x
Skip to main content
Golf Logo
InsideGolf Join Now  / Log In
My 7 favorite Augusta-area golf courses, ranked by their accessibility
SHARE
  • Share on Facebook
  • Share on Twitter
  • Share by Email
Golf Logo
  • News
    • Latest
      • News
      • Features
      • Shows
      • PGA Tour Schedule
    • Series
      • Tour Confidential
      • Monday Finish
      • Hot Mic
      • Rogers Report
    • Shows
      • The Scoop
      • Subpar
      • Seen & Heard
  • Instruction
    • Game Improvement
      • Driving
      • Approach Shots
      • Bunker Shots
      • Short Game
      • Putting
      • Rules
      • Fitness
    • Series
      • Top 100 Teachers
      • Rules Guy
      • The Etiquetteist
    • Shows
      • Warming Up
      • Play Smart
      • Short Game Chef
      • Pros Teaching Joes
  • Gear
    • Clubs
      • Drivers
      • Irons
      • Hybrids
      • Fairway Woods
      • Wedges
      • Putters
    • Other Gear
      • Balls
      • Shoes
      • Apparel
      • Golf Accessories
    • Series
      • ClubTest
      • Winner’s Bag
    • Shows
      • Fully Equipped
  • Travel & Lifestyle
    • Travel
      • Course Finder
      • Courses
      • Resorts
    • Lifestyle
      • Accessories
      • Celebrities
      • Food
      • Style
      • Betting Advice
    • Shows
      • Super Secrets
      • Destination Golf
  • Shop
    • Shop
      • Clubs
      • Shafts
      • Training Aids
      • Balls
      • Bags
      • Technology
      • Apparel
      • Accessories
      • Our Picks
      • Shop All
    • Collections
      • The GOLF Collection
      • The Birdie Juice Collection
      • The Fully Equipped Collection
      • Shop All
  • Newsletters
    • Sign Up for GOLF’s Newsletters
      • Hot Mic
      • Monday Finish
      • Play Smart
      • Our Picks
      • Top Stories
      • Sign Up for All
  • News
    • Latest News
    • Features
    • Shows
    • PGA Tour Schedule
  • Instruction
    • All Instruction
    • Driving
    • Approach Shots
    • Bunker Shots
    • Short Game
    • Putting
    • Rules
    • Fitness
  • Gear
    • All Gear
    • Drivers
    • Irons
    • Hybrids
    • Fairway Woods
    • Wedges
    • Putters
    • Balls
    • Shoes
    • Apparel
    • Golf Accessories
  • Travel & Lifestyle
    • All Travel
    • All Lifestyle
    • Course Finder
    • Courses
    • Resorts
    • Accessories
    • Celebrities
    • Food
    • Style
    • Betting Advice
  • Series
    • Tour Confidential
    • Monday Finish
    • Hot Mic
    • Rogers Report
    • Rules Guy
    • The Etiquetteist
    • ClubTest
    • Winner’s Bag
  • Shows
    • The Scoop
    • Subpar
    • Seen & Heard
    • Warming Up
    • Play Smart
    • Short Game Chef
    • Pros Teaching Joes
    • Fully Equipped
    • Super Secrets
    • Destination Golf
  • Shop
    • Clubs
    • Shafts
    • Training Aids
    • Balls
    • Bags
    • Technology
    • Apparel
    • Accessories
    • The GOLF Collection
    • The Birdie Juice Collection
    • The Fully Equipped Collection
  • Newsletters
    • Hot Mic
    • Monday Finish
    • Play Smart
    • Top Stories
    • Our Picks
    • Sign Up for All
InsideGolf Join Now  / Log In
InsideGolf

InsideGOLF: +$140 value for $39.99

Join Today
Travel

My 7 favorite Augusta-area golf courses, ranked by their accessibility

By: Michael Bamberger
April 7, 2025
  • Share on Facebook
  • Share on Twitter
  • Share by Email
aiken golf club

Aiken Golf Club offers one of the Augusta area's best values.

Zephyr Melton

AUGUSTA, Ga. — Earlier this year, partly for my own amusement and more so for those who still read books, I cooked up a list of some of my favorite courses in and around Augusta. I listed them in terms of their accessibility, from most difficult to least difficult. I didn’t quite know what to do with Augusta’s six-hole First Tee course, chiefly because it’s a six-hole course. A solid one at that. Anyway, here’s how the list shook out:

1. Augusta National. Have played it a handful of times. Good course. What they don’t tell you in any on Golf Channel or elsewhere is that there is no grass under your ball. So unless you have some Seve in you, good night and good luck.

2. Augusta Country Club. Old Old-South course. Hugely fun and playable (one ball should do) and now, post Helene, you can see the roof of the Augusta National clubhouse from the Country Club’s halfway house. Same piece of land, really, both courses running down to Rae’s Creek.

3. Palmetto Golf Club. In Aiken, S.C., across the Savannah River from Augusta and an easy half-hour drive away. Private, cozy club with a patrician past and a hot-dog steamer for your midround calorie needs. After a heavy rain, ancient golf balls rise from its turf. The course heaves and hos and celebrates scruffiness as an enduring value in traditional course maintenance.

palmetto-golf-club.jpg
Palmetto Golf Club Getty Images

4. West Lake Country Club. A housing development course off Furys Ferry Road on the outskirts of town and almost in the country. Not a memorable course but one a lot of us (golf bums posing as writers) have played often over the years, courtesy of Masters-week house rentals.

5. Forest Hills Golf Club. In Augusta, owned and operated by Augusta University, some of it very Donald Rossy (with a few holes that would leave D. Ross scratching his head right through his woolen cap). The trademark of Georgia golf is an elevated tee, a swale, an elevated green; pine needles; tall pines. As Ross, in his save-some-ink way, used to say, FH gotz.

6. Aiken Golf Club. I should point out that the counter people won’t let me pay a green fee here, which is kind but robs me of the chance to fork over $30, cash money, and get change. The green fee is $28, after 1 p.m., hoofing. As the song goes, afternoon golf on a public course, bag on back, is where it’s at. One of my post-Masters Monday plays. Not even 5,800 yards with unreachable par-3s and double greens. Straight outta Scotland.

Aiken Golf Club in South Carolina.
Aiken Golf Club Courtesy

7. Augusta Municipal Golf Course, aka The Patch. If you have never played it, you’ll be playing a new course when you do. Hurricane Helene last year felled well more than 1,000 trees and the course has been closed since Jan. 1, not because of the storm damage but because of an overhaul the course is getting, courtesy of some well-intentioned golf-minded philanthropists with ties to Augusta National. The old Patch was baked and tilted and odd, but also huge fun. The new Patch will be different. Whether it is better is another question. When it comes to golf courses, as is the case in other aspects of life, better is in the eye of the beholder.

But most any beholder would consider Palmetto, Augusta Country Club and Augusta National to be memorable, outstanding courses. If you’re way into golf-course architecture, or just playing golf, your life will be richer for having played these courses. (Especially — fill in the blank.) Three in one place (pretty much) is something. I’m not saying greater Augusta is, as golfing mecca, Philadelphia (my longtime home) or New York (born and raised) or Chicago (engaged there), but it has a heavy-duty golf magnet. Ben Crenshaw will tell you that. So will Rees Jones, the architect son of the architect Robert Trent Jones. Herbert Warren Wind wrote about how Bobby Jones was drawn to Augusta for golf long before there was an Augusta National.

In 1989, I asked Crenshaw (who had one Masters victory then), Trent Jones (who deserves more credit for Augusta National’s strategic use of water through the back nine) and Wind (who came up with the phrase Amen Corner) to name the three great golf capitals of the United States. Crenshaw’s list went New York, Philadelphia, Chicago. Trent Jones’s order was Philadelphia, New York, Chicago. And Wind’s ranking was Chicago, Philadelphia, New York. I don’t recall Augusta coming up in these conversations, which took place a few weeks after the ’89 Masters.

Recently, I posed a similar question to Gil Hanse: What would he consider the great American golf capitals?

“Philadelphia, New York, Chicago, San Francisco,” he said. Gil, who lives in the semi-rural Philadelphia suburbs, said of our adopted home, “Philadelphia has two of the all-time greats and a very deep bench. Pound for pound, in the tightest area, the best!” Pine Valley and Merion, of course.

News
augusta national 12th hole
If Augusta National looks like it’s missing something this year, it is
By: Michael Bamberger

From there, Hanse went to New York: “Arguably the best lineup but penalty points for being spread out over a large geographical area.” Yes. National Golf Links, on Long Island, to Quaker Ridge, in Westchester County, can take three hours, given the moods of the Long Island Expressway.

And then, Chicago: “Like Philadelphia, two all-timers at the top but the bench is not as strong.” I’m quite sure Chicago G.C. is at the top of his list. When I find out his No. 2, I will update ya! Could be Medinah. More likely Shoreacres.

Finally, batting fourth, San Francisco:

“Talk about a compact center of gravity — the stretch from Cal Club to Harding Park and the other courses in between, more if you grab Meadow Club to the north and Pasatiempo to the south.” The San Francisco Golf Club and the two courses at Olympic are in this fertile stretch, of course.

I asked Gil about greater Augusta and whether it deserved consideration and this is what he said:

“I thought about it, but it is really only three or four deep. Augusta National, Palmetto, Old Barnwell and Tree Farm. Not much else that would sniff the other cities’ Top 10s, in my humble opinion.”

I haven’t played Old Barnwell or Tree Farm. It would be impossible for me to leave Augusta Country Club off this list. As for the Aiken Golf Club course, I’m not saying it’s world-class in the conventional sense. But it is public, inexpensive and fun.

Some years ago, late in his life and on assignment for Golf Digest, George Plimpton poked around the Masters. He stumbled into a green-coated Augusta National member sitting in a green golf cart and asked, “How do you get into this nice club?”

Here’s how Plimpton described the exchange: “For an instant, he looked into what I believe is called the middle distance. And then he said, ‘There are some application blanks up there at the clubhouse,’ and he drove off.”

So, there’s that. There’s a lot of that, all through American golf. Every last course in Scotland has tee times for the public.

Aiken G.C. follows suit. If you want to play there, you just call the shop and see when the first tee is open. Most late afternoons are good.

Oh, this in from Gil Hanse, regarding his top two Chicago courses: It is Chicago G.C. over Shoreacres, by a nose.

“Really more like 1 and 1A and very close, in my book,” he said.

Michael Bamberger welcomes your comments at Michael.Bamberger@Golf.com

Latest In Travel

2 days ago

Pinehurst Resort has another new course in the works. Here's what we know

5 days ago

Seaside swings: Exploring golf (and views) in the Dominican Republic

6 days ago

His Rory McIlroy biography was finished. Then McIlroy won the Masters

6 days ago

How to defend courses against the longest bombers? This architect has ideas

Michael Bamberger

Michael Bamberger

Golf.com Contributor

Michael Bamberger writes for GOLF Magazine and GOLF.com. Before that, he spent nearly 23 years as senior writer for Sports Illustrated. After college, he worked as a newspaper reporter, first for the (Martha’s) Vineyard Gazette, later for The Philadelphia Inquirer. He has written a variety of books about golf and other subjects, the most recent of which is The Second Life of Tiger Woods. His magazine work has been featured in multiple editions of The Best American Sports Writing. He holds a U.S. patent on The E-Club, a utility golf club. In 2016, he was given the Donald Ross Award by the American Society of Golf Course Architects, the organization’s highest honor.

Related Articles

News
he parents of Rory McIlroy of Northern Ireland, Rosie and Gerry watch on the first green during Day Three of The 149th Open at Royal St George’s Golf Club on July 17, 2021

Why Rory McIlroy’s parents missed his emotional Masters win

By: Alan Bastable
News
rory mcilroy hugs daughter poppy off the 18th green at augusta national

In 6 silent minutes, CBS delivered a Masters broadcast masterpiece

By: James Colgan
News
Nick Faldo shakes hands with Bryson DeChambeau prior to the 2019 Open Championship held on the Dunluce Links at Royal Portrush.

'It's bulls--t': Nick Faldo defends Bryson DeChambeau criticism

By: Kevin Cunningham
News
Justin Thomas and fill-in caddie Joe Greiner post-win.

Dahmen's heartbreak, JT's surprising advice, caddie intrigue | Monday Finish

By: Dylan Dethier
Putting
PGA Tour pro Justin Rose lines up putt on No. 6 at the Masters

Make more putts using this tour-trusted alignment hack

By: Maddi MacClurg
News
Rory McIlroy

Tour Confidential: Where does Rory McIlroy's Masters win rank among the best ever?

By: Zephyr Melton , Josh Schrock , Nick Piastowski
News
Zach Johnson

‘Walked out of there not very comfortable’: Masters Dinner wowed 1 winner

By: Nick Piastowski
News
Rory McIlroy, Poppy McIlroy

Rory’s daughter asks a tough question, and I'm a Green Jacket fan | Weekend 9

By: Nick Piastowski
News
rory mcilroy and kate rose embracing after the masters

Why this Rory McIlroy Masters hug resonated

By: Alan Bastable
Sign up for GOLF's Newsletters
Get the latest news, the hottest instruction tips, new product releases, golf media insider reports and more delivered directly to your inbox. Choose your favorites now.
Sign Up
Categories
  • News
  • Instruction
  • Gear
  • Lifestyle
  • Travel
Services
  • Masthead
  • GOLF Media Kit
  • GOLF Magazine Customer Service
  • TERMS OF SERVICE
  • PRIVACY POLICY
  • Opt-out of Ads/Sharing
  • Your Privacy Choices
Social
  • facebook
  • x
  • instagram
  • youtube
Membership
InsideGOLF Logo
More than $140 Value for JUST $39.99

INCLUDES 12 SRIXON Z-STAR XV GOLF BALLS, 1 YR OF GOLF MAGAZINE, $20 FAIRWAY JOCKEY CREDIT - AND MUCH MORE!

LEARN MORE

© 2025 EB Golf Media LLC. An 8AM Golf Affiliated Brand. All Rights Reserved. All of our market picks are independently selected and curated by the editorial team. If you buy a linked product, GOLF.COM may earn a fee. Pricing may vary.

Go to golf.com

This content is available only to InsideGOLF members.

More than $140 in value for $39.99

1 Dozen Srixon Golf Balls

$20 Fairwayjockey.com credit

1 year GOLF Magazine subscription

50+ pieces of insiders-only content each month on GOLF.com

GOLF Magazine’s 600+ Issue digital archive

Weekly insider newsletters curated by GOLF’s top creators

Free True Spec fitting with any club purchase

50% off GolfLogix Green Books

50% off GolfLogix Game Improvement App

$100 off any Fairway Jockey purchase of $500+

$100 off any Miura Iron purchase of $500+

Join Now

Already a member? Sign in

Go to mobile version