This year, however, I predict that the focus will shift to the affordable, accessible side of the industry. I think 2026 will be a pivotal year for everyday public golf courses \u2014 for better or for worse.<\/p>\n
First of all, the next several months will begin to reveal the consequences of the Trump administration\u2019s push to control municipal golf in Washington, D.C. Will the National Links Trust, the now-terminated leaseholder, fight back in the courts, with the help of the high-powered law firm it recently hired<\/a>? And what exactly are the administration\u2019s plans for East Potomac Golf Links and D.C.\u2019s other two municipal golf facilities, Rock Creek Park Golf Course (where an in-progress renovation had to be halted) and Langston Golf Course? By the end of the year, the answers to these questions will start to come into focus.<\/p>\n As I explained in my FEG newsletter piece<\/a> last week, the implications of the conflict between the NLT and the Trump administration reach far beyond the nation\u2019s capital. The NLT aspires to provide a model for municipal golf management nationwide. Through its media profile and its (now-on-hiatus) annual symposium, the group has fostered collaboration and knowledge-sharing between municipal golf advocates and operators across the U.S. I know of many courses that have benefited directly from the NLT\u2019s efforts. So if we lose this organization, we lose a major force for the advancement of affordable public golf in America.<\/p>\n Okay, I\u2019m bumming myself out. Let\u2019s talk about some public golf course projects to look forward to this year.<\/p>\n \u2192 Perhaps most significant will be a trio of redesigns completed in late 2025 and poised to receive wider recognition in 2026: <\/p>\n Buffalo Dunes Golf Course\u200d<\/p>\n Garden City, Kansas<\/p>\n Over the past several years, Superintendent Clay Payne, assisted by architects Todd Clark and Zach Varty, has led a transformation of this Kansas municipal course. Payne\u2019s team has removed trees, added and reshaped bunkers, and redesigned every green, all while keeping the budget around $100,000 \u2014 a strikingly low sum in today\u2019s market. I discussed the project with Payne on an episode of the Fried Egg Golf Podcast<\/a> in 2024.<\/p>\n By the end of the 2025 season, 18 new greens at Buffalo Dunes were in play. Payne told me via email that some tweaks to cart paths, on-course bathrooms, and tee boxes remain to be done.<\/p>\n Great Dunes at Jekyll Island Resort<\/p>\n Jekyll Island, South Carolina<\/p>\n Brian Ross and Jeff Stein\u2019s bold, Walter Travis<\/a>-inspired remodel of this Golden Isles gem debuted three months ago. Stein filled me in on the story and ideas behind the project on a fun edition of the Designing Golf podcast<\/a> last November, and our friends at No Laying Up recently visited the still-maturing course<\/a> for a winter match. As Great Dunes grows in, I suspect it will garner a lot of fans among the bargain-starved golfers of the southeastern barrier islands.<\/p>\n Miami Lakes Golf Club\u200d<\/p>\n Miami Lakes, Florida<\/p>\n The advantage of hiring an architect as experienced as Bruce Hepner is that you know he\u2019ll work efficiently: he broke ground on his redesign of Miami Lakes<\/a> in November 2024, and the course reopened for public play a year later. Here\u2019s project manager Danny Martinez on how the course is looking and playing:<\/p>\n \u201cEveryone loves the greens, which are unlike anything south of The Park [in West Palm Beach]. I had one player, a regular before our project, tell me he couldn\u2019t quite place his finger on why but that he was just happy and felt really comfortable on our course now. (This has been my favorite piece of feedback.) Several players mentioned how \u2018clean\u2019 or \u2018bright\u2019 the course feels and I think that\u2019s a direct result of our tree work. I couldn\u2019t be happier with how things feel out there.\u201d<\/p>\n Martinez also mentioned that November 2025 was Miami Lakes\u2019 best-ever month financially, and December topped it.<\/p>\n \u2192 In addition to these completed projects, I\u2019m keeping an eye on three ambitious public-course renovations that should wrap up in 2026:<\/p>\n Augusta Municipal Golf Course, aka The Patch<\/p>\n Augusta, Georgia<\/p>\n Last April, my colleague Matt Rouches reviewed the Augusta National-led plans<\/a> to revitalize this local muni. Before this year\u2019s Masters, the main course at The Patch will reopen after a renovation by Tom Fazio and Beau Welling. Eventually, the property will also feature a short course designed by Tiger Woods\u2019s firm, up-to-date practice grounds, and educational facilities. The idea is for The Patch to become a youth and community hub, similar to The Park<\/a>.<\/p>\n Old Dane Golf Club<\/p>\n Dakota City, Nebraska<\/p>\n Trev Dormer is in the process of reconstructing this small-town nine-holer into an architecturally audacious 12-hole course with loops of six and nine holes. About 12 minutes from King Collins Dormer\u2019s Landmand Golf Club and owned by the same family, Old Dane will double as an everyday track for locals and an afternoon option for Landmand pilgrims.<\/p>\n A few days ago, Dormer told me that progress was a little slower than expected in 2025 because of record rains. \u201cWe should be grassed out fully by the start of June, with some preview play in September,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n Swope Memorial Golf Course<\/p>\n Kansas City, Missouri<\/p>\n In early 2025, Todd Clark and Ron Whitten started a historically informed renovation of this important A.W. Tillinghast<\/a>-designed municipal course. Their work is scheduled to be unveiled this year. My colleague Meg Adkins, a Kansas City local, visited the site recently and will have a full report for the Fried Egg Golf newsletter soon.<\/p>\n \u2192 Because of rising land costs, byzantine regulatory processes, and a general tilt toward premiumization in the American economy, accessible new builds are rare these days. But I\u2019m looking forward to two in 2026:<\/p>\n Warmouth Sands Golf Course<\/p>\n Vidalia, Georgia<\/p>\n Meant both to serve the small town of Vidalia, Georgia (known for its onions), and to attract play from visitors to nearby Ohoopee Match Club<\/a>, this new municipal project has struggled through a variety of construction delays. But the end is in sight: architect Mike Young informed me late last week that the entire course has been sodded and is set to open in May or June.<\/p>\n Old Field<\/p>\n Mocksville, North Carolina<\/p>\n Smyers Craig Coyne \u2014 a recently formed firm consisting of veteran architect Steve Smyers, up-and-comer Colton Craig, and writer Tom Coyne \u2014 laid out this rustic, charming-looking six-hole par-3 course 30 minutes outside of Winston-Salem, North Carolina. Craig seems to have been the primary design voice on the project. One of the developers, Stephen Edwards, sent me some additional info in an email three days ago:<\/p>\n \u201cOld Field is coming along as expected. With a late summer\/early fall Bermuda grow-in, it was well established before going dormant, and then we did a rye overseed on the Tahoma 31 Bermuda to help it hold shape and be well established through the NC winter.<\/p>\n \u201cWe did two soft-launch events, one with the Outpost Club and another with Twilight Golf Club, and hope to fully launch post-2026 daylight savings with a Masters week par-3 contest the first week of April.\u201d<\/p>\n \u2192 Did I miss any upcoming projects in the accessible public golf space? Let me know in the comments.<\/p>\n “Old” Is Getting Old In the 2000s, we had Old Sandwich and Old Macdonald<\/a>. In 2019, we got Old Toccoa Farm in Mineral Bluff, Georgia. Then the floodgates opened. Old Barnwell<\/a> arrived in 2023, Old Sawmill \u2014 a private Tyler Rae design outside of Charleston, South Carolina \u2014 late last year. The year 2026 will bring Old Petty, Old Dane, and Old Field. Later this decade, Old Shores and Old Charlie, both in the Florida Panhandle, will swell the ranks.<\/p>\n Look, \u201cOld\u201d has always been a popular adjective in golf course names. Old Head. Old Waverley. Old Town Club. Hell, The Old Course!<\/p>\n Problem is, in recent years, the word has come to be associated with a particular kind of course: rootsy, vintage-y, built for purists. In fact, it has probably evolved into a conscious marketing appeal to a particular type of golfer. Do you like your bunker edges ragged and your green contouring Golden Age-inspired? Join \u201cOld [Place-Specific Noun].\u201d<\/p>\n It\u2019s starting to feel a bit lazy.<\/p>\n I\u2019m harsh because I care. I adore Old Sandwich, Old Macdonald, and Old Barnwell. I fully expect to enjoy the upcoming \u201cOlds\u201d as well. But let\u2019s just make a bit more of an effort on the names, okay? (What a relief it was to hear that Brian Schneider\u2019s<\/a> new course in Aiken County, just miles from Old Barnwell, would be called \u201cNew Holland.\u201d)<\/p>\n Chocolate Drops<\/p>\n Check in on the \u201cCourses & Architecture\u201d section of our member forum<\/a> for regular Chocolate Drops.<\/p>\n \u2192 Salt Lick Golf and Hunting Resort will feature two 18-hole courses and a nine-hole par-3 course<\/a> on a duneland site near Hutchinson, Kansas (home of Prairie Dunes Country Club<\/a>). Todd Clark and Ron Whitten are attached as designers. A Course We Photographed Recently<\/p>\n PGA West Pete Dye Mountain Course (La Quinta, CA)\u2014designed by Pete Dye in 1980<\/p>\n {{pga-west-mountain-course-design-notebook-gallery}}<\/p>\n Underlined and Starred<\/p>\n \u201cYou [Americans] showed us that there\u2019s money in golf. That had never occurred to us. The money has corrupted us, all of us, myself included. Once you start making it, it\u2019s a damn cancer, the money is. You start thinking, \u2018What can I do to make more money?\u2019 In my generation, we went into golf with no expectation of wealth. The golf alone sustained us. For years, we resisted thinking of golf as a business. Right through the Second World War, we had clubs with one full-time employee: he gave lessons, made clubs and sold \u2018em, kept the caddies in line, and mixed the drinks. The game was cheap then: you might have paid five quid for a year\u2019s worth of golf, and you got your money\u2019s worth. You played after work, until you could see the ball no more. You played every day, except Sunday; the Presbyterians wouldn\u2019t hear of golf on Sunday. But you played the six other days, and you hoped for wind to make your game interesting. Scotland was poor, and there was nothing else to do, except the pubs. Golf was the national sport. Everybody played. Your mother played. Golf was the game.\u201d -John Stark, as quoted by Michael Bamberger in his book \u201cTo the Linksland<\/a>\u201d<\/p>\n![\"flag-DSC_7225\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/6965813829edd5f42451c196_flag-DSC_7225.jpeg\")
Flag at The Patch (Fried Egg Golf)<\/p>\n![\"barnwell.hangout.newsletter\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/6965813729edd5f42451c18e_barnwell.hangout.newsletter.png\")
Old Barnwell (Fried Egg Golf)<\/p>\n
\u2192 Soule Park Golf Course, one of the best municipal courses on the West Coast, got hit hard by flooding in December<\/a>.
\u2192 Wohali, a massive new luxury golf and real estate development outside of Salt Lake City and Park City, Utah, is already bankrupt<\/a>.<\/p>\n