River Marsh

River Marsh Golf Club at the Hyatt in Cambridge, MD very much lives up to its name, as the nearby Choptank River feeds into acres of wetland, around which Keith Foster designed an 18-hole public-access facility during the early years of the new millennium. Players will travel across hundreds of feet of bridges and traverse hardwood forests between tees.

The closing hole must have been one of the most obvious decisions in Foster’s career, simply placing a par five along the banks of the Choptank and allowing golfers to soak in the views the whole way home. The only ones disappointed will be those who fail to find the left side of the fairway in their pursuit of a birdie, and end up wet instead.

The penultimate hole is almost as dramatic as the ultimate, featuring a 200-yard carry across a wide inlet named “Shoal Creek.” Even if you duff one into the hazard, you can at least fudge the details to tell your pals you played into Shoal Creek?

Many of the fairways are divided at the middle by more direct water hazards, with forced carries provided by the native terrain.