Best golf courses near Cincinnati, OH

One of Seth Raynor’s last designs, it wasn’t completed until nearly a year after his 1926 death. William Jackson, who later became the club’s pro and superintendent, handled the construction and was faithful to Raynor’s diagrams with two exceptions: he turned the 16th into a par 4 and the 17th into a par 5. Robert von Hagge added flashy but incongruous bunkering in the early 1960s. They lasted over 20 years, until Tom Doak undertook a restoration in the Raynor style of geometric-shaped bunkers and greens. Curiously, the Biarritz green at the par-3 eighth has never been mowed as the 60-yard-long putting surface found on other Biarritz holes built by Raynor or his mentor C.B. Macdonald. Club officials insisted early aerial photos confirm the front half of the green was always mown at fairway height, so they continue that tradition today. Don Placek of Renaissance Golf has recently completed further renovation enhancements, including adding six acres of restored fairway to better help define the scale of the property and extending the back left section of the Road green at 17 (as well as reintroducing a second "Road" bunker beyond the first) to reclaim its original prodigious 15,000 square feet.

Coldstream is one of Dick Wilson’s best courses. But like most of the work of his predecessors—Donald Ross, William Flynn, A.W. Tillinghast, et al.—much of the authenticity and nuance had been eroded and erased through time. Keith Foster’s work here in 2020, removing trees to restore the grandeur of the holes, expanding fairways and, most importantly, deepening bunkers and adjusting their edging to better reflect Wilson’s intricate shaping, is exceptional.

Maketewah has developed a reputation as one of Cincinnati’s best player-clubs, boasting a membership of some of the best amateur golfers in Ohio. The course is also remarkable for the heavily jiggered topography. The clubhouse, ninth and 18th greens reside on an elevation at the center of the course, falling down into valleys that crisscross the property at different angles. Original architect Tom Bendelow’s 1910 routing is inspired in the way it traverses and plunges over the through the ravines toward high greens, and a 1929 Donald Ross renovation brought the bunkering and short game concepts into strategic focus. Even though Maketewah had been altered over the decades, it had never been considered one of Ross’s major works. That assessment must be reconsidered following Brian Silva’s 2022 remodel that reestablished the need for tactical play through the introduction of gorgeous Golden Age-style bunkers that cut into fairways and flank greens. The bunkering add to the visual charm of standout holes like the long fifth, uphill par 4 16th and the trap-door fairway 17th. Silva also moved the location of the 10th green and restyled the 11th into a short par 4 with posing different lines of attack, including the option of going for the peekaboo green tucked behind bunkers and a kicker mound.