Daniel Kollros

A beautiful course with a lot of open vistas, and native grasses lining most of the holes. I played it in the fall, when the native grasses were pretty thick making it tough in certain sports to find and play your ball. I have heard they are much more playable earlier in the season. The course is a difficult ball striking test as in addition to the native grass, there are some doglegs and fairway undulations that shrink landing zones and most of the greens are fairly small. The greens tend to kick balls towards the center which helps on the approaches, but can make for some brutal short side pitches when you miss them. I really enjoyed the course and the ball striking test it provided.

A semi-private upscale course in the Plymouth area. This is about what you would expect from this type of course: well conditioned, solid straightforward architecture and an enjoyable round.

This 27 hole facility laid out over a reclaimed landfill and with materials dug up from the big dig mixes some good holes with a few odd ones. Great location and Boston views drive the price higher than the course warrants, but it is extremely well maintained, I enjoyed my round and would definitely play it occasionally, even at the inflated price.

A Northern Michigan feeling 27 hole facility in metro Detroit with large rolling hills and tree lined notes. The course is very well maintained and has a lot of good but not great holes, with the best stretch coming on 13-18, with two fun risk/reward Par 5's mixed in with some strategic Par 4's and the solid par 3 17th. It was an enjoyable round of golf, and one of the best public rounds in the Detroit area, but from a state wide perspective is a step below the public courses up north, or the private clubs in metro Detroit.

A parkland course with a lot of variety. Trees force a few fades off tees while a lot of holes just prefer a draw or fade shape. A good variety of large greens, especially front to back, with a number of greens 4-5 clubs deep requiring a lot of long uphill and downhill lag putts if your distance control is off on your iron shots. Plays less narrow than it feels on some of the tighter holes, as most misses still provide a path to punch it up near the green and try to save your par.

A difficult test of golf on rolling hills outside of Chicago. Dubsdread plays long with narrow fairways, difficult rough and elevated greens surrounded by deep penal hazards. Picking the right tees can help play-ability, but the extremely difficult green complexes seem over the top for even a single digit handicap. Not a course I would want to play every day, but a fun test of your game a few times throughout the golf season and was in excellent condition.

A difficult test of golf on bluffs overlooking the pacific ocean. It is long and narrow, with very penal rough, and played longer than the card when I played it on a foggy day with a moderate sea breeze, so take that in to account when selecting tees. Not the type of course I would want to play everyday, but certainly enjoyable as an occasional test of your game, and a wonderful walking friendly design, in a beautiful setting. However, Torrey Pines does not seem to fully utilize its location, as there are some fantastic views, but very few holes feel oceanside after the 3rd and 4th. Definitely a value at the resident rate, but a bit steep to play more than once as an out of towner.

An enjoyable parkland course with good width. Laid out over a rolling piece of property, the front nine has the more undulating topography as the course seems to flatten out as it goes south. The greens are the highlight, with lots of undulations, but very accessible pin locations if you play to the correct section of the green. The course has some fun quirkiness early in the back nine, with the extreme dog leg left 11th and the tree in the fairway 14th. This was my favorite tree in the fairway hole I have seen with legitimate options on how to play the hole. Using the severely left to right fairway undulation the golfer has a reasonable chance to thread the needle between the lone tree and the treeline if they choose to be aggressive, while laying back of the tree provides plenty of room to play over the tree for a clear shot to the green. The course ends with the monster long uphill Par 3 18th. A very enjoyable round and a course I could play over and over.

A fun course with some classic features on an extreme site lead to a higher number of blind and uphill shots than most courses offer. I played it somewhere in the middle of its decade long renaissance, but despite some conditioning challenges, I found it to be an enjoyable collection of golf holes. With a handful of long difficult Par 4's and a difficult set of Par 3's, the course plays tougher than would be expected from the yardage, providing a good challenge. Quality for price, this is definitely a must play for Boston public golf.

Built on a tremendous site of bluffs overlooking Lake Michigan, provides lots of scenic views and fun holes with massive heavily contoured greens. Sweeping downhill holes and firm fairways lead to massive drives if you can keep it in the wide fairways. I played it on a calm day, but heard the wind can play havoc on the course as evidenced by the short stout flagpoles on the greens. Some very good holes, but none that I would call world class, and I found a few of the uphill holes to be pretty ordinary. Overall a wonderful experience and definitely worth the trip, but a small step below the other high profile modern links I have played.

Huntingdon Valley true to its name, plays around a large bowl with lots of undulations moving in one direction around the top of the property on the front nine, and then back around the bottom of the valley in the other direction for the back nine. The routing provides a very stern test with strategically routed golf holes with a variety of pairings, of lie, direction and elevation to test every shot in the bag. Combine that with the fantastic firm and fast conditions for a challenging round of golf. A great example of a course that is both difficult, but still enjoyable to play.

An exceptionally maintained course with perfectly manicured fairways and bunkers and sensational fast and true greens. The front nine plays in more of a parkland setting through a sandy forest, before opening up on the back nine through sand dunes. A wild finish with a brutally difficult Par 3 16th followed by the reachable Par 4 17th and Par 5 18th.

An extremely fun, fast and firm course. Wide corriders that are entirely fairway edged by native sandy scruff, allow for aggressive play off of the tee. Very challenging shots into greens, as with multiple approach angles required, greens are more evenly sloped instead of the traditional back to front. This along with the firm conditions require thoughtful approach play and challenging club and target landing spot selection. A great collection of short Par 4's (4, 7, 12) and long Par 4's (1, 3, 9, 14) can lead to pars that feel like both birdies and bogies.

Lost Dunes has a beautiful secluded feeling as the course plays in a pair of valleys, even as it is bisected by I-94. It features wide fairways and playing corridors and large dramatically undulating greens. The first 7 holes are very good and introduce you to some wild Doak greens, but my favorite section of the course is the standout 9 hole 8-16 stretch playing both up and down some of the walls of the larger valley, as well as weaving around the large lakes in its center. This stretch includes two cape style Par 5's (8 and 15) doglegging in opposite directions over the lakes which provide challenging tee shots that prefer differing shot shapes. It also includes the standout 11th hole, with the second shot played up to a dramatically sloped elevated green. The course wraps up with 2 straightforward par 4's back to the clubhouse. One downside is the walk is a little disjointed due to the interstate with shuttles required at the start of each 9 as well as between holes 7 and 8.

I had a 36 hole day at the Kingsley Club, which was one of the top golfing experiences of my life. It starts out with an up, down and up again Par 5 that sets the tone for the type of elevation changes you can expect throughout the course. If you get out of position on the front nine, there are a lot of wild slopes that could get you into trouble. The Par 3 2nd and 9th especially have very extreme green surrounds of perched up greens that make up and down, or even getting down in 3 very challenging. The back nine includes my favorite section of the course in holes 12-17. The standout drivable 13th with one of the craziest greens you will ever see, and the reachable par 5 13th are sandwiched by two difficult par 4’s. The long 15th is particularly tough, hitting to a fairway that slants left to right, with trees that block the perched green out from the very right side of the fairway. The 16th is a long massive Redan-esque hole with an enormous kicker slope on the right side that is a blast to play. The 17th was another hole I really like where there is an enormous ski slope in the middle of the driving zone. In my first round, my drive crested the hill and rolled all the way down for a mid-iron into the green. In the second round, my drive got caught up in the bunkers at the top of the hill and I had to play it as a three shot hole. A swig of whiskey on the 18th is a wonderful tradition to cap off such a memorable round.

An incredibly fun and scenic course with a unique blend of short uphill in to the wind holes and long downhill downwind holes with good variety. A very playable course with only two forced carries on the Par 3 8th and the second shot on the Par 4 17th. Any course with the versatility to be loved by both me and my casually golfing wife gets very high marks. The straight downhill 17th and all world 18th holes are a tremendous way to end the round.

I was blown away by Chambers Bay. It was the one of the funnest course I have ever played with dramatic uphill and downhill holes. The similarity between fairway and putting services combined with the various side and backboards in the extreme green surrounds dictated an imaginative style of play unique in my experience to this point. Especially memorable are the long extremely downhill tee shots on the Par 4 5th and 14th holes and the uphill drivable 12th.

The best course I have ever played, almost 20 years after playing Merion I still vividly remember my round at the course. The course quickly introduces you to its emphasis on precision, in accuracy both off the tee and finding the right part of the green; after slogging my way up to the second hole, and being lucky to stay out of the creek when putting from above the hole on the fantastic severely right to left sloped 5th hole/green. After finding my footing on the shorter middle section of the course, I was able to somewhat redeem myself on the tough closing stretch including the fantastic over the quarry shots on 16 and 17, and the iconic over the hill and back to the clubhouse 18th.

Fascinating routing with lots of parallel holes featuring a steep ravine with a creek. Ingeniously routed to provide variety in how each hole utilizes the ravine at different points in the hole to limit repetitiveness. Case in point are the 1st and 10th hole which play side by side. With the 1st green on top of the ravine and the 10th down it, the holes play completely differently. The greens were very small, but I thought they were challenging without being over the top. My favorite stretch of holes was 4-8, mostly on the back half of the property. I especially liked the 8th hole, where a well placed drive that catches the edge of the ravine funnels down into the valley for a good chance to go at the green in two.

A scenic round of golf anchored by a brief trip to the ocean on back to back front side par 3's (6 and 7) and a return trip for a phenomenal 16-18 finish. This course was played pre the 2019 changes removing a lot of the ocean side holes.

Situated on a great location in downtown Ann Arbor, playing up and over a large ridge that splits the property, U of M golf course has a great collection of greens connected by an walk able routing making for a fun round to play. Fairly straightforward tee to green, a good example of how great greens, including wild greens at #6 and #14 can add a lot of interest to a hole. #6 is one of my favorite holes, a short and downhill par 4 with a diabolical two tier hourglass shaped green.