playable acres of Pine Mountain, with elevated tees and greens and a routing that brings golf and nature together. Tall pines line most of the holes, and a stunning finish (the 215-yard downhill par-3 No. 17 and the 625-yard tumbling par-5 18th) will send you straight back to the clubhouse to immediately book your next round. Just freaking amazing.

Best Overall Course (Foreign Category) – Ballybunion’s Old Course, County Kerry, Ireland
I took my inaugural trip to Ireland this summer, and the first course I played was the incomparable Old Course at Ballybunion (below), which dates to 1893. The first six holes are nothing to write home about, but the final 12 may be the finest and most challenging golf I have ever played. These are the holes that are on the bluff overlooking the Irish Sea, and the routing is through huge dunes covered with native grasses that sway constantly in the wind. Walking down the fairway at the 509-yard par-5 16th through a canyon created by the dunes – which were created over the eons from the wind off the sea – I felt like I was as close to the maker as I could be – and that’s a good thing.