Tallgrass Golf Course on Long Island was among the first, original designs by Gil Hanse.
Gil Hanse is arguably the world’s hottest golf course architect right now, so I thought you might like to know where you can play his courses…hopefully before his name prompts price increases.
Hanse, as you likely know, won the design job for the 2016 Olympics, and he has recently landed several other, high-profile projects including renovating The Vineyard Golf Club on Martha’s Vineyard; renovating Doral’s “Blue Monster” for Donald Trump; and creating a 27-hole municipal golf course for Mike Keiser near his Bandon Dunes Resort.
While Hanse’s renovation, redesign, and restoration work is extensive (much at top-100 courses), if you want to play an original, “Hanse design,” you don’t have as many options; even fewer are accessible to the public.
The good news is, his public tracks are spread out, so the odds are you’re not too far away from one of them.
For example, if you live on the East Coast, you can play Tallgrass Golf Course in Shoreham, New York (Long Island).
In the Midwest, you can play the Horse Course at Nebraska’s Prairie Club.
On the West Coast, you can play Rustic Canyon in California (northwest of Los Angeles).
And if you happen to be in Scotland, make sure to play Castle Stuart Golf Links in Inverness.
Again, all these are original, publicly accessible designs by Hanse and will likely provide the best example of his approach to golf course design.
If you’ve played any of them, what did you think of his work?
