Golf course Archives - Hal Phillips

Golf Wallpaper: Home-Screen Takeaways from Royal Lytham & St. Annes

Hal Phillips — Mon, 29 Dec 2025 23:49:21 +0000

I tend to spend a lot of time at the computer. In 2025, I started collecting fun golf course images to use as wallpaper on my oversized monitor. The better ones stay in place for several weeks, allowing for detailed scrutiny and study. I decided to share some of the most thought-provoking examples here. 1) […]

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Fescue Programs: A Roadside Meditation

Hal Phillips — Sat, 20 Dec 2025 22:58:00 +0000

Driving home from a dreamy golf excursion, author Hal Phillips noticed wispy grasses glistening alongside a newly widened stretch of a busy interstate. Their presence raised questions about the agronomics of incorporating a linksy feature into inland settings. [Ed. This essay was first published in the November 2026 print edition of Golf Course Industry magazine. […]

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In this Age of Identity, has Augusta National Gone Aussie?

Hal Phillips — Wed, 08 May 2024 19:45:39 +0000

AUGUSTA, Ga. — Is it me, or did the 2024 Masters Tournament concluded last month exude a subtle-but-fascinating Antipodean vibe? I’m not talking about the field itself (though I do think ESPN and CBS could have done with an Aussie Cam, to track the progress of Mssrs. Davis and Smith), but rather the course itself. […]

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Developers Gonna Develop, So Let’s get Real about Golf Course Flexibility

Hal Phillips — Sat, 02 Mar 2024 16:20:06 +0000

This story in The New York Times, published mid-February 2024, struck a chord. Not because I’m a golfer, but because I’ve written quite a lot about abandoned golf courses, the re-wilding of courses, even the resuscitation of courses gone fallow. As long ago as 1994, the NYT has even seen fit to quote me on […]

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What’s a Design Nerd to Think, “When Nines Don’t Match”?

Hal Phillips — Fri, 16 Feb 2024 15:44:14 +0000

[Ed. This piece appeared 25 years ago in a magazine called TravelGolf Maine founded by a fellow named Park Morrison. It didn’t last long (1998-2001) and, sadly, Park passed away last year, in 2023. I’m including the story here because surely it never made it online — and because it appeared, in print, under a […]

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Thanksgiving in China: Two Stories Behind the Story

Hal Phillips — Tue, 23 Jan 2024 18:29:14 +0000

It’s been a decade since this piece was published in the print edition of LINKS Magazine, under an original headline that played on the “China Syndrome” trope. I recently ran across it online. So I’ve shared it here, 10 years down the road. Almost immediately upon publication of this feature, President Xi Jinping started calling out […]

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Return of the Missing Links: Ponky Revised and Revisited

Hal Phillips — Mon, 14 Aug 2023 14:51:03 +0000

[Ed. This feature was published by McKellar magazine in the spring of 2019, under the headline, “Return of the Missing Links.” Apropos of its motto — “a golf companion” — McKellar exists entirely as an analog/print entity. It maintains no online incarnation. Accordingly, please see below at PDF version of the story, to read here […]

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If Augusta National Pine Trees should fall (or fall ill), Would They Make a Sound?

Hal Phillips — Tue, 04 Apr 2023 19:16:09 +0000

Ed. I’ve contributed dozens of stories to GOLF Magazine and golf.com through the years (I’ve served on the mag’s world top 100 course-rating panel since 1997). But none landed with such a thud as this one about Augusta National pine trees, published in the March 1999 print edition. In 24 years, I’d heard nothing re. […]

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Late-Nineties Flashback: The Great Maine Golf Development Binge

Hal Phillips — Fri, 09 Sep 2022 14:37:43 +0000

[Ed. This piece from 1998 was assigned and purchased by, but to my knowledge never appeared in, Downeast Magazine. At that time, the U.S. was opening 400 new golf facilities every year. Maine golf development was equally madcap. When I moved to New Gloucester that same year, only Fairlawn GC and Poland Spring existed nearby. […]

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Breaking 120 at Augusta: Could a 16 handicap do it? Experts Weigh In

Hal Phillips — Sun, 14 Aug 2022 11:23:20 +0000

[Ed. LINKS Magazine published this star-studded piece back in 2006, prior to the Masters Tournament claimed by Phil Mickelson. Breaking 120 at Augusta was a bit simpler back then. He prevailed over a course measuring 7,445 yards; ANGC plays another 120 yards longer today, and green speeds only get faster with the passage of time. […]

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