America’s best college golf course returns after high-profile redo

The college golf rankings are always in flux. But college golf course rankings? Not so much. With all due respect to fine layouts at Stanford, Williams, Ohio State, Oklahoma State and others, one campus course has long been consensus No. 1.

When it’s actually open, that is.

For Yale Golf Course, a celebrated Charles Blair Macdonald and Seth Raynor design, that’s been hit or miss in recent years. After shutting down at the end of the 2019 season, the course slumbered on through 2020, beset by maintenance problems that deepened during the pandemic. In late 2023, it shuttered again, this time for a full-scale renovation that rates among the most notable public-access redos in recent memory. That work consumed 2024 and 2025, but it’s now complete, and the scheduling could hardly be better-synced.

On April 28, just ahead of its centennial, Yale GC will be back in business, following a Gil Hanse and Jim Wagner-led renovation aimed at honoring Macdonald and Raynor’s original 1926 vision. Greens, tees, bunkers and fairways have been expanded to their historic dimensions. The iconic double punch bowl on No. 3 has been revived. The rare inverted bunkers on No. 6 are back. New championship tees push the layout past 7,000 yards, and every green has been rebuilt to USGA specs, a first in course history.

Yale once ranked as high as 71st on GOLF’s Top 100 Courses in the World list, but dropped off the last three editions, a rare — and glaring — shift in the college course hierarchy. It’s hard to imagine that the course won’t be in the mix next time ballots are submitted.

But never mind rankings. Let’s talk recreational play. Unlike many elite collegiate layouts, you don’t need a diploma — or an acceptance letter — to book a time at Yale. Green fees for non-affiliates run $350, which isn’t cheap but about what you’d expect for a course of this pedigree. Getting out on Yale, in other words, is much easier than getting in.

3 things I’m thinking

Philadelphia story: Another Gil Hanse and Jim Wagner project — the full restoration of Cobbs Creek in Philadelphia — is still roughly a year from completion. But an important phase crossed the finish line this week with the grand opening of Lincoln Financial Center at Cobbs Creek. A name like that makes the place sound like a baseball stadium. In fact, the center is a three-story building that houses a restaurant, pro shop and double-decker driving range with Toptracer technology, all good to go for the start of the 2026 season. As with other recent marquee muni revivals, including the Patch, the Park and Golden Gate Par 3, work at Cobbs Creek has been propelled by deep-pocketed private investment. And the benefits are already showing, though the big biggest payoff won’t come until 2027, when the updated Olde Course at Cobbs Creek (the original was designed by Hugh Wilson of nearby Merion fame) opens for play.

Whale of a change: The humpbacks will be back in Kapalua, but it’s hard to know what else might change now that the PGA Tour won’t be returning. You probably heard the news. The Tour has done away with its Hawaii Swing — both the Sony Open on Oahu, and The Sentry, the traditional season-opener at the Plantation Course in Kapalua on Maui. It’s no secret that Kapalua has been through the wringer in recent years, ravaged by drought and devastated by deadly wildfires in nearby Lahaina. Now comes the end of a 25-plus-year-old tournament that accounted for an estimated $50 million in annual economic activity for the island. Kapalua’s other course — the Bay Course — remains closed due to water issues. But the Plantation Course, which shuttered for three months last September, is up and running, which makes me wonder how it might be used in January, now that it won’t be hosting an tournament that it first staged in 1999. With the Tour pros absent, will that week revert to everyday resort play? Maybe. Maybe not. A well-placed source tells me that Kapalua is looking into welcoming another event during that same window, though what shape that might take is still TBD. 

Festive fundraiser? Possibly? More muni-related news, though it comes with a caveat. Registration is open for The Whole Hog, a daylong golf outing and barbecue fundraiser at East Potomac Golf Links in Washington D.C. It is scheduled for May 8 in support of National Links Trust — the same National Links Trust that was working to restore East Potomac when the federal government revoked its lease late last year. Though NLT still operates the course, that status is tenuous, a point underscored by the invitation to the event. The cost per player is $375, which includes 36 holes of golf, breakfast, lunch, dinner and tee prizes. But, the invitation notes, there’s “a chance that NLT will no longer be operating the course at the time of the event due to the actions of the Trump administration. If this occurs, we will refund the entry fee.”