Sugarbush - Vermont - USA

Robert Trent Jones Senior fashioned the 18-hole layout at Sugarbush Resort Golf Club in the early 1960s, starting a trend that would lead to other New England ski resorts building courses to attract visitors during the summer months.

In The American Golf Resort Guide, author Daniel Wexler writes: “perhaps as a concession to the terrain, much of the heavily bunkered Jones aesthetic is absent here, with most holes relying on the natural movement of the land, some dangerous putting surfaces and the occasional blind shot to boost their credentials.

Play begins on wide-open ground around the clubhouse before the front nine swoops southward into the woods (where the 417-yard dogleg right 3rd stands out) then returns for an open finish led by the 473-yard par four 7th and its scenic downhill approach.

The more engaging back nine is enlivened by several small water hazards, particularly at the 182-yard 11th and the 186-yard 16th (both played across creek-bottomed valleys to elevated, shallow greens) but also at the 404-yard pond-guarded 12th and the 475-yard 14th, a short par five whose green is flanked front-left by water.”