Top 10 You can Play

In a banner year for rookies, here are the best public-access tracks that opened in 2004

By SCOTT GUMMER & TARA GRAVEL
Senior Writer & Senior Editor GOLF MAGAZINE

Golfers are a different breed OF sports enthusiast. We plan entire vacations around checking out a new course. You don't see tennis players or bowlers flying cross-country just to try a new facility. But we get pumped, blather on breathlessly and strike out to visit the latest hot spots like these--the 10 best new public-access courses in America. If a golf course opened in 2004, we know about it. We scoured every state, consulted the cognoscenti and left no loose impediment unturned in our never-ending quest to bring you the best of what's new in golf. Enjoy these playgrounds--both here and in person.

May River Golf Club at Palmetto Bluff
Bully Pulpit Golf Course
Lakota Canyon Ranch Golf Course
Windswept Dunes Golf Club
Kinderlou Forest

The Raven Golf Club at Verrado

Buckeye, Arizona
7,258 yards, par 72, greens fees $129- 139, 623-215-3443, ravenatverrado.com

The last golf frontier around Phoenix is the West Valley, where designers Tom Lehman and John Fought carved a rollicking course on what used to be a test track for Caterpillar tractors. The most memorable holes include the 12th, a 442-yard dogleg-left with a pesky pot bunker scooped out of the fairway, and the 13th, a 310-yarder that is rumored to be driveable, but plays sharply uphill to a green with a false front. The course has already drawn raves not only for its design but also for its pioneering all-in-one package: unlimited golf, unlimited range balls, golf cart, all snacks and non-alcoholic drinks from the beverage cart, plus breakfast and lunch or lunch and dinner in the lively Cocina Grille.

Fighting Joe at The Shoals
Atunyote Golf Club at Turning Stone
The Wilderness at Fortune Bay