Top Ten Wine Country Golf Courses

This is the week the Professional Golf Tour comes to Wine Country in the form of the Safeway Open being played at Silverado Country Club in Napa. By all accounts, it’s becoming a more and more popular stop on the top professional golf tour based on its location and the hospitality of the Silverado Country Club. Equally alluring is that it occurs in the middle of harvest.

In honor of the Tour coming to Napa this week and the deep demographic link between wine and golf, I list my Top Ten Wine Country Golf Courses.

1. Mayacama Golf Club — Santa Rosa, CA
Sitting in the Mayacama Mountains to the east of Santa Rosa, Mayacama is a Jack Nicklaus design that winds its way through hills and small valleys and is a visually stunning challenge.

2. Sonoma Golf Club — Sonoma, CA
Beautiful, classic layout in Sonoma Valley that is beautifully kept.

3. Silverado Country Club — Napa, CA
Two 18-hole courses (North and South Course). The attraction here is the diversity of the challenges from uphill to downhill to island greens to long doglegs. (try the burger dogs).

4. Chardonnay Golf Club — Napa, CA
Eighteen holes plopped down in the middle of vineyards and with a unique six par 3s—six par 4s—six par 5s layout.

5. Eagle Vines Golf Club — Napa, CA
Locate right next to Chardonnay and sporting the best island green in the region. Fun to play with a lot of blind tee shots.

6. Aetna Springs Golf Course—Pope Valley, CA
It’s a rustic and remote nine-holer redesigned by Tom Doaks located out in Pope Valley. The nine hols are beautifully integrated into the surroundings and there is rarely any sound beyond birds and metal on ball.

7. Windsor Golf Course—Windsor, CA
Easily the best or close to the best public course in Sonoma County. Great diversity of holes with greens that always seem to roll absolutely true.

8. Northwood Golf Club—Monte Rio, CA
This little gem designed by the famed Alister McKenzie could never get built today as it winds its way through stands of tall Coastal Redwood trees. A beautiful nine holes.

9. Rooster Run Golf Club — Petaluma, CA
It’s a lovely, if flat, track sitting on the edge of Petaluma. Challenging.

10. Links at Bodega Harbor — Bodega Bay, CA
It can get windy…and foggy. But when the fog clears you get a unique seaside layout designed by Robert Trent Jones, Jr. with views of the Pacific.

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One Response

  1. Patricia Stefanowicz MW - October 3, 2017

    Yes, okay, probably quite a lot of fun, but not really serious! It’s not Sunnnigdale or St Andrews or Pebble Beach or Augusta or many of the other top hundred golf courses in the States, much less the world. I shan’t ask how it compares with Delhi? That said, even professional golfers possibly need the odd break from pressure? If you are a golfer, please have a minor giggle? 🙂


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