What heralds the unarguable start of summer for you? The first barbecue? First lake day? First day that you wish you could wear shorts to the office? For a chunk of us, especially above the 49th parallel where the winters can be long and harsh, summer is signalled by the thump of a golf ball on a driver, the battle cry of warm weather, letting us know that once again golf courses are open for play after a winter lying dormant and unused.

While one of the most exciting parts of this yearly reappearance is getting back out on your familiar course after being kept away, it is also a great time to branch out. To that end, we have compiled a list of four of the best golf courses opening in 2024 that need to be on your radar. They range from new layouts at classic venues to isolated but enticing rural projects, and all are worth checking out when the rust has been knocked off of your swing.

Karoo at Cabot Citrus Farms

Photography by Matt Majka

Part of the ever-expanding golf resort portfolio of Canadian firm Cabot, Karoo is the first course to open for play at its new Florida outpost Cabot Citrus Farms. Built on the bones of a previous 18-hole layout, the site has been modified and rerouted to create a course that is fighting fit for 2024. Early-bird reviewers have heaped praise on the reborn course, with Golf Digest noting that architect Kyle Franz is “push[ing] the boundaries of what his peers have been building over the past 20 years.”

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Sedge Valley

As Cabot Citrus Farms tries to establish itself as a world-class golfing destination, one of North America’s true big hitters has unveiled its latest puzzle piece. Sand Valley in unheralded Nekoosa, Wisconsin, is home to a beloved Bill Coore and Ben Crenshaw design that shares its name with the resort, as well as David McLay Kidd’s much lauded Mammoth Dunes and Tom Doak’s down to the studs recreation of The Lido, C.B. MacDonald’s long lost Long Island  gem. Joining the party this year is another Doak routing, Sedge Valley. For this go round, inspiration does not come from the golden age of American golf course architecture or the links of Scotland and Ireland but the beloved heathland courses of southern England, a style unfamiliar to many on this side of the Atlantic and one sure to add something unique to Sand Valley’s offerings.

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Pinehurst No. 10

It is hard to think of new things to say about Pinehurst. The ‘Cradle of American Golf’ is home to nine courses on its own property, never mind the bevy of world-class layouts in its immediate surroundings. There is a reason for the proliferation of great courses in this slice of North Carolina, and it is the same reason any golf course is great: the land. The Carolina sandhills are some of the most prime real estate for golf anywhere in the world, and Pinehurst has acquired another chunk of it. The first layout on this land, Pinehurst No. 10, marries the tradition of this year’s U.S Open venue with a modern perspective on golf course architecture to create something entirely new.

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GrayBull

Land, land, land, hear the word of the Lord. It is hard to talk too much about the ground a golf course is built on, and GrayBull is no exception. A new venture by The Dormie Network near Maxwell, Nebraska, the course sits on the same vast, untapped, and golf-perfect swath of the Nebraska Sandhills as the aptly named and legendary Sand Hills golf course in Mullen. The sandy soil creates turf conditions not too far away from the legendary links of St Andrews or Carnoustie, and native Scotsman David McLay Kidd has taken his knowledge of his homeland to the heart of Nebraska.

June 14, 2024