Harbor Shores is a new Jack Nicklaus design on the shore of Lake Michigan between Chicago and Grand Rapids.

The Players Championship is often dubbed “The Fifth Major,” but a better slogan for this past weekend might have been, “The One Nobody Except Matt Kuchar Wanted to Win.” I spent much of the weekend in the sports books of Las Vegas casinos, where even among a fanatical television sports crowd, few could remain interested. A lot more attention was focused on every NBA early round playoff game – even Andy Pettitte’s losing return from retirement in an otherwise meaningless regular season Yankees game raised more interest than the Players.

Like him or not, without Tiger Woods in the hunt it is hard to get people excited about golf, and the other big crowd draw, Phil Mickelson, also remained out of contention, a 1-2 punch that doomed viewer interest in the Players Championship, which will be better remembered for its exceptionally sluggish pace of play and unusual live spectator booing of one of the leaders, Kevin Na, for his exhausting pre-shot routine.

Fortunately, golf fans can look forward to a much more star-filled slate of players next week, when the Senior PGA Championship presented by KitchenAid takes to the fairways of Harbor Shores, Michigan. This is an actual Major, not a “fifth Major.”

The Senior Tour has not especially wowed audiences historically, but I’d like to think that has a good opportunity to change this week. After all, golf ratings are clearly driven by the performances of the big stars, which means the big winners, like Tiger and Phil, with too many tournament wins and Majors to count between them. In this regards, there is no deeper pool of proven winners than on the Champions Tour, especially at one of its Majors. In fact, while the name change from Senior PGA Tour hasn’t exactly gained traction, the Champions Tour label accurately reflects who is actually playing. Look at the stats: in the Players Championship, the biggest purse in golf, the eleven finishers in the Top 10 spots (tie) had a whopping career total of three Major championships between them – all one time winners. In contrast, the Senior PGA Tour is packed full of Hall of Famers like Tom Kite, Fred Couples, Bernhard Langer, Tom Lehman, Mark O’Meara, Curtis Strange and Tom Watson. Watson alone has nearly three times as many Major titles as the Top 11 performers at the Players combined.

If the PGA Tour’s slogan is “These guys are good,” the Champions Tour should be “These guys are good at winning.”

Giving the public a chance to watch many of the best golfers in history battle it out over an acclaimed new design on the shores of Lake Michigan by the best living golfer of all, Jack Nicklaus, could be just the shot in the arm the game needs. I certainly hope so.

But densely developed Cancun with plenty of hotels has been hurting golf, with only the recent Riviera Cancun to wow visitors. That makes the opening of this nine especially appealing – with plenty more to come.

The final hole at the Robert Trent Jones, Jr. designed Kaluhyat is just one of 54 superb holes at New York's largest golf resort.

The Turning Stone Resort Casino gets far too little press considering its golf stature – it is the largest golf resort in New York State, and also the best. All of its three courses are very good, the resort has an impressive spectrum of lodging, including the very luxurious boutique Lodge at Turning Stone, and the food is excellent. For gamblers, there is a large casino with an extensive poker room. It’s centrally located, and golfers can’t ask for much more than that.

Except maybe a great deal.

The all-suite luxury Lodge at Turning Stone has the best golf accommodations you may never have heard of.

The resort just added two new stay-and-play golf packages, the Lodge Golfer’s Getaway and the Resort Golfer’s Getaway, each available starting May 1 and until October 31 – basically all of golf season here – featuring great golf, more great golf, lunch at the turn and a free drink on the 19th hole. The difference is merely where you sleep.

Both packages  include unlimited range balls, unlimited golf on either the Rick Smith designed Shenendoah Golf Club or the 7,100-yard Robert Trent Jones, Jr. designed Kaluhyat Golf Club after 3 p.m. of your arrival day, with cart, overnight accommodations, and then 18 holes on either course the next morning, with cart, lunch at the turn, and a drink at the 19th hole.

The Lodge package includes accommodations at The Lodge at Turning Stone, a AAA 4-Diamond all-suite hotel with just 95-rooms. I’ve stayed there and it is superb. Rates start at $303 per person per night based on double occupancy. With luxury digs and two rounds of high quality golf, that is hard to beat.

The Resort package includes accommodations at casino’s Hotel or Tower, starting at $240 per person per night based on double occupancy.

To book either golf package, call 800-771-7711 or visit the resort’s web site.

Scotland's magnificent Gleneagles, a Ryder Cup venue, is just one of the premier golf resorts that belongs to Leading Hotels of the World.

The Leading Hotels of the World (LHW) is an association of mostly independent luxury hotels and resorts that have joined together for marketing and cooperation purposes to enjoy an economy of scale and offer one stop shopping for affluent travelers through a website and annual printed guide that details all the properties. The group also has strict admission and retention standards, and all member hotels must qualify to join and re-qualify annually to prove they are worthy of the name “Leading Hotels of the World.” This gives the traveler a certain confidence and comfort level when booking a stay at pre-screened property. It is the largest such luxury hospitality organization in the world, representing over 430 hotels, resorts and spas in more than 80 countries.

Many of these are golf resorts, including some of the most famous on earth.

Because of a recent boom in golf interest at its member properties, LHW just launched a new program called “The Golf Society.” LHW Chief Marketing Officer Claudia Kozma Kaplan noted that “In 2011, our Leading Golf resorts had an increase in revenue of over 40%. This tremendous success reflects the appeal of our iconic golf courses at St. Andrews, Casa de Campo, Gleneagles, and Sandy Lane, to name only a few. Membership in the Golf Society will make for truly extraordinary experiences.”

Joining the Golf Society costs $400 per year, and besides the golf benefits, it includes full membership in LHW’s  Leaders Club program, which in turn grants customers guaranteed room upgrades, free breakfast daily, a membership in the excellent Priority Pass program that lets them use airport lounges worldwide when travelling, early check-in and late check-out, and accrual of points towards free LHW travel.

The golf benefits include free club rental at all LHW properties, free “replay” greens fees, free driving range usage, a subscription to LINKS Magazine, the services of Golf Society Butler for tee times and hotel stays, and the option of participating the ‘Leaders Club Cup’, an annual 5-day event with a tournament on premier courses including Old Course at St. Andrews, Kingsbarns, and the Castle Course.

If you visit LHW properties like Gleneagles or Casa de Campo, this program can pay for itself in just one visit if you rent clubs and play 36 in a day. The Priority Pass membership alone is worth over $200, and I was a longtime member and used it frequently to make my travel much more palatable by utilizing excellent airport lounges around the country and abroad. Of course, the program is not for everyone, but if you travel in these luxurious circles, it may very well be for you.

For more information visit the LHW site or its Golf Society site.

One of the most prolific designers in the history of golf course architecture, Robert Trent Jones II has in recent years championed the environment and affordable public golf.

Few golf course architecture firms have as much global presence and notoriety as that of Robert Trent Jones II, whose most famous works include Spanish Bay at Pebble Beach, Washington’s upcoming US Open venue Chambers Bay, and several hundred others in more than 40 countries.

Jones, Jr. has never been anything less than brutally outspoken, and three years ago he issued his company’s Green Proclamation, a commitment to design golf courses in an environmentally responsible manner. At the same time he called on his peers to likewise dedicate themselves to these environmental tenets.

For 2012, Jones is back at the podium, and just has released a “Public Golf Proclamation,” comprised of ten tenets to support accessible and affordable public golf and bring our beloved game to more people in more places worldwide.

This proclamation follows on the heels of a recent letter to the New York Times, in which Jones, Jr. wrote, “Golf architects are often called upon to design courses that support upscale real estate developments.  But the game’s roots reach down into the Earth, not up into trophy homes.  Golf first developed 500 years ago as an accessible and affordable sport that brought people together outdoors, rather than separating them.  Many great golf courses serve the public and the environment. The future of our sport lies in embracing the Scottish tradition in which all people are equal as they stand over a white ball.”

Without further ado, here is the test of the company’s proclamation and 10 tenets:

PUBLIC GOLF PROCLAMATION
Our Exclusive Commitment to Inclusiveness

From its earliest origins along the coasts of Scotland golf has fostered community, bringing together disparate peoples to enjoy both competition and camaraderie.  In the modern era, golf courses throughout the world have been very successful when created in conjunction with resort and real estate developments and private clubs.  At Robert Trent Jones II we will continue to design the best possible courses to meet the needs of our many and varied clients.  But we believe that golf should also be easily affordable and accessible to everyone who wishes to play it.

As our founder, Robert Trent Jones, Jr., stated in a letter to the New York Times, “The future of our sport lies in embracing the Scottish tradition in which all people are equal as they stand over the ball.”

We applaud the global efforts of golf organizations, associations, and governing bodies, as well as our golf architecture colleagues worldwide, who have worked to promote public access to affordable, high-quality, environmentally responsible golf. In an effort to foster the communal spirit of the game we offer the following declaration to golfers and prospective golfers of every nation:

We aspire to:
1. Work with municipalities and other government entities to create great golf courses for their citizens through insightful, integrated master plans specific to each community.
2. Assist communities in creating programs and initiatives that make great public courses accessible and affordable to everyone.
3. Advocate for the creation of golf facilities on degraded sites to return unproductive land to productive and sustainable public uses.
4. Always protect and enhance the environment for the good of all.
5. Design courses that require less earth moving, water, fertilizer, and other resources in an effort to keep investment and operating costs—and therefore green fees—reasonable.
6. Create wider strategic routings and sets of shorter “family tees” to encourage children to take up golf and have fun playing it.
7. Advocate for innovative practice facilities where young people and newcomers can learn to love golf, and support programs and organizations that introduce new players to the sport.
8. Design facilities that encourage speed of play, including inventive layouts such as “Learning Courses,” par-three routings, 6-, 9-, and 12-hole loops, and others.
9. Create public courses that are flexible, fun, and challenging to golfers of a wide range of abilities.
10. Encourage golf course owners to support local businesses and take an active role in their communities.

Barnbougle Dunes is a bit of Scotland transported to Tasmania - and one of two adjacent courses here ranked in the World's Top 100.

As loyal readers know, I have been preaching the awesomeness of Australian golf for years, and way back in 2004 when I broke the Guinness World Record for golf travel, I started my epic trip at New South Wales Golf Club in Sydney. Now with the Presidents Cup having just put to focus back on Australian Golf, I wanted to follow up the event with another reminder of just how good golf Down Under is – especially as we head out of Australia’s spring and into summer.

Melbourne is simply THE best golf city in the world for the traveling golfer, period, with seven fabled private clubs and eight courses all in one single stretch convenient to downtown – and allowing foreign visitors. Imagine a golf trip to New York if you could suddenly play otherwise off-limits Shinnecock, National, Maidstone, Winged Foot, Westchester Country Club and many more – and they were all in Brooklyn.

Yes, there really are kangaroos and wallabees on the golf courses here.

But golf in Australia is more than Melbourne, and to celebrate this, the Tourist Board just created something called Great Golf Courses of Australia, showcasing the fact that among the nation’s nearly 1,700 golf courses there are six that have been ranked in the World’s Top 100, which is pretty impressive considering that Australia has less than one half of one percent of the earth’s population. Or think of it this way: they have about 15 times the number of great golf courses per capita as the rest of the planet.

The half dozen stars are Barnbougle Dunes and Barnbougle Lost Farm in Tasmania; Kingston Heath and Royal Melbourne in Melbourne; New South Wales Golf Club in Sydney; and Royal Adelaide in South Australia.

The stately setting at Royal Melbourne, whose 36-holes just hosted the Presidents Cup.

Without bragging, I have to say that I have played each and every one of these courses and they are all standouts. My favourite is probably New South Wales and the hidden gem of the bunch is Royal Adelaide. Barnbougle is very much Australia’s version of Bandon Dunes, right down to similar topography, investors and designers. Royal Melbourne was the host of the last two President’s Cups played Down Under and its 36-holes are probably Australia’s most famous. Like I said, this is a notable bunch.

For more info check out the official tourism site.

Scottsdale is overflowing with great golf courses. My favorite is the 36-holes at We-Ko-Pa

Here in the northeast we have already been belted with Old Man Winter, and it is just the middle of fall. New York City broke its all-time snowfall record for October, and overnight temperatures where I live have been consistently below freezing. That means it the time of year when my friends and long lost acquaintances starter emailing me and asking where they should plan their winter golf vacation.

In a word, Scottsdale.

I’ve been giving this a lot of thought. There are any warm weather destinations I love for golf, mainly the Dominican Republic, both coasts of Mexico, Hawaii, the Mississippi Gulf Coast and Vegas.

But I keep coming back to Scottsdale. No place, and I mean no place, has such a concentration of outstanding courses. There is plenty of golf in Myrtle Beach and Virginia Beach, but there is not world class golf, like in Scottsdale, which has more great courses than the entire State of Hawaii.

Consider:

It is super easy to get to, with non-stop flights form every major city in the country, and an airport that rarely experiences significant weather or delays, period.

It has plenty of great food, shopping, alternative activities, entertainment, and nightlife of every type.

It has alternatives in every price range, and while it has some of the most luxurious golf resorts in the world, and winter is high season, there are plenty of more modest hotels, along with lots of condo and suite hotel deals and brokers available.

Likewise it has golf courses for every style and budget, from totally private to very high end resort to great daily fee and even outstanding munis. Several of the best are operated by Native American tribes, and courses run the gamut from traditional parkland to pure desert target golf to everything in between.

But what really excites me about the greater Scottsdale region is how many great multiple course facilities there are. Elsewhere it is more the expectation than the rule that if you have more than one course they will all be good. More common is to have a great course anchoring a facility with a not so great overflow course. But in Scottsdale, excellent 36-hole facilities abound, and that means less moving around and more epic 36-hoel days. Specifically, I mean the following:

We-Ko-Pa: My favorite in Arizona, two absolutely brilliant strategic designs, operated by the Fort McDowell Indian nation and its adjacent casino, with deals and reasonably priced lodging onsite. Golf simply does not get much better than these two.

The Boulders: Two great classic examples of pure desert golf with the utmost attention to service and manicuring.

Troon North: The public facility that helped launch the whole “member for a day” high-end public craze and put public desert golf on the map.

Grayhawk: I am not as enamored of this 36 as some of my colleagues, but everyone I send loves it, and these are two very solid desert courses.

The Phoenician: Okay it is just 27-holes, but given the over the top opulence of the resort and the crowd they get, these three very distinct and interesting nines come as a hugely pleasant surprise.

The Arizona Biltmore: For those who want a break from desert golf, two of the oldest classics (1920s) in Phoenix predate water restrictions and are pure lush parkland layouts. Both were restored extensivly a few years ago.

TPC Scottsdale: Home to the most attended golf tournament on earth, the Phoenix Open (now Waste Management, formerly FBR), with two fun and scintillating stadium courses in an ultra-convenient setting with multiple hotels, including the wonderful Fairmont, onsite.

Talking Stick: Like We-Ko-Pa, another 36-hole Native American owned facility designed by Coore & Crenshaw.

See what I mean? Just this list gives enough to play 36 holes a day for over a week without a single weak link, and there are many more. There is just no equivalent to all these tremendous facilities in one setting this side of the British Isles and it is not exactly balmy there right now.

On its 40th birthday, Teeth of the Dog remains the highest ranked course ever built in the Caribbean.

It’s hard to believe it’s been 40 years, but that is exactly how long Teeth of the Dog, the most famous golf course in the Caribbean has been open.

When Pete Dye first designed the course, there was nothing but jungle on this 7,000-acre swath of the Dominica Republic’s southern  coastline, and much of the work to build the course was done by hand, with picks and axes and wheelbarrows. The tiny water filled ditch that bisects what is now the Links course at the resort was built by Dye as a canal to bring water to the site, which had no infrastructure whatsoever. It’s hard to imagine any golf course being built in this manner today, and impossible to imagine one by a name brand architect, but then Dye was not a name brand architect until after he built Teeth of the Dog and garnered international acclaim for it. It has never wavered as the highest ranked course in the Caribbean in every major magazine, and while he is loathe to admit it, he has inferred that it remains his all-time favorite, and he has a house alongside its fairways.

After Teeth of the Dog got built, with its famous series of holes not just on the coast but on the beach and very nearly in the ocean, the Casa de Campo resort came to be the biggest golf complex in the Caribbean, and among the biggest resorts period, and today it remains the gold standard that many newer competitors have tried and failed to match. Dye returned to build a second course, the Links, which frankly is not very good, and quite poorly named, then a third, the private La Romana Country Club, just for residents. Then there was a considerable gap before he returned to build another masterpiece, Dye Fore, set on stunning headlands overlooking the wild Chavon River, where scenes from Apocalypse Now were filmed. There are no other golf courses quite like this one, perched on the edge of oblivion, and honestly, I have thought since opening that Dye For is even better than Teeth of the Dog, which is really saying something.

Well it just got even better; 2-weeks ago Dye unveiled a third nine at Dye Fore, expanding the facility to 27 holes, and the resort to 63-holes, the first step towards splitting Dye Fore into two full blown courses. The new nine is called Dye Fore Lakes, and comes on the heels of a $40 million renovation of the rest of the resort last year.

Casa de Campo is simply a fantastic place to go and play golf. For the most part, it is run as an al-inclusive resort, with lodging in a variety of hotel rooms, villas, and lavish private homes, with numerous bars and restaurants dispensing free flowing food and booze throughout. The place is huge and self-contained and includes a vast state of the art shooting facility, equestrian center, world-class marina with its own retail and dining village, and most shockingly of all, an entire hilltop village built by stone artisans to resemble a Tuscan medieval town. It even has its own airport. At Casa de Campo, when you go to play golf it is hard to decide where to tee it up, and when you are not playing golf it is nearly impossible to choose from all the options of what to do next. The easiest choice is just to go, period, especially with the new nine.

Refreshed? All the greens were completely replaced, trees, bunkers and tees added, even four new holes.

Florida has more golf courses than any other state in the Union – and more any other country on earth. But Pensacola has just one and exactly one municipal course, the Osceola Municipal Golf Course. And after 85 years of play, it got tired.

So it is good news for both locals and visitors to this popular vacation destination that the City of Pensacola and its Parks and Recreation Department just wrapped up a massive renovation of the course.

Hence the city’s new marketing slogan: “Come Play Osceola Again For The First Time.”

The very popular course has a vivid history. It was designed in 1926 by William Earl “Wild Bill” Mehlhorn, a Texan who was the longest hitter of his day and won more than 47 tournaments and competed on the very first Ryder Cup team, as well as the inaugural Masters tournament. As a side note, Wild Bill famously wore a cowboy hat while he competed, something I wish one of the young kids out there had the courage to do today. That would be cool. And instant sponsorship.

Anyway, the changes are pretty extensive to this grand old course:  four entirely new holes, including three new par-3s. The length is about the same given the footprint of land, but the new configuration as a par-70 rather than 72 considerably ups the challenge. All throughout the layout are reconstructed green complexes with first-class putting surfaces of MiniVerde Bermuda, the same found at top PGA Tour venues like Bay Hill and TPC Stadium Course at Sawgrass. Other improvements include new cart paths, more bunkers, and more trees. Runway tees have been replaced with separated teeing grounds for men, women, seniors and juniors. In addition, the Osceola clubhouse has also been redecorated and features a new restaurant.

Osceola is also home to the area’s First Tee program, and these facilities are vastly improved, including a new 40-person practice facility complete with a massive putting and pitching green, and a separate sand bunker.

So after all this, guess how much it costs to play Osceola? Well, the high season weekend rate, with cart, for 18 holes, is a whopping $25. Really.

A grand re-opening event is scheduled for Friday, Oct. 7

Every hole at Salsih Cliffs is isolated by thick forests and laid out as eye candy.

Loyal readers know I have sung the praises of casino courses before, from Idaho to Mississippi, and with just one or two very minor exceptions, they are a uniquely American golf phenomena. At the moment they are also the only American golf phenomena still being built.

Casinos usually consider their golf courses an amenity for gamblers, a very large and grassy version of the free drink. They don’t need to make a profit on it like “normal” courses do, just like they don’t need to make a profit on the casino bar. Plus they often have money to burn.  So when building a course they tend to hire the best architects and spend lavishly – designer Rees Jones, no stranger to the casino golf business, told me that the courses he did for Foxwoods casino in Connecticut, which required an enormous amount of expensive blasting, would never have been built by a run of the mill developer. Casino courses, once built, also usually receive white glove maintenance.

Joining Rees Jones on the list of architects who have regularly embraced the casino golf craze are Tom Fazio, Robert Trent Jones, Jr., Jack Nicklaus, Davis Love, and Gene Bates. Bates’ may not be the most famous in the bunch, but his work certainly stands up to the highest critical standards. I recently wrote about his acclaimed Circling Raven casino course in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho. Circling Raven perennially makes every magazine’s list of the world’s best casino courses, and is usually the first or second highest rated layout outside of Nevada.

Last week Bates’ latest casino creation opened at the Little Creek Casino resort just outside Olympia, Washington, and very convenient to Tacoma (30 mins) and Seattle (60 mins). It is also very convenient (30 mins) to future US Open venue Chambers Bay, a new must-play for golf pilgrims, giving the area a one two punch that begs for a visit. The major difference is that while Chambers Bay is in the top price range of publics, the new Salish Cliffs golf club is a bargain, and you can practically play it four times for the cost of a round at Chambers. It is also really good.

Bates got about 400 pristine acres from the Squaxin Island nation, a hugely generous piece of land, and as a result, you cannot see any other holes from the one you are playing, with just two exceptions including the unique double green for nine and eighteen. The land is rolling on mountain foothills, with dramatic elevation changes, more than 600 feet on site, and it is covered with the signature tree of the Pacific Northwest, the majestic Douglas Firs. The bunkering is natural and first rate, the place is just beautiful, and for a maximum price of just $89 – including cart – you feel like you have the entire place to yourself, a beautiful round through nature’s solitude.

It also plays well for all abilities, forgiving off the tee but long form the back, and offers a great routing and hole variety, plus several risk/reward opportunities that put your course management to the test. I loved the drivable par-4 second (maybe because I drove it) and there are a few reachable in two par-5s, and an enormous length variety in the par-3s. Everything about the course works, from aesthetics to maintenance to the variety to the flow. It was a hoot to play – I played it three times and it never got old.

My colleague Robert “Bad Bob” Fagan joined me on the trip, and his recent write up is much more detailed. I’d just like to alert readers to a notable new course that is also one of the top golf values in the nation, and will almost certainly be ranked alongside Bates’ Circling Raven – if not higher – in the Top 100 You Can Play come next year.