Million Air Summer 2021

PAYNE’S VALLEY, BIG CEDAR MISSOURI, USA During the summer of 2020, the second US course designed by Tiger Woods opened at Big Cedar Lodge in the Ozarks of southern Missouri. Named in honor of the late Payne Stewart, who was born and raised in the region, Payne’s Valley brings Woods’ design philosophy to the general public for the first time (the original US course designed by Woods opened in 2016 as a private club outside of Houston). Like Woods’ first US design, Payne’s Valley features wide fairways, relatively low rough meant to keep balls in play rather than penalize players, and strategically placed hazards that will challenge good golfers but not require lesser-skilled players to hit shots near or over them. “My favorite [style of] golf is to play it on the ground, which is links golf,” Woods says. “You can use the ground as your friend. So many of the different golf courses that I play around the world, that’s kind of been taken out of the game. Everyone’s forcing people to play the ball in the air.” At Payne’s Valley, as is the case at Woods’ other courses around the world, the terrain is conditioned to play firm and fast, especially around the greens. “I want the ball running, I want it traveling, I want it moving on the ground,” Woods says, “and this golf course allows us to do that.” bigcedar.com

ST. PATRICK’S LINKS, ROSAPENNA HOTEL & GOLF RESORT IRELAND

The grand opening of any new Doak-designed course is significant, as the 60-year-old has created or renovated almost two dozen courses that routinely appear on prominent golf publications’ lists of the top courses in the world. But the opening of a new Doak-designed links course in Europe is especially noteworthy, since EU regulations have now prevented those coastal lands from being developed for golf. St. Patrick’s Links, which will open this summer at the Rosapenna Hotel & Golf Resort in northernmost Ireland, was grandfathered in since 36 golf holes had already been constructed on the site. The 18 new holes that make up St. Patrick’s Links stretch out across more than 350 acres of land that had previously held the two original courses. Preexisting fairways on the site have been incorporated into four of the new course’s holes, but otherwise Doak and his team created a brand new routing that utilized the best parcels of land. “It’s definitely an advantage to have more great land to work with,” says Doak, who acknowledges that the finished layout is easily walkable even though it includes golf holes positioned in far-flung corners of the property. This project will introduce golf travelers to a region of Ireland that they’ve likely never seen — an area of the country that still looks and feels how much of Ireland did when Doak first visited after graduating from college in the early 1980s. “Once you get off the main byways,” he says, “the last 20 or 30 miles going up to Rosapenna still feels like it did 40 years ago.” rosapenna.ie

Big Cedar Lodge, Rosapenna Hotel & Golf Resort, Bandon Dunes, Dumbarnie Links