My 17 favorite modern Punchbowl greens in America

Of all of the notable templates holes that architects C.B. Macdonald, Seth Raynor and Charles Banks popularized in the 1910s and 20s (what Macdonald called “ideal holes” including the Redan, Biarritz and Cape), the Punchbowl is usually the most whimsical and enjoyable to play. Because of their strange shapes with sunken greens surrounded on three and sometimes all sides by mounds that kick semi-blind shots toward the middle—and sometimes fortuitously toward the hole—Punchbowls tend to be showpieces, and also curiosities.

Unlike templates that have direct antecedents in British links like the Alps or Road, (Prestwick’s and St. Andrews’ 17ths, respectively), Punchbowls don’t originate from any specific hole, though some have suspected that the ninth green at Royal Liverpool (played as the 11th during Open Championships) might be one of the first models.

Greens at many early links commonly possessed some type of shielded or punchbowl effect, since turf nestled down in dunes was better protected from the effects of the ravaging winds. Those like the 14th and 15th at Cruden Bay, which sit in bowl-like hollows, and the Dell Hole at Lahinch in Ireland, hidden between two steep dunes that funnel shots inward, are well-known examples. Punchbowls also adhere to no particular pattern or style. They can be virtually any shape, orientation, size or height—from the low inverted-frisbee version of Camargo’s seventh hole to the towering fortress at The Lido.

Macdonald, Raynor and Banks included a Punchbowl in most of their U.S. designs, traditionally using them for putting surfaces behind the obscuring mound on the Alps hole, and occasionally as standalone greens, including the 16th hole at National Golf Links of America. But very few, if any, Punchbowls were constructed in the U.S. after the 1930s when Macdonald, Raynor and Banks had all either passed away or retired. Architecture in the post-World War II period and beyond became more technical and focused on modern equipment and ease of maintenance, leaving little appetite for the quirkiness of these holes.

Golf Digest architecture editor emeritus Ron Whitten recalls that Rees Jones built a type of punchbowl-style green at the Country Club of Hilton Head in the late 1980s, but it wasn’t until the late 1990s that architects began to once again experiment with them widely. Brian Silva built Punchbowl greens at Olde Scotland Links and Black Rock in Massachusetts, and at Black Creek Club in Tennessee. Jim Engh expanded their versatility by creating profound punchbowl sections within larger serpentine greens. Even Jack Nicklaus, along with lead associate Chris Cochran, built several at the original version of Dismal River's White Course in Nebraska.

Tastes change, and golfers' enthusiasm for the atypical and unpredicatble has increased along with a heightened reverence for things past. Since the 2000s, Punchbowl greens have become once-again popular resources that architects use in both revivals of Macdonald and Raynor designs and at original courses. They’re coming to us, as good ones should, in strange shapes and sizes.

Below you'll find our spotlight of some of our favorite contemporary Punchbowl greens.

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APOGEE CLUB WEST
Hobe Sound, Fla.

The 14th green at this newly opened club in Martin County, Fla., 15 miles north of Jupiter, is really three punchbowls in one. The drivable par 4, designed by Gil Hanse and Jim Wagner, features a low front section of green that dips between two Mae West-like mounds, and left and right back bowls each divided by ridges. Think of hitting shots—or drives—into a green modeled on the Mercedes-Benz logo, and the up-and-over putts that might result from placing your ball on the wrong third. Hanse and Wagner also built Punchbowl greens at The Park, a new public course in West Palm Beach (2023), and at The Match at Jonathan’s Landing in Jupiter (2021), giving them three now in a 35-mile stretch off of I-95.

BLACK CREEK CLUB
Chattanooga, Tenn.

The sixth hole at Black Creek Club has one of the most fascinating Punchbowl green areas we’ve seen, so much in fact Golf Digest named this par 5 the best sixth hole built in the U.S. since 2000. Opened in 2000, the green sits in at the bottom of a 55,000 square-foot hollow that’s blind from the fairway. Seeing where the balls end up on Punchbowl greens after hitting over fronting mounds is always a thrill, but the walk into Black Creek’s stadium amphitheater at the sixth feels more epic than anything else.

CHARLESTON MUNICIPAL

Though the architecture of this course is inspired by the work of Raynor, who built nearby Country Club of Charleston and Yeamans Hall, the par-4 sixth qualifies as a new Punchbowl since it was created by architect Troy Miller during an inventive 2020 remodel of this workhorse muni. This is a mini-Alps version that calls for an approach over a bunker positioned just high enough to obscure the cozy, saucer-like putting surface that flows over several intersecting shoulders.

CUTALONG AT LAKE ANNA
Mineral, Va.

This course, which opened in 2021, is an homage to history and old-time golf with architectural references to Civil War fortifications and designers like Macdonald, Alister MacKenzie and H.S. Colt. Architects Tom Clark and Ron Whitten fortified the green at this par 4 with a punchbowl formation that encircles the right half of the putting surface. Approaches that fly the forward embankment will funnel onto the green, while the open left front edge can receive bouncing shots.

FOUR MILE RANCH
Canon City, Colo.

There are perhaps a dozen different Jim Engh-designed Punchbowl-like greens that we could have chosen for this list, and more than one at Four Mile Ranch in the foothills of Colorado near Pueblo. No modern architect has been more bowl-curious than Engh, who understood the thrill players get seeing, and sometimes not seeing, their ball redirect off a bank toward the cup. The Punchbowl par-3 14th at Four Mile Ranch might be his most conventional requiring a blind tee shot over the top of a ridge complete with a rock aiming point like Lahnich’s Dell Hole.

GAMBLE SANDS
Brewster, Wash.

David McLay Kidd isn’t one to fawn over Golden Age architecture and the precedent of Macdonald and Raynor, but he knows an opportunity when he sees one. The greensite at the long par-3 16th at Gamble Sands presented the chance to do something different by notching the right half into an upslope forming a bowled, semi-blind hole location that spills severely down into the lower half of the green. It’s different than anything else on the course, but Punchbowls should be different.

THE CLUB AT LAC LA BELLE
Oconomowoc, Wis.

Lac La Belle’s Punchbowl 18th, designed by architect Craig Haltom during a major transformation of this public course west of Milwaukee in 2018, is notable for its size. Part of a long, slightly uphill par 4, the green rises upward between two high wings and a backstop that rolls up into a massive putting course near the clubhouse. The 13th green here also has a bowl-like design, but there’s nothing we’ve seen that’s quite comparable to the wild 18th.

LANDMAND
Homer, Neb.

Speaking of big Punchbowls, there might be none on Earth larger than Landmand’s 10th, designed by Rob Collins and Tad King in the choppy Loess Hills of northeast Nebraska. It clocks in at over 19,000 square feet, or nearly half an acre, and unlike many others there’s an opening at the front that allows balls to be bounced on if needed. The fun really begins once you’re “inside” the yawning maw of the two-level putting surface where you must figure out how to lag putts to widely spaced hole locations.

OLD BARNWELL
Aiken, SC

Old Barnwell’s eight green is of a certain class of taco-like punchbowls that are reminiscent of the Dell Hole at Lahinch, with a narrow green saddled between a opposing high mounds. It’s also a variation of the fourth green at Barnbougle Dunes in Tasmania where architect Brian Schneider (who designed Old Barnwell with Blake Conant) worked with Tom Doak. Balls hit to front and middle pins can bank off the flanges and settle close to the hole, while the more open back left hole locations require extra calculation and precision.

SAND VALLEY
Nekoosa, Wis.

The green at Sand Valley’s 17th hole (pictured at the top of this story) was originally positioned 60 yards short of its current location. That was before Bill Coore, during a walk-through with Mike Keiser, hiked over the dune behind the proposed greensite and noticed the wide, hidden basin that became the hole’s unforgettable Punchbowl. The tee shot at the long par 3 is now one of the most entertaining on the course as players first wait to see if they had enough club to carry the front rampart, and then breach the bowl to find out where the shot settled if so.

SEDGE VALLEY
Nekoosa, Wis.

The green at the new Sedge Valley course at Sand Valley, designed by Tom Doak and set to open summer 2024, is a replica of the fourth green at Barnbougle Dunes, which he also designed (see: Old Barnwell, above). A short par 4 from an elevated tee, players have the option of trying to drive the green on a direct but blind line over a lateral ridge, playing to a hidden upper fairway to the right, or hitting to a lower fairway leaving a short pitch. Each decision should be based on where the hole is cut on the L-shaped green.

SCOTTSDALE NATIONAL

The diminutive green at this par 5 isn’t a full Punchbowl in the traditional mold, but the ball will feed off surrounding slopes toward, or away from, certain hole locations. Built for owner Bob Parsons by architects David Kahn and Tim Jackson, it’s one of many creative putting surfaces that keep players off balance alternating between small shot-making targets like the fourth and large sprawling putting surfaces like the 20,000-square-foot behemoth at the fifth.

STREAMSONG BLACK
Bowling Green, Fla.

The Punchbowl eighth at Gil Hanse and Jim Wagner’s Black Course at Streamsong is radical at first sight. Drone photos make it look like a ring of flour ready to be kneaded into a pasta dough surrounding a deep well of heavy internal movements. As with all good Punchbowls, it can turn good shots into great shots depending on the bounce, and indifferent shots into bad if they can’t escalade of front of the entrenchment.

Of note: The resort's new par-3 course, The Chain, features one of the most impressive Punchbowls built in modern architecture. Bill Coore and Ben Crenshaw mined a ton of sand, built a hole in the ground, making it one of the tallest Punchbowls to be found in North America. The 11th hole plays over a lake and can play as long as 189 yards.

THE BATHS AT BLACKWOLF RUN
Kohler, Wis.

The Badger State should be rechristened the Punchbowl State, and The Baths, a 10-hole par 3 course comprised of holes modeled after some of the most famous in the U.K. (as was Macdonald’s m.o. at National Golf Links), has one of the best. Chris Lutzke, who for years worked closely with Pete Dye, set the fourth green into an incline so it sits like a catcher’s mitt waiting to frame incoming short-irons and wedges. Some areas funnel, but different tiers and elevations also repel shots to various low points.

THE LIDO
Nekoosa, Wis.

Though the hole was originally built in 1914, it disappeared in the 1940s with the rest of Macdonald’s Lido course when the property was converted to a Naval base. This new version of the 12th, however, is an exacting replica of the original based on computer simulations and GPS technology. This may be the most demanding Punchbowl in existence, a 433-yard dogleg requiring an all-carry second shots up and over a pair of fronting bunkers, something that would have been nearly impossible using the era’s hickory shafts and Haskell balls.

THE TREE FARM
Aiken, S.C.

The par-5 16th is part of an exciting four-hole finish at Zac Blair’s Tree Farm where birdies and eagles—and surely some bogeys—flip matches back and forth coming down the homestretch. It’s an homage to some of the classical Punchbowls of Macdonald and Raynor that Blair is so fond of, built by designer Kye Goalby. Once players cut blind drives across a flank of bunkers they’ll hit long seconds that need to carry or chase over a shoulder of land less they be faced with an difficult-to-stop blind pitch from just short of the hill.

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