With 1,800 holes to choose from on Golf Magazine’s 2016–17 Top 100 Courses You Can Play list, there’s no shortage of epic options when it comes to piecing together a public-access “Dream 18”—which is exactly what the magazine did. In designing their fantasy course for the masses, they selected 10 par-4s, four par-3s and four par-5s from their Top 100 Courses You Can Play ranking and divided them into two nines—each beginning with Nicklaus Design holes. The resulting par-72, 7,351-yard course is a stout, staggering and stunning test.
Writers selected the 16th hole at Trump Golf Links at Ferry Point for Hole No. 1 on Golf Magazine’s Dream 18. The Jack Nicklaus Signature Golf Course, located in the Bronx with views of Manhattan, opened for play in 2015. The par-4, 487 yard opening hole on the magazine’s dream course has to be an attention-getter, and this new urban gem checks that box. The back tee is perched on the highest point on the course. It’s hardly nosebleed territory, but it yields stellar 360-degree views. Fearsome bunkers etched into a hillside on the left, and wetlands that edge the right side and the East River—green and glistening at sunset—make for a stirring tableau.
Leading the back nine of their Dream 18, Golf Magazine chose the 18th hole at Harbour Town Golf Links, the Jack Nicklaus-with-Pete Dye design that opened in 1969 to become the Golden Bear’s first-ever design in a career resume which now features over 290 golf courses. Don’t let this par-4’s wide fairway fool you. With OB stakes, trees and condos to the right, and Hilton Head Island’s Calibogue Sound to the left, any wind at all turns this hole into a beast. The candy cane-striped lighthouse that backdrops the green is one of golf’s most iconic images.
A full list of Golf Magazine’s Dream 18 is included below.
Hole 1—Trump Golf Links at Ferry Point—16th hole, par-4, 487 yards
Hole 2—Linville Golf Club—3rd hole, par-4, 472 yards
Hole 3— Mauna Kea Golf Course—3rd hole, par-3, 272 yards
Hole 4— Bethpage State Park (Black)—4th hole, par-5, 517 yards
Hole 5— Spyglass Hill Golf Course—4th hole, par-4, 370 yards
Hole 6— Kapalua Resort (Plantation)—18th hole, par-5, 663 yards
Hole 7— Whistling Straits Golf Club (Straits)—17th hole, par-3, 223 yards
Hole 8—Pebble Beach Golf Links—8th hole, par-4, 427 yards
Hole 9—Trump National Doral (Blue Monster)—18th hole, par-4, 473 yards
Hole 10—Harbour Town Golf Links—18th hole, par-4, 472 yards
Hole 11—Pacific Dunes—11th hole, par-3, 148 yards
Hole 12—Pasatiempo Golf Club—16th hole, par-4, 387 yards
Hole 13—Pacific Dunes—13th hole, par-4, 444 yards
Hole 14—Shadow Creek—18th hole, par-5, 495 yards
Hole 15—Bandon Dunes—16th hole, par-4, 363 yards
Hole 16—Bay Hill Club (Championship)—18th hole, par-4, 458 yards
Hole 17—TPC Sawgrass (Players Stadium)—17th hole, par-3, 137 yards
Hole 18—Pebble Beach Golf Links—18th hole, par-5, 543 yards
