Author: Sean Ogle

So I’m about a year into my quest to play Golf Digest’s Top 100 and Top 100 Public golf courses in the US. I’ve played: 23/100 Top 100 Public 11/100 Top 100 7/100 Top 100 in the World I can’t tell you how many times I’ve gone back to each of these Golf Digest lists, to see if there were any courses in a certain area. Pretty much whenever I’m going somewhere I look for a course I can knock off while I’m there. What I’ve been looking for and haven’t found is a visual map of all of the…

Over the last 10 months I’ve played 22/100 top public courses, 11/100 top 100, and 7/100 of the top courses in the world. One of the questions I get asked most is “which one is your favorite.” How do you compare a course sitting atop an ocean cliff to a parkland course that’s hosted majors to a course in the high desert? It’s extremely difficult, there are things I like about just about every course I play. But over the last few weeks I’ve been doing some thinking about what my favorite courses are, and why. = On my second trip to…

I’ve heard Cascata Golf Club referred to as the “8th Wonder of the Golfing World”. After visiting, it’s not hard to see why as it’s an oasis in the middle of desert nothingness. Whenever possible we like to shoot some video along with our photos and course recaps, and Cascata was definitely a course worth filming. We had an incredible round, and our caddie Drew knew the course like the back of his hand – so we could focus on making shots, and some pretty moving pictures. We’ll have the full recap with photos of every hole in the coming weeks, but…

I knew that taking a golf trip to Wisconsin and Michigan in October may not have been the best idea from a weather perspective – so I did my best to prepare myself. While my first few rounds were unbelievable weather wise, that quickly changed when I hit Erin Hills and the Irish Course at Whistling Straits. Let’s just say things got wet. Very wet. I pulled the Storm Fit Nike Golf Rain Suit out of my bag, put it on and hoped for the best. I ordered a medium and the fit was perfect, it was also higher quality than…

When people ask you what the most fun round of your life was, your response might be the time you hit a hole in one. Maybe it was the time you played Pebble Beach or Pacific Dunes. Or perhaps it was just a beautiful sunny day with your best friends. Chances are your response wouldn’t have been that time you played a par 3 course in a driving rain with 40 mph gale force winds. Well, those were the conditions I experienced when I played Bandon Preserve for the first time last weekend. While I don’t know if I’d for…

I remember the first time I played the Wolf Creek course on the Tiger Woods video game. I wasn’t sure if it was an actual course or one of those fantasy courses, the landscape was that intense and surreal. Located in Mesquite, Nevada, about an hour and a half outside of Las Vegas – Wolf Creek is truly a one of a kind course, er, experience. We made the quick trip over, not knowing what to expect. It’s literally located 3 minutes from the center of Mesquite, which was not what I was expecting. Based on photos and landscape I thought…

The Game Golf System has promised to revolutionize golf stat tracking. Does it? Or is it just another fancy gimmick?

For years I’ve done a lot of travel, but didn’t ever fly with clubs until I started my quest to play top courses last spring. I was flying to Chicago for a speaking engagement, and decided to head out and play Cog Hill #4 – only my 3rd of the Top 100 Public Courses. Being that it was my first time traveling with clubs, I knew I needed a travel bag – but didn’t want to spend a ton of money. I headed to Golfsmith and after half an hour of weighing the pros and cons of each bag I ended up…

I’ve spent pretty much my entire life living in Oregon. Yet for some reason, I didn’t make it down to Bandon until last November – or 14 years after Bandon Dunes first opened it’s doors. Every year my golf buddies and I would say, this is the year we’re going to do it, and every year, time, money, or other commitments got in the way. So when I was out at Portland Golf Club in October, and their membership director told me they needed one more guy for a November trip down to Bandon there really was no way I could turn…

I wasn’t sure if Oakland Hills was going to happen – but man did I want it to. One of the most frequently asked questions on the trip was “How did you get on the private courses?” Medinah was pretty straight forward, Oakland Hills, not so much. The common answer: “It was a friend of a friends, dad’s business partner’s, business partner” – and that pretty much sums it up. I’m learning that a big part of the fun of going for the Top 100 is all of the cool people you meet along the way and the interesting circumstances…