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This list of future U.S. Amateur venues will have you working extra hard to lower that handicap index to qualify

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Chris Keane

By Ryan Herrington
August 15, 2024
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Lining up courses to host major championships well in advance of the year they’re actually being played has become standard operation procedure for the organizing bodies that run these events. The USGA has the U.S. Open booked through 2042, the PGA of America’s next available spot to host a PGA Championship isn’t until 2031 and the Ryder Cup in the U.S. is locked up until 2033. Officials say efficiencies in returning to historic courses, where infrastructure investments can be made that will provide long-term benefits, explain why these groups have been SO proactive in name future sites.

But what about for an event like the U.S. Amateur, the USGA’s oldest championship and arguably the one that golf purists have the softest spot in their hearts for? Sure enough, the USGA has slowly but surely been filling out a dance card for venues that it will bring the Havemeyer Trophy to in the next decade. The latest addition came this week when the USGA announced that Wisconsin’s Whistling Straits will the primary site for the 2028 U.S. Amateur, the only hole in the USGA calendar for the event between now and 2034.

Suffice it to say, the list of courses that lined up as future U.S. Amateur venues is an impressive one, the vast majority ranked among the top 50 on Golf Digest’s America’s 100 Best Courses and all having hosted either the U.S. Amateur or another professional men's major in the past.

As you glance at the list below, you might be like us and wonder about doubling down on practice to somehow get that handicap index below 2.4 in order to be eligible to enter.

2025: Olympic Club

Golf Digest America's Greatest Courses ranking: 35

Past U.S. Amateurs: 1958 (Charlie Coe), 1981 (Nathanial Crosby), 2007 (Colt Knost)

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The Olympic Club: Lake
San Francisco, CA
4.7
35 Panelists
It seems fitting that, in a town where every house is a cliffhanger, every U.S. Open played at Olympic has been one, too. For decades, the Lake was a severe test of golf. Once, it was a heavily forested course with canted fairways hampered by just a single fairway bunker. By 2009, the forest had been considerably cleared away, leaving only the occasional bowlegged cypress with knobby knees. The seventh and 18th greens were redesigned, and a new par-3 eighth added. Despite those changes, the 2012 U.S. Open stuck to the usual script: a ball got stuck in a tree, slow-play warnings were given, a leader snap-hooked a drive on 16 in the final round and a guy named Simpson won. If the past was predictable, the future of the Lake Course might be more mysterious after Gil Hanse and Jim Wagner completed a remodeling in 2023 in preparation for the 2028 PGA Championship. The holes are even more breathable than before, with additional tree decluttering, the greens have been expanded for more hole locations and the bunkers don't seem so deep and disconnected with the greens as they did. That old seventh hole was also scrapped in favor of a new drivable par-4 playing to a new greensite closer to the eighth tee. What hasn't changed is the Lake Course's secret ingredient, the mysterious hillside atmosphere that makes balls fall out of the air and the holes play much longer than their yardage.
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2026: Merion Golf Club

Golf Digest America's Greatest Courses ranking: 6

Past U.S. Amateurs: 1916 (Chick Evans), 1924 (Bobby Jones), 1930 (Bobby Jones), 1966 (Gary Cowan), 1989 (Chris Patton), 2005 (Edoardo Molinari)

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Merion Golf Club: East
Ardmore, PA
4.9
30 Panelists
Merion East has long been considered the best course on the tightest acreage in America, and when it hosted the U.S. Open in 2013, its first since 1981, the present generation of big hitters couldn’t conquer this clever little course. They couldn’t consistently hit its twisting fairways, which are edged by creeks, hodge-podge rough and OB stakes. Additionally, players couldn’t consistently hold its canted greens, edged by bunkers that stare back. Justin Rose won with a 72-hole total of one-over-par, two ahead of Jason Day and Phil Mickelson. With Gil Hanse's extensive two-year renovation after that tournament, making even more improvements at Merion's East Course, the design should be even more polished and pristine when the U.S. Amateur returns in 2026 and the U.S. Open returns again in 2030.
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2027: Oak Hill Country Club

Golf Digest America's Greatest Courses ranking: 22

Past U.S. Amateurs: 1949 (Charlie Coe), 1998 (Hank Kuehne)

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Oak Hill Country Club: East
Rochester, NY
4.9
27 Panelists
Back in 1979, George Fazio and nephew Tom were roundly criticized by Donald Ross fans for removing a classic Ross par-4 on Oak Hill East and replacing it with two new holes, including the bowl-shaped par-3 sixth, which would later become the scene of four aces in two hours during the second round of the 1989 U.S. Open. They also built a pond on another par-3 and relocated the green on the par-4 18th. The club hired golf architect Andrew Green to remodel those holes to bring them more in line with Donald Ross’ original style. In addition to putting the final touches (at least for now) on a significant tree removal program, Green re-established Ross' original par-4 hole, then the fifth and now playing as the sixth (pictured here). Reconstruction occurred after the 2019 Senior PGA Championship on the East Course and was completed in May 2020. Oak Hill's East Course hosted the 2023 PGA Championship, won by Brooks Koepka.
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2028: Whistling Straits

Golf Digest America's Greatest Courses ranking: 26

Past U.S. Amateurs: N/A

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Whistling Straits: Straits Course
Sheboygan, WI
4.7
56 Panelists
Pete Dye transformed a dead flat abandoned army air base along a two-mile stretch of Lake Michigan into an imitation Ballybunion at Whistling Straits, peppering his rugged fairways and windswept greens with 1,012 (at last count) bunkers. There are no rakes at Whistling Straits, in keeping with the notion that this is a transplanted Irish links. It has too much rub of the green for the comfort levels of many tour pros, which is what makes it a stern test for top events, such as three PGA Championships, the 2007 U.S. Senior Open and the 2021 Ryder Cup.
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2029: Inverness Club

Golf Digest America's Greatest Courses ranking: 58

Past U.S. Amateurs: 1973 (Craig Stadler)

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Inverness Club
Toledo, OH
4.7
32 Panelists
Inverness is considered a classic Donald Ross design. In truth, it’s one of his best remodeling jobs. Some Ross fans were outraged when the course was radically altered by George and Tom Fazio in preparation for the 1979 U.S. Open. The uncle-nephew duo eliminated four holes (including the famous dogleg par-4 seventh), combined two holes to make the par-5 eighth and created three modern holes on newly acquired land. In 2018, golf architect Andrew Green replaced the Fazio holes with new ones more in the Ross style, relocated greens on two other holes and added new back tees everywhere.
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2030: Atlanta Athletic Club

Golf Digest America's Greatest Courses ranking: 148

Past U.S. Amateurs: 2014 (Gunn Yang)

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Atlanta Athletic Club: Highlands
Johns Creek, GA
4.4
17 Panelists
No course on our rankings has highlighted the value of new turfgrasses better than the Highlands Course at Atlanta Athletic Club. It sets the standard for quality everyday conditions as well as for major championships at Southern venues. Its tees and fairways are Zorro Zoysia, which can withstand Atlanta’s coldest winter days. Greens are state-of-the-art TifEagle Bermuda, smooth and pure. Approaches and surrounds of greens are TifGrand Bermuda, which allows them to be mowed very tight for additional bounce. The rough is Tifway 419 Bermuda, a great old standby. The club also recently upgraded its irrigation system. Because each turf has different water demands, a precise individual-head system was installed, each head controlled by the superintendent with a smartphone app, applying moisture only where needed and thus saving water and money. No longer will an errant shot at Atlanta Athletic Club land behind an irrigation box. There are none anymore. The club recently announced the current Rees Jones-developed architecture will also be given a refresh when Andrew Green begins a major remodel in 2028.
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2031: The Honors Course

Golf Digest America's Greatest Courses ranking: 31

Past U.S. Amateurs: 1991 (Mitch Voges)

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The Honors Course
Ooltewah, TN
4.7
21 Panelists
Considered radical in the early 1980s because of its acres of tall, native-grass rough, durable zoysiagrass fairways and terrifying greens perched atop bulkheads of rock, today The Honors Course is considered a well-preserved example of Pete Dye’s death-or-glory architecture. Other than reducing the contours in a couple of greens (particularly the 18th) in the late 1990s, and adjusting the bunkering in 2008, Dye left the course alone for most of his career. Georgia architect Bill Bergin created a new practice facility at the club in 2015, and Gil Hanse and Jim Wagner touched everything up again in 2022.
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2032: Bandon Dunes

Golf Digest America's Greatest Courses ranking: 40

Past U.S. Amateurs: 2020 (Tyler Strafaci)

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Bandon Dunes
Bandon, OR
4.7
55 Panelists
Chicago recycled-products mogul Mike Keiser took a gamble when he chose then-tenderfoot architect David McLay Kidd to design a destination daily fee on the remote southwestern coastline of Oregon. But the design Kidd produced, faithful to the links-golf tenets of his native Scotland, proved so popular that today Keiser has a multiple-course resort at Bandon Dunes that rivals Pinehurst and the Monterey Peninsula—or perhaps exceeds them, given that all five Bandon courses are ranked on our 200 Greatest, four in the top 100. None of that would have happened if McLay Kidd hadn’t produced a great first design that drew golfers into its orbit.
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2033: Chambers Bay

Golf Digest America's Greatest Courses ranking: 125

Past U.S. Amateurs: 2010 (Peter Uihlein)

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Chambers Bay
University Place, WA
4.4
44 Panelists

Prodded by his partner, Bruce Charlton, and their then-design associate Jay Blasi, veteran architect Robert Trent Jones Jr. agreed to a radically different, vertical-links style when building Chambers Bay in an abandoned sand quarry near Tacoma. By the time Golf Digest named it as America’s Best New Public Course of 2008, the course had already been awarded the 2010 U.S. Amateur and 2015 U.S. Open. In the Amateur, Chambers Bay proved to be hard, both in the firmness of its dry fescue turf (Jones called his fairways, “hardwood floors”) and its difficulties around and on the windswept greens. For the U.S. Open, the firmness and surrounds were more manageable, but the greens were notoriously bumpy. That’s now been remedied, as the fescue turf on the putting surfaces has been replaced with pure Poa Annua. What's irreplacable are the views of Puget Sound from nearly every hole, multi-level fairways that entice bold driving to gain second-shot advantages and two holes running parallel to a railway that's invokes feelings of early Scottish and Irish links courses.

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2034: The Country Club

Golf Digest America's Greatest Courses ranking: 19

Past U.S. Amateurs: 1910 (William C. Fownes Jr.), 1922 (Jess Sweetser), 1934 (Lawson Little), 1957 (Hillman Robbins), 1982 (Jay Sigel), 2013 (Matt Fitzpatrick)

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The Country Club: The Main Course
Brookline, MA
4.3
2 Panelists
The Country Club’s 18-hole course, which was the scene of the 1963 and 1988 U.S. Opens, is not the 18-hole course ranked by Golf Digest. Those events were played on a composite course that utilizes several holes from the club’s third nine, Primrose, designed by William Flynn. We rank the combination of the Main Course (the Clyde and Squirrel nines), clearly good enough to be one of the top courses in the world. Gil Hanse performed some course restoration prior to the 2013 U.S. Amateur at The Country Club and again before the 2022 U.S. Open, won by Matthew Fitzpatrick. The USGA used a new configuration of 18 holes for that championship, eliminating the par-4 fourth and adding the tiny, downhill par-3 11th to the mix, the first time the hole was used since the 1913 Open won by Francis Ouimet.
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2036: Scioto Country Club

Golf Digest America's Greatest Courses ranking: 60

Past U.S. Amateurs: 1968 (Bruce Fleisher)

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Scioto Country Club
Columbus, OH
4.7
30 Panelists
The Donald Ross design at Scioto was the site of three prominent tournaments—the 1926 U.S. Open, won by Bobby Jones, the 1931 Ryder Cup and the 1950 PGA Championship. That course was gone by the time the ’68 U.S. Amateur came to Scioto, replaced in 1963 by a modern design from Dick Wilson, who delegated one nine to associate Joe Lee and the other to associate Robert von Hagge. Several other renovations by Michael Hurdzan and Jack Nicklaus, who grew up playing the course, followed in the 2000s, creating yet a third iteration of the course. Enough, the club said. They hired Andrew Green in 2021 to restore the course to the full Donald Ross version based on drawings, photos and an old aerial illustration from the '26 Open. Green lowered green complexes, emboldened contours, recreated Ross’ sharp-faced bunkering and returned the small green at the par-3 17th to the near side of a creek where it originally was.
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2038: Pinehurst No. 2

Golf Digest America's Greatest Courses ranking: 29

Past U.S. Amateurs: 1962 (Labron Harris Jr.), 2008 (Danny Lee), 2019 (Andy Ogletree)

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Pinehurst #2
Pinehurst, NC
4.7
51 Panelists
In 2010, a team led by Bill Coore and Ben Crenshaw killed and ripped out all the Bermudagrass rough on Pinehurst #2 that had been foolishly planted in the 1970s. Between fairways and tree lines, they established vast bands of native hardpan sand dotted with clumps of wiregrass and scattered pine needles. They reduced the irrigation to mere single rows in fairways to prevent grass from ever returning to the new sandy wastelands. Playing firm and fast, it was wildly successful as the site of the 2014 Men’s and Women’s U.S. Opens, played on consecutive weeks, and produced an even more exciting Open in 2024 when Bryson DeChambeau beat Rory McIlroy on the final hole. It's the rare course that a wide variety of resort players can enjoy and play quickly one day, and be a test for tour pros the next by essentially just quickening the greens. A new favorite of the USGA with a headquarters in town, Pinehurst #2 will host Opens again in 2029, 2035, 2041 and 2047.
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2041: Bandon Dunes

Golf Digest America's Greatest Courses ranking: 40

Past U.S. Amateurs: 2020 (Tyler Strafaci)

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Bandon Dunes
Bandon, OR
4.7
55 Panelists
Chicago recycled-products mogul Mike Keiser took a gamble when he chose then-tenderfoot architect David McLay Kidd to design a destination daily fee on the remote southwestern coastline of Oregon. But the design Kidd produced, faithful to the links-golf tenets of his native Scotland, proved so popular that today Keiser has a multiple-course resort at Bandon Dunes that rivals Pinehurst and the Monterey Peninsula—or perhaps exceeds them, given that all five Bandon courses are ranked on our 200 Greatest, four in the top 100. None of that would have happened if McLay Kidd hadn’t produced a great first design that drew golfers into its orbit.
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2047: Oakland Hills Country Club

Golf Digest America's Greatest Courses ranking: 20

Past U.S. Amateurs: 2002 (Ricky Barnes), 2016 (Curtis Luck)

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Oakland Hills Country Club: South
Bloomfield Hills, MI
4.8
34 Panelists
Donald Ross felt his 1918 design was out of date for the 1951 U.S. Open and was prepared to remodel it. Sadly, he died in 1948, so Robert Trent Jones got the job. His rebunkering was overshadowed by ankle-deep rough, and after Ben Hogan closed with a 67, one of only two rounds under par-70 all week, to win his second consecutive Open, he complained that Jones had created a Frankenstein. Seventy-plus years later, Oakland Hills is even longer, but its bite wasn’t severe when it hosted the 2016 U.S. Amateur. In 2019, the South course closed as Gil Hanse and his team significantly renovated the course with the intention of removing the Jones-era influences and restoring its Ross feel. They did that by expanding greens to recapture what are some of Ross's best contours, removing trees to show off the rolling landscape and shifting bunkers back to where Ross, not RTJ (or RTJ's son Rees, during previous remodels), placed them. The course re-opened in Spring 2021, and though a crippling fire destroyed the club's iconic clubhouse, the USGA delivered some kind news to the club, bringing the 2034 and 2051 U.S. Opens to Oakland Hills—as well as a number of upcoming USGA championships.
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2051: Saucon Valley Golf Club

Golf Digest America's Greatest Courses ranking: N/R

Past U.S. Amateurs: 1951 (Billy Maxwell)

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Saucon Valley Country Club: Weyhill
Bethlehem, PA
4.2
13 Panelists
Saucon Valley Country Club's Weyhill Course in Bethlehem is ranked as one of the best golf courses in Pennsylvania. Discover our experts' reviews and tee time information
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