St. Louis Country Club

One gets the impression, playing St. Louis Country Club, that C.B. Macdonald was perplexed about how to route a course on such a tight piece of property. After all, his previous design efforts were spacious. But at St. Louis C.C., Macdonald must have felt squeezed, for he installed back-to-back par 3s at the second and third holes, placed his Redan par 3, the 16th, near the entrance road, then had players walk back to the 16th tee to play the 17th. Those quirks aside, St. Louis C.C. is a sublime, hilly museum of golf. It has so many enormous, unique landforms, it’s like playing golf through a dinosaur graveyard. The short par-4 18th is Macdonald’s version of the 17th at Prestwick, the Alps, and features a blind approach over a ridge into the green. If you miss a 30-incher on this punchbowl green, remember Sam Snead did, too, to lose the ’47 U.S. Open.