Banff Springs Golf Club: Thompson

Where No. 77 Old Head in Ireland plays along the top of escarpments, Banff in the Canadian Rockies of Alberta lies beneath escarpments, with near-vertical cliffs of Mount Rundle towering 3,000 feet over almost every fairway. The course, another masterful design by Canadian Stanley Thompson, is tucked into the narrow Y-shaped valley formed by the Bow and Spray Rivers. Bunkering at Banff may be the best of Thompson's career. There are 150 of them, often in circular clusters, with ebbs and flows in their shapes that mirror mountain peaks.