Forest of Arden introduces buggies with sat-nav for players lacking direction

Last weekend China announced the closure of 111 courses following a multi-year campaign to protect land and water resources. An additional 18 courses were ordered to return land and 47 clubs were told to halt construction. Among these course closures was Stone Forest's extraordinarily dramatic Leaders Peak.

In 2016 Brian Ward reached the milestone of 1,000 different courses played and he decided to set himself another target, to play one hundred courses that were new to him during 2018.

The 2018 calendar is drawing to a close and looking back there were a number of key newsmakers clearly providing a significant impact on the architectural side of things. In some cases the headliners of 2018 will carry forward into 2019.

We left a few loose ends behind when we returned from The Netherlands last year. Our visit back then covered most of the country’s top tracks but there were a few courses that we just didn’t have time to see, until last week...

Designed by Jack Nicklaus, Michlifen Golf & Country Club is the Golden Bear’s first Signature course in North Africa and it’s been built to a standard that makes it more than capable of hosting both national and international tournaments.

In June, our correspondent in France set up a week-long tour of top courses in and around Paris, with a cast list that included half the national Top 10. Here’s how events unfolded when we set out to play this stellar roster of French layouts…

Our Best in State biennial re-ranking exercise for the USA continues unabated, with the revision now focusing on Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Ohio and Wisconsin in the eastern half of the Midwest. 18 courses in this division also claim a slot within our US Top 100.

When we last re-ranked Brazilian courses, just before the start of the Olympics, the Rio 2016 Olympic Golf Course was listed at number 2 and it remains in the runner-up position in this revised edition of the Top 20 chart.

Our Best in State biennial re-ranking process for the United States of America continues at pace as we reach the western half of the Midwest, embracing the Farm Belt states of Iowa, Kansas, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota and South Dakota.