The most exclusive golf clubs don’t have velvet ropes. But some have security gates, and tiny memberships, and dues on the scale of the national debt. All of which makes them tricky to access. Quite a few of these places appear on GOLF’s latest ranking of Top 100 Courses in the World. Here are 11 of the toughest tee times on the list.
Hello again, friends. Settle in for our mostly-uninterrupted broadcast, drink in the pastels of dogwoods and magnolias, and let that pre-recorded birdsong wash over you. By the time the final putt drops, you’ll feel as though you’ve memorized every ridge and rise of Alister MacKenzie’s masterpiece — which is convenient, since experiencing it in person is, for almost all of us, a lovely little fantasy.
A founding pillar of the USGA and home to the nation’s first 18-hole course, Chicago Golf is the game’s version of a lovable old grump. Membership is tiny. Unaccompanied play is not allowed. And guests are asked to steer clear of the property until their host arrives, and to scram as soon as said host departs. If courses could channel cranky charm, C.B. Macdonald’s creation would be on the front steps of its clubhouse, grumbling at the world to get off its lawn.
Situated in a lonely swath of the Lone Star State, where rumpled dunes run alongside a lovely bend in a wide river, Childress is the newest course on our World Top 100, but Childress follows an old model of exclusivity: high initiation dues, low number of members.
“Cypress once held a major membership drive,” Bob Hope liked to joke about his home club. “They drove out 40 members.” The roll today still hovers around a couple hundred fortunate souls who can stroll onto a seaside layout so spectacular you half expect park rangers to appear and warn you to stay on the designated paths.
Both literally and figuratively insular, this Seth Raynor gem sits off the eastern tip of Long Island, reachable only by boat or private plane and far beyond the everyday golfer’s grasp. The wealth here predates paper currency. And it prefers anonymity: in 1979, after GOLF placed Fishers on its first-ever world ranking, the club politely asked to be removed. Hard to reach? Absolutely. But once you’re there, it etches itself into memory.
Japan’s devotion to etiquette and tradition finds a fitting expression at Hirono. What it doesn’t extend quite so readily is access. No unaccompanied play. Almost no tournaments of note — only the Japan Amateur and Japan Open have broken through. A recent Martin Ebert restoration has only stoked curiosity, but the guest list remains as tight as ever.
A great many golfers dream of pegging it at this sandy, piney wonderland an hour north of Paris. Très peu actually manage it. Built in 1913 as the personal playground of the Duke of Gramont, Morfontaine has remained a discreet refuge for French golf aristocracy and various worldly heirs. Unaccompanied visitors are about as common as steak tartare without an egg yolk. Unless you count a Duke among your acquaintances, you may never get close — though you’ll certainly hear the legends about its lunch.
Yes, there’s a ballot. Yes, there’s a walk-up line. But if you aren’t a local or linked to the R&A, you’ll probably want a tour operator to help navigate a tee sheet that fills up years out. One of the game’s little paradoxes: the Old Course is open to everyone, which makes it feel, at times, almost impossible for anyone to book a slot.
Since we’re all into analytics these days, let’s crunch a few. The world’s top-ranked course means global demand to play it. Most members live far away. Guests can’t come unescorted. Add the fact that Pine Valley doesn’t fundraise or host corporate days — rare backdoor entry points at other elite clubs — and the equation is simple. The probability you’ll tee it up here hovers somewhere around snowball-in-July territory.
Imagine the stereotypical Florida golf enclave — glitzy clubhouse, over-amped landscaping, gold-plated carts — and then picture the opposite. That’s Seminole. Ben Hogan once said that if he were a young pro, he’d do whatever he could to gain access to this Donald Ross classic. Sensible advice, though not easily followed. This is the club, after all, rumored to have passed on Jack Nicklaus.
A GOLF staffer once spent several blissful days at this Coore-Crenshaw design, perched on breezy seaside bluffs on Hainan Island, and encountered exactly one other group. The emptiness is by design. Membership is low-capped, initiation fees clear seven figures, and on many days the staff so vastly outnumbers golfers that employees have been known to spell out guests’ names in range balls, in giant letters on the practice ground.
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