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Words by Ryan Book
Lead Image by Jason Jahnke
Illustrations by Nobi Kashiwagi
Light / Dark
Editor’s note: For the fifth consecutive year, members in the Broken Tee Society App compiled and voted on a routing of the best golf holes they played as a community over the past 12 months. Enjoy a tour of this wild amalgamation of 2025 below, and explore the previous versions here: 2021, 2022, 2023, 2024.
No. 1: Tobacco Road Golf Club Sanford, NC 558 yards, Par 5 Mike Strantz (1998) Nominated by Alex N.
Fantastic estates demand fantastic gates. Our opening hole stares down a pair of colossal crests that rise like Tolkien’s Argonath at the mouth of the Anduin, confirming that there is adventure beyond and questioning whether the player is bold enough to pursue it.
Let loose and find that all is not as it seems at Mike Strantz’s monument. The fairway has opened up beyond the hills, embracing the brave. Those willing to chance another blind shot over the next ridge may be funneled down to a generous green in two. Brace yourself, for these are merely the first of many devilish and delightful choices we’ll make across the 2025 BTS Composite.
No. 1 at Tobacco Road. Photo: William Rainey
No. 2: Kiawah Island Golf Resort (Ocean) Kiawah Island, SC 543 yards, Par 5 Pete Dye (1991) Nominated by Paul N.
The biggest alligator on Kiawah Island, Charlie, lives near No. 17 on Turtle Point, but the scariest monster lurks farther down the island. This beast doubles down on Pete Dye signatures, with double the wetland crossings and a double-dogleg. Avoid the marsh and find yourself caught in the skeletal arms of live oaks that reach up from waste bunkers surrounding the green.
Ocean’s opener doesn’t do much to justify the course’s maximum USGA difficulty rating. No. 2 is when you meet the teeth. Take a bite or get bitten; both feel great.
No. 3: Bandon Dunes Golf Resort (Old Macdonald) Bandon, OR 375 yards, Par 4 Tom Doak / Jim Urbina (2009) Nominated by Chris C.
Let’s be honest: C.B. Macdonald benefitted greatly from so few Americans having actually seen Scottish golf’s wonders. When he mixed spices and created template curry rather than clone existing holes, not many knew the wiser. Sahara at the National Golf Links was about as modular as Mac got, combining cuts from Royal St. George’s to make his own Sandwich.
Tom Doak similarly handcuffs himself to the land rather than the lore with his rendition of a Sahara at Macdonald’s Bandon namesake. Heck, Doak even ditched the title waste bunker and leaned fully into the Maiden, the paramount blind dune in ancient Kent. It takes a certain kind of hubris to riff like that, and we’re all better off for it.
No. 4: Bethpage State Park Golf Course (Black) Farmingdale, NY 517 yards, Par 5 A.W. Tillinghast (1936) Nominated by Joe. S.
Four holes in and the BTS already needs to refill the water bottle—three par 5s within the first four holes will do that. Unfortunately, we’ll need to climb a mountain and cross a desert to reach that blessed comfort station.
Tillinghast’s infamous No. 4 amalgamates what made both the man and Bethpage Black great; embracing the natural and introducing the unnatural, all in the name of a supreme challenge. Mild on the scorecard but miles in the mind, players hike from the valley over perhaps the greatest of great hazards to a green perched over another pit. And you won’t walk downhill until your approach rolls off the back.
No. 5: Pine Valley Golf Club Pine Hill, NJ 238 yards, Par 3 George Crump / Harry Colt (1929) Nominated by Steve A.
Finally, a par 3. Well, on the scorecard, anyway. If Crump did indeed folly at Pine Valley, his amateur instincts were smoothed by a host of professional consultants. Most famous among them was Harry Colt, who convinced Crump that his original concept for this par 3—a simple forced carry of the lake—was a cheap parlor trick.
Instead, the duo made this short one distressingly long, pushing the putting surface back 70 yards and wedging it between a magazine of sandy menace high and left and further affliction low and right. Exacting, exhausting, exhilarating.
Read more about this “Anthology of Hazards” in the yardage book feature from No. 18.
No. 5 at Pine Valley. Photo: Christian Hafer
No. 6: Whistling Straits (Straits) Sheboygan, WI 409 yards, Par 4 Pete Dye (1998) Nominated by Ben D.
Kohler, Kohler, bless your ball…which of these bunkers is cruelest of all? Whistling Straits is so blown out with blowouts that even professional golfers fail to realize when they’re playing out of them. To choose one as the most malevolent seems a daunting task, until you witness the plight of those deep in the cochlea of “Gremlin’s Ear.”
The hazard, added by Dye after the 2010 PGA Championship, offers no quiet to the golfing soul; balls reverberate off the walls but never escape, an echo chamber of insanity. And even if you dodge it, nine lesser goblins front the right side of this split green, a standout oddity at a course designed for a superintendent’s revenge.
No. 7: Pebble Beach Golf Links Pebble Beach, CA 107 yards, Par 3 Jack Neville (1919) / Jack Nicklaus (1998) Nominated by Ryan M.
Ever heard of it? The magic of possibly the most photographed hole in golf is in three little numbers. Dozens have altered the size and grades of its bunkers, the scope and slant of the green. God himself, if you allow, perpetually shifts winds and waves around it. But the scorecard has always shown 107.
Stasis worth treasuring in a sport that over the decades has seemed to pride itself on maddening change.
No. 7 at Pebble Beach. Photo: Kohjiro Kinno
No. 8: Cruden Bay Golf Club (Championship)
Cruden Bay, Peterhead, Scotland 250 yards, Par 4 Old Tom Morris / Archie Simpson (1899) Nominated by Cory P.
“Cruden” translates to “slaughter of Danes,” a Gaelic reference to an ancient Viking defeat where the course now sits. “Ardendraught” is both that battle and the namesake of Cruden’s eighth, which stands as a reminder to players that slaughter can come from a thousand cuts as much as by a gaping wound.
At 250 yards, pulling less than driver may seem like cowardice. But over the green, short of the green, past the flagstick or just a few inches too short all can result in tide-turning second shots. The key to victory is often understanding when one cannot win. Archie Simpson surely looked at Cruden’s dunes and realized traditional holes did not fit. He embraced the landscape and won the war.
The 8th at Cruden Bay. Photo: Christian Hafer
No. 9: Chambers Bay Golf Course University Place, Washington 197 / 160 yards, Par 3 Robert Trent Jones II / Jay Blasi (2007) Nominated by David H.
Seasonal necessity required alternate tees for Chambers Bay’s signature par 3, and the creative minds at Robert Trent Jones II GCA essentially created alternate holes.
The two sets of tees, farther from each other than either is from their shared green, offer bespoke experience based on player personality. Enjoy the visceral thrill of watching a ball battle gravity down 90 feet? Play from the elevated tees atop Olympus. Prefer the Pine Valley experience of carrying uphill across a bunkered battlefield? Head down to the other box. It’s too bad you can’t make this choice at Chambers every day. But the BTS Composite is our dream, and we’ll play whatever tees we want.
The elevated tee on No. 9 at Chambers Bay. Photo: Jeff Marsh
No. 10: The Lido Nekoosa, WI 401 yards, Par 4 Tom Doak / C.B. Macdonald (2023) Nominated by Ben D.
Such were the features at the original Lido that writer Bernard Darwin described the landscape as a “battlefield for giants.” And no singular detail was so gargantuan as the hill defending No. 10, the Alps hole. It was surely the most time-consuming task when Tom Doak’s team rebuilt the course from scratch in the Wisconsin sandscape.
Players face what Germans would label a rätselfrage—a question with no correct answer—when plotting how to tackle this mountain from the tee. Go far right for a look at the green or stay left for a nearer, blinder shot, all complicated by a barrage of bunkers dividing them, the most intimidating of which are the two strips hiding in the Alpine shadow.
No. 11: Pasatiempo Golf Course Santa Cruz, CA 390 yards, Par 4 Alister MacKenzie / Marion Hollins (1929) Nominated by Ryan M.
Jim Urbina’s recent work on this classic has drawn praise, primarily for his restoration of Alister MacKenzie’s bunkering aesthetic and elaborate putting surfaces. But natural wonders like No. 11 make it a fair question to ask if Urbina, or even MacKenzie, can claim full credit for Pasatiempo’s grandeur.
No doubt the refurbished foursome of hazards lining this green make for fine viewing in the setting Pacific sun. The green itself, awash in micro-undulations, shimmers more than billows. But it’s the barranca, king of the Monterrey golf ravines, that defines this hole and its strategy. MacKenzie recognized that all he needed was to humble himself before it, and Urbina wisely followed suit.
Crossing over the 11th at MacKenzie’s Pasatiempo. Photo: Christian Hafer
No. 12: Augusta National Golf Club Augusta, GA 155 yards, Par 3 Alister MacKenzie (1934) / George Cobb (1975) Nominated by Michael Z.
The consequences for failure at even the most recognized par 3s is relatively light: an ugly mark on the card, a lost point in the match, cackles from the gang. At Golden Bell the penalty is permanence—for most, it’s the realization they will likely never play this hole again. The staggering winds of fortune that allowed you this shot are now swirling above the green. Come up short and you’ll relive the splash in your dreams and every conversation about one of golf’s greatest halls.
Now imagine being here with the lead on Sunday.
No. 13: Tobacco Road Golf Club Sanford, NC 573 yards, Par 5 Mike Strantz (1998) Nominated by Sam S.
No. 13 is a microcosm of all the Strantzian trademarks that make Tobacco Road special: colossal waste bunkers angled against tee shots and a green—long and thin—tucked behind a blind approach. It’s got a real sense of danger, and shows how Strantz was the new and the old.
The original BTS Composite featured Lahinch’s infamous “Dell,” an ancient par 3 played blind into a valley. Strantz deftly employs a similar look on the approach to this three-shot hole, proving that he wasn’t just moving fast and breaking stuff—he was maintaining the tradition of great architects, while intriguing and infuriating his audience in turn.
No. 13 at Tobacco Road. Photo: William Rainey
No. 14: Old Barnwell Aiken, SC 285 yards, Par 4 Brian Schneider / Blake Conant (2023) Nominated by Marc H.
It’s easy to become a mouse in the maze when teeing off at Old Barnwell. Immense fairways offer dozens of routes—most of them wrong—on the journey to birdie. And then there’s this short 4, where even Schneider and Conant’s plans veered aggressively off the master plan published to Barnwell’s website.
Two industry vets, their names finally on the marquee, played in the sandbox rather than play it safe. A centerline, a clusterbomb, a figure eight and a green that steps down from the landing area—their best laid plans went awry and we are the beneficiaries.
No. 15: Kingsbarns Golf Links Kingsbarns, Fife, Scotland 212 yards, Par 3 Kyle Phillips (2000) Nominated by Chris B.
By the strictest definition, links golf is bound to its seaside location, running alongside yet separate from the surf. Whether it’s a dogged adherence to tradition or perhaps fear of appearing American, designers of more recent Scottish courses have dodged tee shots that intentionally carry the North Sea.
Not Kyle Phillips. Determined to make an imprint, he extended the No. 15 green at Kingsbarns out along a pronounced peninsula. Where once the widow looked outward, waiting for her sailor to return, she now looks inland, hoping your tee shot survives the 212-yard carry through the gale. In both cases, the traveler is often lost at sea.
No. 16: Bandon Dunes Golf Resort (Bandon Dunes) Bandon, OR 363 yards, Par 4 David McLay Kidd (1999) Nominated by Chris C.
Early paleontologists created mish-mash dinosaurs because they didn’t yet have all the facts to know which bones went where. When David McLay Kidd unveiled No. 16 at Bandon, the reactions might have been similar to those freakshow monsters of yore.
The stone shelf, the centerline pot bunkers, the uncleared ridge splitting the fairways. Could this be golf? There was no previous fossil record for such an organism. Not in the United States, anyway. Kidd’s Scottish blood and a special piece of land led to something audiences here had never seen. Mike Keiser approved, further opening the floodgates for the modern era of course design.
No. 17: St. Andrews Golf Club (Old) St. Andrews, Fife, Scotland 455 yards, Par 4 Allan Robertson (1848) / Old Tom Morris Nominated by Chris B.
It is difficult to imagine the era before James McNeill Whistler’s 1875 painting “Nocturne in Black and Gold.” It’s held as the point where art crossed the Rubicon into abstraction, a tipping point that would shape the painting world forever. Likewise, it is difficult to conceive of modern golf course design without the “Road.”
One can’t be sure whether Whistler or Allan Robertson—whose designs at St. Andrews predated the painter by several decades—intended to change the world. Almost everything that followed these works, however, owes something to these bedrocks of their respective fields. And while “Nocturne” has been rivaled in its wake, there are few holes as acclaimed as “Road.”
No. 18: Pinehurst Golf Resort (No. 2) Pinehurst, NC 451 yards, Par 4 Donald Ross (1911 / 1935) Nominated by Alex N.
For the 2025 Composite, we opened by descending from the first tee toward a pair of monumental dunes, the gates of Tobacco Road beckoning. The journey back to the clubhouse, just down the road at Pinehurst No. 2, is more subtle in terms of landscape, but it is much larger when it comes to spiritual impact.
The walk up this final hill may not be the most trying we’ve tackled on this trek, but the weight of the moment is undeniable; see the bunkers where U.S. Opens were won and lost, the green where one last big putt cemented a legacy. If this is Valhalla, consider too its Odin: Donald Ross laid out more than 400 courses during his lifetime, yet kept returning to improve this one.
A litany of innovators and rebels is responsible for conjuring this course. Built across 175 years, these holes explore varying visions for what the game should be and, perhaps more importantly, could be. From Morris to MacKenzie, Dye to Doak, we’re all better for it. Who will be the next to take up that mantle? What will be the next holes to demand inclusion in the BTS Composite?
We hope you’ll let us know in 2026.
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