Simply the Best — A Golf Digest first: Our list of the Top 75 Golf Resorts in America

Golf Digest, March, 2002 by Mike Stachura

Rankings, we have come to learn, can be a very inexact science (see college football). And while at times it can seem like promoting one color of a perfect midsummer's rainbow over another, rankings do make for good fun. And we at Golf Digest can think of nothing more fun on a cold winter's afternoon than ranking the best golf resorts in America.

In the past, Golf Digest has ranked "resort courses," but for the first time in our history we have set out to rank the Top 75 Golf Resorts in America. It's the places we're after, not merely its fields of play, although to be sure high-quality golf overcomes nice lobby paintings every time. It certainly seems logical that any list of the best golf resorts has to start with the magical, mystical Monterey Peninsula. The Pebble Beach Resort is all the things a great golf resort must aspire to: inspiring beauty, an unerring attention to the joys and the challenges of the game and an unfaltering commitment to comfort, relaxation and rejuvenation of its guests. If the exchange rate on pictures to words is one to a thousand, then Pebble Beach and its collection of properties is the verbal equivalent of the Unabridged Stephen King Library. From The Lodge at Pebble Beach to the Inn and Links at Spanish Bay and, of course, Spyglass Hill, Pebble Beach blankets you in pleasure.

That is what we want from the best golf resorts: We want everything without having to ask. Whether it's Semiahmoo in the Pacific Northwest, Princeville in Hawaii, Doral in Florida or The Equinox in Vermont, you can visit the four corners of this land and almost anywhere in between and find golf nirvana.

Our first ranking comes with a surprise or two. For instance, perhaps you have never come across Keystone Ranch, Kiva Dunes or Eseeola Lodge in your travels. Let there be no doubt: you should. Still, our top 10 is dotted with the greats: The Greenbrier, Pinehurst, Sea Island, The Homestead, Kapalua. One name, though, emerges as a most special surprise. It is off the beaten path, but at the same time it lies in the very heart of America. The American Club has emerged as our No. 2 golf resort, perhaps for the simple reason its mission seems only to be better today than it was yesterday, when yesterday was just about perfect.

They do all the big things right at The American Club, which is right across the street from the factory for the Kohler Company. It was Kohler president Herb Kohler who had the vision to develop the historic American Club (the former home for immigrant Kohler workers) into a premier resort destination. Pete Dye did all 72 holes, including the River Course, site for the 1998 U.S. Women's Open, and his epic Whistling Straits, site of the 2004 PGA Championship.

It goes well beyond the golf. The Immigrant restaurant's wine cellar is impeccable, to equal the menu. The accommodations are matchless (the bathrooms, not surprisingly, are memorable). But it's the little things that get you. Like the 310-thread-count Egyptian cotton sheets on your bed (which, by the way, comes with six pillows), or the special ovens they use to make European-style bread, or the intoxicating Royal Madagascar Double Strength Bourbon Vanilla Extract they use on their carmelized desserts. Quite simply, there's nothing plain at The American Club, not even the vanilla.

The American Club is just one of the many golf resorts that set a memorable standard. As you read through our list, savor it all. These spots won't disappoint.

How we ranked them

The Golf Digest Editorial Board's ballot of 225 highly regarded golf resorts was mailed to the more than 700 raters on our Course Rating Panel. They assigned scores on a scale of 1 ("very bad") to 10 ("absolutely perfect"). Our panel returned nearly 16,000 individual votes. To determine a formula for tabulating votes, we consulted with Dean Knuth, a panelist, mathematician and former senior director of the USGA handicap department. Highest and lowest scores were discounted to determine an average rating for each resort. The average score was then multiplied by 10 to achieve a ranking on a 100-point scale. A resort had to be named on at least 35 ballots to be included among our top 75.

America's Top 75 Golf Resorts

1. Pebble Beach Resort (Calif.) 90.94

You do the math: three exquisite accommodations (The Lodge at Pebble Beach, the Inn at Spanish Bay and the private-house elegance of Casa Palmero), four golf courses (America's 100 Greatest members Pebble Beach and Spyglass Hill, along with Del Monte and the Links at Spanish Bay), one unrivaled setting. Of course, there's more, like the rooms with private gardens and fireplaces, the seaweed-mask treatments (harvested from Stillwater Cove) and caddies who will inspire and entertain whether it's your first trip to Pebble Beach or your 50th.

www.pebblebeach.com, 800-654-9300

2. The American Club (Wis.) 89.45

Middle America with a flair for the dramatic: top-shelf lodging and four of Pete Dye's best in a postcard setting. The courses vary from the pastorally penal (remember the '98 U.S. Women's Open on the River course?) to Whistling Straits' Ireland with attitude. Nongolf choices vary, too: an award-winning recreation center, an arts complex, a luxurious spa and walking tours of the Kohler factory.