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    Golf Digest Logo Rare Publics

    The 15 courses you can play that have hosted major championships

    By Stephen Hennessey
    June 09, 2024

    The U.S. Open returns to one of America’s great golf courses, Pinehurst #2, this week to host its fourth U.S. Open—and the first of five in the next 25 years as a USGA anchor site. Not only is the iconic Donald Ross design one of our country’s greatest, historic venues, but it’s also open to the public—which makes it a rarity among major championship courses. Pinehurst and Pebble Beach have been two mainstays in U.S. championship golf, dating back to Pinehurst #2’s first major, the 1936 PGA Championship.

    The PGA Championship frequented publicly accessible courses, particularly in the booming 1920s and 1930s, but it wasn’t until 1972, 77 years after the first U.S. Open, did a public course—Pebble Beach—host the first U.S. Open at a public venue. Then in the 1990s, the vision and relentlessness of the USGA's David Fay took the U.S. Open to Bethpage Black in 2002, which sparked more tournaments at public courses over the next few decades.

    We wish the list below was longer, but it would be if some no-longer-running venues were still open. It’s also worth noting that Firestone Country Club, which hosted PGAs in 1960, 1966 and 1975, is now accessible via stay and play deals.

    Below are the public courses still in existence that have hosted major championships. It might be hard to check off large lists such as all the top 100 courses in the country, but we’d like to think playing most or all these courses might actually be an attainable goal.

    We urge you to click through to each individual course page for bonus photography, drone footage and reviews from our course panelists. Plus, you can now leave your own ratings on the courses you’ve played … to make your case why your favorite should be ranked higher. 

    French Lick Resort: Donald Ross Course
    Brian Walers Photography
    Public
    French Lick Resort: Donald Ross Course
    French Lick, IN, United States
    3.6
    141 Panelists

    If the 2009 Pete Dye course at this historic resort in southern Indiana (ranked 118th on America's Second 100 Greatest Courses) is an acrobat swinging trapezes through circles of flame along the site's elevated bluffs, the 1917 Donald Ross course is more of a street-level tilt-a-whirl with holes that rise, fall and roll repeatedly over a gorgous meadow property. Each nine crests over ridges and ride into hollows, rising toward well-bunkered greens that flank slightly crowned putting surfaces. This is an Old World/New World contrast, with both the Dye and Ross courses achieving what they set out to do architecturally, but in rather different ways. Depending on their mood and appreciation for allowing land movements rather than bulldozers to dictate design and direction, golfer's at French Lick often prefer the nuance and nature of the Ross course. The Dye course hosted the 1924 PGA Championship won by Walter Hagen.

    Explore our full review
    Eisenhower Park: Red
    Public
    Eisenhower Park: Red
    East Meadow, NY
    You’re aware of Bethpage Black’s importance as a public course hosting a major championship. But another New York City municipality hosted the PGA Championship 76 years before Bethpage did. Eisenhower Park’s Red Course, then part of the Salisbury Golf Club, was the site of Sam Snead’s 1926 PGA victory, the first of three PGA Championships for Slammin’ Sammy. Eisenhower Park, now a 54-hole facility part of the Nassau County Park system, also hosted a senior tour event up until 2008. Designed by Devereux Emmet, one of the most strategically brilliant architects of his day, there are bones of his interesting bunker complexes and philosophies, though decades of lengthening and the loss of green size show just signs of the great design. A significant renovation would reveal a course thought at one time to be among the best championship layouts in New York—and perhaps bring tournament golf, though at 7,100 yards it’d be too short for the highest levels of the men’s game, back to another storied NYC public golf course.
    Explore our full review
    Cedar Crest Golf Course
    Public
    Cedar Crest Golf Course
    Dallas, TX
    3.6
    30 Panelists
    Located just south of downtown Dallas, Cedar Crest is an A.W. Tillinghast-designed public course that hosted the 1927 PGA Championship, won by Walter Hagen. The parkland course winds through trees and has relatively small greens, some of which have steep runoffs. In addition to the PGA Championship, the historic course also hosted the 1954 U.S. Amateur Public Links.
    Explore our full review
    Keller Golf Course
    Public
    Keller Golf Course
    Maplewood, MN, United States
    3.8
    8 Panelists
    A muny packed with history, Keller hosted the 1932 and 1954 PGA Championships, a Western Open, and for nearly 40 years, from 1930 to 1968, hosted the PGA Tour's annual St. Paul Open. On top of all that, it also hosted the 1931 U.S. Amateur Public Links. As one of our Minnesota course-ranking panelists described: "Holes 11 through 16 are as good of a stretch of holes as anywhere in the state."
    Explore our full review
    Pinehurst #2
    Stephen Szurlej
    Public
    Pinehurst #2
    Pinehurst, NC, United States
    4.6
    447 Panelists
    In 2010, a team lead by Bill Coore and Ben Crenshaw killed and ripped out all the Bermudagrass rough on Pinehurst No. 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. Because of its water reduction, the course was named a Green Star environmental award-winner by Golf Digest that year. In 2019, Pinehurst No. 2 and No. 4 hosted another U.S. Amateur Championship, and the USGA announced Pinehurst No. 2—in addition to hosting the 2024 U.S. Open—will also have the 2029, 2035, 2041 and 2047 U.S. Opens.
    Explore our full review

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    The Shawnee Inn and Golf Resort: Red/Blue/White
    Golf World archives
    Public
    The Shawnee Inn and Golf Resort: Red/Blue/White
    Shawnee-on-Delaware, PA
    The history at Shawnee Inn and Golf Resort is overwhelming. Sam Snead was the facility’s PGA pro and actually lost in the final match of 1938 PGA Championship to Paul Runyan. A.W. Tillinghast, who had never built a course before, was given the opportunity by his friend, a wealthy businessman, C.C. Worthington. Tillinghast launched his career and the resort enjoyed prominence as a great destination. Though its national relevance in the game may have diminished, and over time battling the nearby Delaware River and its damages have lost some of Tilly's first design attempts, Shawnee still hosts tournaments in Pennsylvania—and for any fan of Tillinghast’s work, remains a cool study.
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    Seaview: Bay
    Aidan Bradley/Courtesy of the resort
    Public
    Seaview: Bay
    Galloway, NJ
    3.7
    23 Panelists
    Seaview's Bay course, a 6,247-yard, par-71 layout, has a similar look and feel to Atlantic City Country Club, playing along Reeds Bay with views of the distant AC skyline. Five holes use the marshland as part of their defense. Architect Bob Cupp should get credit for doing a nice job of restoring the original design started by Hugh Wilson and completed by Donald Ross in 1915. Like most Ross courses, the smallish, tricky greens make up for any lack of length. And like ACCC, a visit to Seaview comes with a history lesson: It hosted the 1942 PGA and has been home to the LPGA's ShopRite Classic since 1986. What was once an elite private club is now a 36-hole resort. --Ron Kaspriske, senior editor
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    PGA National Resort: Champion
    Private
    PGA National Resort: Champion
    Palm Beach Gardens, FL, United States
    4
    298 Panelists
    One of five courses at PGA National, the Champion Course hosts the Honda Classic every year. Originally designed by Tom and George Fazio for tournament play, Jack Nicklaus redesigned the course in 2014, creating the infamous three-hole stretch aptly named "The Bear Trap." Routinely one of the toughest courses on Tour, The Champion is a true ball-striking test.
    Explore our full review

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    Tanglewood Park Golf: Championship
    Public
    Tanglewood Park Golf: Championship
    Clemmons, NC
    Originally opened in 1958 and designed by Robert Trent Jones Sr., Tanglewood Park’s Championship course has hosted a PGA Championship, a U.S. Amateur Public Links and a PGA Tour Champions event. In the 1974 PGA Championship at Tanglewood Park, Lee Trevino edged Jack Nicklaus by a shot, while 62-year-old Sam Snead finished tied for third. A dozen years later, Billy Mayfair captured the 1986 U.S. Amateur Public Links at Tanglewood Park. More recently in 2018, Robert Trent Jones Jr. led a restoration of the Championship layout, repositioning bunkers and converting the greens to Bermuda grass.
    Explore our full review
    Pebble Beach Golf Links
    Sherman Chu
    Public
    Pebble Beach Golf Links
    Pebble Beach, CA, United States
    4.7
    352 Panelists
    Not just the greatest meeting of land and sea in American golf, but the most extensive one, too, with nine holes perched immediately above the crashing Pacific surf—the fourth through 10th plus the 17th and 18th. Pebble’s sixth through eighth are golf’s real Amen Corner, with a few Hail Marys thrown in over an ocean cove on the eighth from atop a 75-foot-high bluff. Pebble hosted a successful U.S. Amateur in 2018 and a sixth U.S. Open in 2019. Recent improvements include the redesign of the once-treacherous 14th green, and reshaping of the par-3 17th green, both planned by Arnold Palmer’s Design Company a few years back—and the current changes to the iconic eighth hole. Pebble Beach hosted the Women's U.S. Open for the first time in 2023.
    Explore our full review
    Bethpage State Park: Black
    Dom Furore
    Public
    Bethpage State Park: Black
    Farmingdale, NY, United States
    4.6
    243 Panelists
    Sprawling Bethpage Black, designed in the mid-1930s to be “the public Pine Valley,” became the darling of the USGA in the early 2000s, when it played the 2002 and 2009 U.S. Opens. Then it became a darling of the PGA Tour as host of the 2011 and 2016 Barclays. Now the PGA of America has embraced The Black, which hosted the 2019 PGA Championship (winner: Brooks Koepka) and the upcoming 2025 Ryder Cup. Heady stuff for a layout that was once a scruffy state-park haunt where one needed to sleep in the parking lot in order to get a tee time. Now, you need fast fingers on the state park's website once tee times are available—as prime reservations at The Black are known for going in seconds.
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    Torrey Pines Golf Course: South
    Public
    Torrey Pines Golf Course: South
    La Jolla, CA, United States
    3.9
    217 Panelists
    Torrey Pines sits on one of the prettiest golf course sites in America, atop coastal bluffs north of San Diego with eye-dazzling views of the Pacific. Rees Jones’ remodeling of the South Course in the early 2000s not only made the course competitive for the 2008 U.S. Open (won by Tiger Woods in a playoff over Rocco Mediate), it also brought several coastal canyons into play for everyday play, especially on the par-3 third and par-4 14th. An annual PGA Tour stop, Torrey Pines received another boost by Jones prior to hosting its second U.S. Open in 2021, this one won by Jon Rahm.
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    Kiawah Island Golf Resort: The Ocean Course
    Carlos Amoedo
    Public
    Kiawah Island Golf Resort: The Ocean Course
    Kiawah Island, SC, United States
    4.8
    690 Panelists
    Often considered to be the first course designed for a specific event—the 1991 Ryder Cup—this manufactured linksland-meets-lagoons layout might well be Pete Dye’s most diabolical creation. Every hole is edged by sawgrass, every green has tricky slopes, every bunker merges into bordering sand dunes. Strung along nearly three miles of ocean coast, Dye took his wife’s advice and perched fairways and greens so golfers can actually view the Atlantic surf. That also exposes shots and putts to ever-present and sometimes fierce coastal winds. The Ocean Course will forever be linked with Phil Mickelson and his improbable victory at the 2021 PGA Championship.
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    Chambers Bay
    Courtesy of Jon Cavalier
    Public
    Chambers Bay
    University Place, WA, United States
    4.4
    173 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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    Erin Hills Golf Course
    Paul Hundley
    Public
    Erin Hills Golf Course
    Hartford, WI, United States
    4.7
    334 Panelists
    Despite the rumor, Erin Hills wasn’t designed specifically to host a U.S. Open. Its original concept was to be a simple, affordable, lay-of-the-land layout, to prove Mother Nature is indeed the best golf architect. The concept changed—some greens moved, one blind par 3 eliminated—as the quest for a U.S. Open grew. That dream came true: after trial runs hosting the 2008 U.S. Women’s Public Links and the 2011 U.S. Amateur, Erin Hills hosted the U.S. Open in 2017, the first time the event had ever been in Wisconsin. Brooks Koepka won with a 72-hole score of 16-under, leading some to conclude Erin Hills was too wide and defenseless. In truth, what it lacked that week was the usual gusty winds that would have effectively narrowed the slanted, canted fairways. Had the par been adjusted to 70 instead of 72 as is usual for most Opens, the score would likely have been closer to 8-under.
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