Tim Gavrich’s 2024 Golf Travel Awards

In almost every respect, I am really going to miss 2024. 

That statement is especially true of my year on the golf course. After crossing the 600-golf-course mark early last December, I close out this trip around the sun closer to the 700-course mark. In all likelihood, the first new-to-me course I play in January will be number 662. Not bad for someone who turned one-under-through-nine (35) this year. 

This year’s crop of golf courses taught me a lot, but the lesson they really crystallized was that bigger is seldom better. As a staunch pro-rollback golfer, I’ve always had that feeling, but after playing both Pinehurst No. 3 (5,200 yards, par 68) and Sedge Valley (5,800 yards, par 68) in May, that feeling has become a conviction: golf would be better if it were a little less bloated, a little more nimble, a little quicker to play, with less ostentation and a little more quirk.

Yes, any year in which I can say I checked in at both Pinehurst and Sand Valley – before Memorial Day, no less – can be considered a big win. Add in trips to Arizona (June, December), Georgia (August, October) and Northern Ireland (July) and you can understand my reluctance to let 2024 pass into history.

Another highlight of the year: watching some golf in person. I took in parts of three Florida Swing events this spring, including Peter Malnati’s courageous and emotional victory at the Valspar. I even got to play Innisbrook’s Copperhead course – Sunday pins and all – the following morning. In August, I was among the first golfers to play the renovated East Lake Golf Club just days before the 2024 Tour Championship. It’s a wonder touring pros don’t have more wrist problems given how healthy the rough was at both courses. 

Here are some other highlights of the year:

Number of rounds: 96 – comprising 87 18-hole big-course rounds plus further shorter-course loops and one rainout after 12 holes – as of this writing. I might squeak in one or two more before the calendar turns over. At any rate, it will be the most rounds I’ve played since pre-pandemic and pre-fatherhood.

Number of different courses played: 79

New-to-me courses played: 54

Lowest score: 55*, the asterisk coming because it was at a par-3 course, Mountain Shadows in Scottsdale, in their weekly Tuesday Skins game. One of my playing partners had a much better round.

Best rounds: 67 (-5) at Sand Valley’s original course in May and 68 (-4) at County Louth Golf Club in July. I include both because there’s a weird common thread: for both rounds, I was fresh off a plane with next to zero sleep the previous night. I basically sleepwalked my way to my best golf of the year. I don’t love what that suggests about my mental game…

Worst round: 81 (+9) Sandridge Golf Club’s Dunes course in the first round of my home county amateur. I wish I could blame it on a busy preceding week of travel but I simply laid a rotten egg in the first round of the tournament I look forward to most each year. Gutted.

Year-end handicap index: +1.1

When I revise my personal all-time top-10 course list after crossing the 700-course mark next year (hopefully), The Lido, attached to Sand Valley, will jump into it. Given the hype surrounding its concepting and construction, the experience of playing it exceeded my already-high expectations. From its idiosyncratic routing to the steeplechase-like arrangement of bunkers and collection of audacious one-off holes, it was a complete immersion in highbrow golf course architecture. My #1 mission in golf is to qualify for the 2026 United States Mid-Amateur there.

I had the pleasure of playing Milwaukee Country Club on a brilliant May day. The weather was ideal, the company couldn’t have been better and the course, one of a small handful of Charles Alison designs in the U.S., is a parkland treasure that spends several holes wandering an S-shaped bend in the Milwaukee River. As someone who typically takes dozens of photos at most courses, I was actually thrilled to put my phone away for this one and instead be fully present for 18 holes among friends. 

Even though I only took one trip outside the U.S., the competition for this award was a nail-biter. I played Royal County Down and Royal Portrush on back-to-back days, and the 2025 Open Championship host eked out the late victory when I pitted them head-to-head in match play. 

After feeling for years like the only Millennial who had never been to Nashville for a weekend, I finally shed that feeling in September when I attended a friend’s wedding. The morning of the nuptials, I headed half an hour south to Murfreesboro to play the just-reopened Old Fort Golf Club and was darn glad I did. Architect Nathan Crace’s conscientious edits of a good existing 1980s layout add up to yet another proud outpost of American golf’s “Munaissance.”

In June, I made a tee time – 110-degree afternoon forecast high temperatures be damned – at Talking Stick Golf Club’s O’odham Course because I had always been curious about it as an example of Coore & Crenshaw’s early design work on completely flat original ground. I expected good things, but I was blown away by how much the course reminded me of Pinehurst No. 2, with convex greens sloughing impure shots off into generous but tricky fairway runoffs, and bunkering that was ruthlessly strategic amid perfectly firm, fast turf conditions. The experience made me think that the summer might actually be the best time for pure golf in Arizona, as long as you drink enough water.

A June round at the Links Course at Bear Lakes Country Club in West Palm Beach was fun, but getting to reconnect and tee it up for the first time in nearly 20 years with a high school teammate was the real highlight.

Hole 5 on The Bad Little Nine at Scottsdale National Golf Club is just 86 yards but its surrealist greenscape – “green complex” doesn’t quite capture it – was the closest interplay between golf ground and sculpture that I have ever seen. 

This year I became one of the lucky traveling golfers who will forever look back in awe at the incomparable 9th at Royal County Down, which plays almost off a cliff to a green at the foot of the stately clubhouse, which is itself backdropped by the otherworldly Mountains of Mourne. 

Opening holes are often wasted opportunities, but the par-5 first at Mystery Valley Golf Club east of Atlanta grabbed my attention when I arrived at the crack of dawn on getaway day at the end of my August trip. Midcentury master Dick Wilson wasted no time in making things interesting with a swooping right-to-left dogleg that rises to one of many scarily tilted greens. 

American cities’ old-time country clubs of record tend to have the best clubhouses, and Milwaukee Country Club‘s is no exception. It might have my all-time favorite golf locker room.

I’m not a big candy person, but I do love grape-flavored Jolly Ranchers. So I took a small handful when I discovered them in a nifty multi-layered setup at Gainey Ranch Golf Club in Scottsdale.

Courses and travel comprise my main beat, but I took a closer look at golf equipment this year than I have before. Getting to spend a couple of days learning about PXG’s mid-year equipment release – including a tour of their R&D facility – was eye-opening. That the event was held at the over-the-top Scottsdale National Golf Club made for a nice meeting of clubs and courses. Separately, the new World Golf Hall of Fame in Pinehurst deserves a shout-out.

Pinehurst finished a meticulous renovation of its flagship Carolina Hotel in 2023. Having stayed there in the olden days, I was a little nervous about whether the updates might sand off some of the decades of character the place had taken on. No worries; it’s every bit as charming as ever. I know Pinehurst has lots of lodging options, but it’s hard for me to separate the resort from The Carolina. It’s that good.

Every year, destination golf clubs and resorts gradually perfect the golf cottage concept with beautiful decor, leveled-up amenities and increasingly clever ergonomics (don’t underestimate the well-placed outlet for a phone charger…). The brand-new cottage I stayed in at Sand Valley was both airy and cozy, and the one I enjoyed for a couple of nights at Geneva National was pitch-perfect, too. Of course, the four-bedroom Scottsdale National cottage – complete with immaculate front-courtyard putting green – I shared with three other golf writers was over-the-top, but the super-private nature of the club makes it a different animal altogether

As a warm-up to Thanksgiving spent in Pawleys Island (one of my happy places), my wife, daughter and I experienced wonderful hospitality at Fripp Island, about 40 minutes past the great South Carolina Lowcountry city of Beaufort. They loved finding shells on the beach and tooling around the island in a golf cart, and I enjoyed two lovely 18-hole walks around the renovated Ocean Point Golf Links and Ocean Creek Golf Club. Fripp brings a solid one-two golf vacation punch with plenty to occupy the fam.

I love sushi, and relished the opportunity to grab a seat at the counter at PGA National Resort & Spa’s outpost of Sushi by Bou, a clever and relatively affordable ($65 for the 12-course option) omakase concept that uses less than 1,000 square feet of space and barely any kitchen equipment beyond a modest heating element and a handheld blowtorch. Sushi by Bou has locations across the country, but the intimacy of the space and the quality of nigiri that came my way made it feel nothing like a chain.

As golf resorts continue to add upscale dining options, I am fortunate to get to sample a lot of them. But a creeping sameness to many of them – steakhouses with New York-high prices but not quite the quality – has made me appreciate lower-brow fare even more than I already did – both on- and off-property. That’s why a post-Milwaukee Country Club trip to Kopp’s, the great burger and custard institution, gets this spot.

I don’t drink a lot, but a post-golf beverage wind-down is usually a very good call. The Oaxacan Old Fashioned at Geneva National’s Hunt Club steakhouse was a brilliant spin on a tough-to-beat standard. On the lighter side, during my trip to Ireland and Northern Ireland in July, I followed just about every round with a pint of Magner’s (or Bulmer’s, when in the Republic of Ireland) hard apple cider. I know Guinness is the default for most people, but I’m not a beer guy. I am, however, a Magner’s guy. If anyone knows how to get Magner’s into package stores down here in Florida, I would be eternally grateful.

Cheers to a gratifying 2024 in golf. See you in 2025!