Duke University

Duke University and the University of North Carolina host perhaps the most aggressive rivalry in American sports...albeit on the basketball court more often than the golf course. That said, both schools certainly want to outdo the other with their respective golf facilities.

Duke contends with the Duke Golf Club, a design from Robert Trent Jones’s ascent to the top of golf course architecture during the ‘50s. Just five years after its opening, the NCAA Golf Championships were held at the facility. One of the competitors was Rees Jones; although his access to the architect did not allow him or Yale to steal the cup, the connection did ensure that the younger Jones received the commission when Duke ordered a sizable renovation of the course during 1994. This renovation restored the quality of the greens and bunkers at the property, which sits on hills that roll more eagerly than the typical topography of North Carolina’s “Research Triangle.”

Interestingly, Perry Maxwell originally submitted a design for the Duke course, which fell through because of the onset of World War II. Although Wake Forest University rarely contends against Duke and UNC for basketball, it can at least boast Maxwell’s Old Town Club as its home course.