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    Golf Digest Logo best new public

    How Pinehurst’s newest course defeated some of the greatest public competition this decade

    This fresh and explorative new public course is a new highlight of the prestigious site.
    January 15, 2025
    Photo By: Jeff Marsh
    Pinehrust No. 10 photographed by Jeff Marsh in 2023

    Tom Doak’s new course at Pinehurst possesses all the elements that define golf in the Carolina sand hills, but it’s arranged in ways that make #10 seem fresh and explorative. The essential components are familiar: deep sandy soils, rolling but not extreme elevation changes, pine forests and contrasting grasses and sedges for texture. From there, the architecture goes in its own direction.

    Built on a 900-acre property dubbed the Sandmines, which Pinehurst Resort acquired over a decade ago (and once the site of a golf course called The Pit), #10 feels large and unbound. Other than the new clubhouse and a few old buildings left over from the previous course, there’s no development around— just your group and the wilderness. After a tame start with three holes that loop around a calm section of ground, the design gradually amplifies as the land becomes more extreme leading up to the par-4 eighth, one of the most original and bizarre holes in American golf. It plunges through the tall spoils of an old sand mining operation, staggering drunkenly over displaced ridges, hummocks and dunes.

    Many of the drives at #10 play across subtle crests of land, disguising what’s ahead, and though the fairways offer latitude, the course plays much longer than the scorecard yardage (7,020 yards from the back tees). The real highlights are the inventive green complexes. Most are surrounded by fields of short grass, similar to Pinehurst #2, leaving the choice of recovery shots up to the player. But the green contours are fascinating and fiendish, a combination of collecting slopes and bowls offset by shoulders, tiers and steep fall-offs—often on the same green. Pinehurst #10 hits the high notes of sand, sculpture and pines that make the whole Pinehurst experience endlessly intoxicating, but the rhythm is new and represents the way forward for one of America’s legendary resorts.

    This is the fifth time Doak has won the Best New Course award.

    Pinehurst #10
    Public
    Pinehurst #10
    Pinehurst, NC
    4.5
    27 Panelists

    Sand is the defining character of Pinehurst, and Pinehurst #10 goes right to the source: a former sand mining site south of the resort, portions of which used to be a golf course called The Pit that closed in 2010. Several holes of this Tom Doak design, opened in 2024, plunge through the old quarries, including the turbulent eighth where players will want to pop Dramamine before tackling fairway swells that would pitch and toss a fishing vessel.

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    SECOND PLACE
    CABOT CITRUS FARMS (KAROO)

    The Karoo course at Cabot Citrus Farms is either the next step in the evolution of golf course architecture or the flamboyant end of a vagabond branch of new expressionist design. The course is a wild and uninhibited romp through a twisted sandbox chortling with sweep and contour. Built over the site of the former Pine Barrens course at World Woods, Karoo looks like it’s been ravaged by a Category 5 hurricane, its trees uprooted and landforms tossed about. That’s the intent—this is meant to be golf beyond the normal parameters.

    Karoo is Kyle Franz’s first solo design, and he’s come out throwing combinations. Though most of the routing follows the flow of the Pine Barrens course (the second and 17th holes have been reversed, and the old par-3 16th is now the par-3 third going the opposite direction with a multi-level green of bewildering dimension), the hole orchestrations are authentic, each element reshaped and amplified.

    Walking through the stark environment presents a continuous scroll of alternate fairways, blind targets, punchbowl pockets with dizzying slopes and chasms of sand that must be flown and skirted. Franz insists players engage in decision-making by presenting multiple driving lines divided by bunkers, sand washes and crowns. The greens are Olympian and full of bubbles, swales, rolls and ramps, meaning there will be 80-foot putts that bend three ways. For those that like their portions served large, Karoo is an all-you-can-eat buffet topped off by the triple-option 18th with three different landing areas to choose from.

    Cabot Citrus Farms: Karoo
    Jeff Marsh
    Public
    Cabot Citrus Farms: Karoo
    Brooksville, FL
    4.4
    17 Panelists

    When arriving at Cabot Citrus Farms you’ll understand why Ben Cowan-Dewar sought this property for decades. The modern trend of pushing width and options is amplified with “super width” here, with some fairways over 100 yards wide, though strategy is still present—as large, exposed sand hazards often split the playing areas. Choosing the ideal side of the fairway will often open up an easier approach.

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    THIRD PLACE
    SEDGE VALLEY AT SAND VALLEY

    The idea behind Sedge Valley is novel: a sub-6,000-yard, par-68 design that taps into the sporty spirit of the old British heathland courses like Swinley Forest (par 69), The Addington (69) and West Sussex (68). Sedge Valley asks: How important is length in providing a proper test, and will modern golfers accept a course less than 6,000 yards?

    Such an experiment could probably only be undertaken at a place like Sand Valley, where three other large and diverse courses (Sand Valley, Mammoth Dunes and The Lido) already attract enough visitors to provide a built-in audience. But Sedge Valley presents something quite different as well, not just in length but aura, moving through open meadowlands populated by scattered hardwoods rather than tall sand pines and employing a more traditional mode of bunkering in contrast to the open sandscapes of the original two courses.

    As to the question of challenge, long but controlled drivers might feast, but the small, deep bunkers surrounding the greens and some spicy putting contours, like at the boomerang 15th, are a persistent reminder that scoring is about how quickly you get the ball in the hole. Take a couple of par 5s off the table and throw in a steady diet of par 4s that never become redundant and frequently play into upslopes, and there’s enough bite and variety to prove that stimulating golf can’t be quantified by the numbers printed on a scorecard.

    Sand Valley: Sedge Valley
    Brandon Carter
    Public
    Sand Valley: Sedge Valley
    Nekoosa, WI
    4.4
    30 Panelists

    Sedge Valley is architect Tom Doak’s homage to the early 20th century, sub-par 70 courses popular in the London heathlands and throughout the U.K. Tipping the scales at less than 6,000 yards and par 68, it might seem like light fare but it isn’t—this is real golf that demands confident driving and smart approaches into a set of small, distinguished green complexes.

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    Other Nominees

    The Cardinal at Saint John's Resort
    Brian Walters
    Public
    The Cardinal at Saint John's Resort
    Plymouth, MI
    4.1
    10 Panelists

    The Cardinal is the first public course to open in the Detroit area in over 20 years. Designed by architect Ray Hearn, it replaces Saint John’s early 1980s 27-hole resort course with more spacious and strategically engaging holes that are either brand new or significantly redesigned. The excess holes were removed and transformed, giving Hearn room to add a fun 7-hole short course and large, Himalayas-style putting green.

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    Saltleaf Golf Preserve
    Jensen Larson
    Public
    Saltleaf Golf Preserve
    Bonita Springs, FL

    When the Raptor Bay course opened outside Naples in the early 2000s, it was notable for the lack of formal bunkering, an inventive idea that was ahead of its time (there were sandscapes along the edges of the holes but no fairway or greenside bunkers). The look of the course was sleek, with wall-to-wall fairway cut and holes that moved through dense wetlands and coastal pine forests with only the resort high rises in sight. In 2023, the entire property was redeveloped and rebranded as the public/resort Saltleaf Golf Preserve: nine holes of the original course were closed for alternate use, and the eastern side of the land was expanded to replace the lost golf.

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