Classic vs. Modern Courses: Golfweek's Best celebrates the differences and similarities
Why does the Golfweek's Best rating program split courses into two categories, Modern and Classic? The simple answer is the vast differences in building techniques available to architects of different eras. Golfweek's Best uses 1960 as a break point, because it was around that time that technology changed almost everything.
As written in our Golfweek's Best rater's handbook, the Classic style of architecture was basically natural with intimate routings that enabled holes to cling to native landforms. Designers were not afraid to utilize dramatic slopes or to sculpt bunkers into artistic shapes utilizing the given features of land. Earth scraping was minimal, as opposed to Modern courses that utilize heavy machinery. Greens were built from native soil that was pushed up and shaped, giving Classic designers enormous freedom to build oddly shaped putting surfaces with more contour than typically seen in the Modern era, when green speeds became much greater. The greater abundance of buildable land in those days also gave architects tremendous creative freedom.
Design and construction techniques for courses shifted fundamentally after 1960. Mechanized earth-moving became the norm, and the USGA developed sophisticated methods to build sand-based greens. Most courses required extensive planning, documentation and meticulous excavation. And while the advent of new, high-performance grasses meant better conditions, the quicker putting speeds meant greens could not be built with the same dramatic slope as with many classic courses designed before 1960. The skills required to build a great course became those of professionally trained landscape architects, not just creative golf visionaries. The industry had changed dramatically.
In the past several decades, several top architects have combined the two eras in many ways. Design firms helmed by the likes of Gil Hanse, Tom Doak, David McLay Kidd and the team of Bill Coore and Ben Crenshaw have created golf courses focused on Golden Age sensibilities, strategies and simulations while utilizing modern earth-moving equipment to achieve their goals. The ground game again is in vogue, as is a frequent emphasis on playability.
With all that in mind, Golfweek has in recent weeks published our rankings of the best courses from both eras. We hope you enjoy them as a starting point for discussion and as a reference in choosing your next destination. Click here for the 2025 Golfweek's Best ranking of the top 200 Classic courses, and click here for our ranking of Modern Courses.
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Chicago Tribune
3 hours ago
- Chicago Tribune
Column: Death of Jim Teckenbrock leaves a big hole in Fox Valley sports scene
It may have started as a part-time job, but broadcasting high school sports helped Jim Teckenbrock have a big-time impact on the Fox Valley. Many of us were saddened to learn the WSPY 107.1-FM Sports Director had died on Wednesday, June 25, of pneumonia, following recent battles with several health issues. Teckenbrock, 76, will definitely be missed, leaving a legacy of local sports coverage that's seldom matched these days. 'I've never seen anybody more dedicated than him or who cares more about Fox Valley sports,' retired Plano athletic director Jim Schmidt said. I couldn't agree more. Sharing space in a press box or at a game's press table many times over the past 25 years helped me get to know 'Teck,' as he's known by so many of us. They included his final three broadcasts the second week of June, covering the Oswego girls softball team's run to a state championship in Peoria. 'He always said he's got the best job in the world doing the games on radio, which was good since he also had a face for radio,' Schmidt added with a chuckle. Teckenbrock's focus may have been the three communities – Sandwich, Plano and Yorkville – represented by three of the station's call letters, but his reach extended well beyond their Route 34 corridor to include Oswego, Aurora, the Tri-Cities and surrounding small communities that comprise the bulk of the Little Ten Conference. When Schmidt expanded the field of his school's Plano Christmas Classic boys basketball tournament from 16 teams to 24 teams in 2012, I dubbed Teckenbrock an 'ironman.' He traditionally broadcasts every game in the tourney that involves a team from his station's coverage area. That year, he did 32 games in five days and kept it up until a few years later, when the field was pared back to 16, which still makes for a busy week. 'He looked at me that year and said, 'Jim, what are we doing?'' Schmidt said. 'But you know what, I believe he wouldn't have wanted it any other way.' The Classic has long been looked after by Schmidt, Teckenbrock and local businessman Greg Gould, who oversees the Reapers' website, stats and many other tasks. 'Greg and Teck always would work hand in hand,' said Schmidt, who made sure the broadcaster was taken care of with plenty of hot tea, honey, lemon juice or whatever his vocal chords needed. 'That tournament will never be the same.' A 1966 Plano High School grad who served in the Navy, graduated from Waubonsee Community College and Northern Illinois University and coached at Waubonsee, Teckenbrock got a taste of broadcasting initially working with Aurora legend Neal Ormond briefly in the 1980s. Teckenbrock was always active in his community and worked for the Sandwich Chamber of Commerce and directed the Sandwich Economic Development Corporation. He went from part-time at WSPY in 1996 to full-time four years later. '(His passing) is terrible news,' Yorkville Athletic Director Luke Engelhardt said. 'The legacy he leaves is impressive.' Engelhardt, a Yorkville High School alum, played basketball for the Foxes and was a sophomore on the 2002 team that reached the supersectional at NIU. Teck would bring up details of that or other games, years later. 'You always wanted to be in the game he was covering,' Engelhardt said. 'He could remember an awful lot. And it wasn't just with me, he could do that with hundreds of other people, he was so invested.. 'Two years ago when our girls softball team went to state and had a 13-inning semifinal game in that hot weather, rallying from two runs down in the 13th to win I remember looking over at him and seeing tears in his eyes he was so happy to see them win,' he said. Engelhardt said Yorkville High School even has a sign in a section of the football press box that says 'Teck's Box' placed there by his predecessor. 'I haven't touched it,' Engelhardt said. 'He will always have a spot there.' Brad Kunz, current Minooka assistant football coach who led Plano for six seasons, said 'it felt important' when Teckenbrock was on the call for his team's games. 'He had one of those voices, it was a radio voice,' Kunz said. 'He really fit the mold. But the biggest thing for me was how deep he'd dive into the stories behind the athletes, getting to know their backstories. 'That and just his knowledge of the community,' he said. 'I'd bounce ideas off him. I felt like he had the pulse of the community.' Visitation for Teckebrock will be Sunday, June 29, from 2 to 6 p.m. at Our Savior's Lutheran Church, 2465 W. Sandwich Road, Sandwich. It will continue from 10 to 11 a.m. Monday, June 30, at the church, followed by the funeral.
USA Today
5 hours ago
- USA Today
Peter Malnati gave an epic speech to PGA Tour membership. He walks us through his message
DETROIT – Being a player director on the PGA Tour Policy Board has become hard work. On Wednesday, Zach Johnson, who served on the Tour board from 2009-11, applauded the six players who are currently serving during arguably the most turbulent time in the Tour's history. 'When I served on the board, I had to deal with drug testing – should we or should we not? – and FedEx Cup point realignment. That was the heaviest thing I had to deal with and there never was more than three meetings a year,' Johnson said. 'Since COVID, that hasn't been the case.' Peter Malnati, a 38-year-old two-time winner whose two-year board tenure ends later this year, knew what he was getting himself into but ran for the role anyway. He likely would lead the statistical category Strokes Gained: Positive Thinking if Strokes Gained creator Mark Broadie could devise a way to rank it. Adam Schenk may have summed up Malnati's optimistic outlook best: 'He's so nice and he actually means it.' (In this writer's opinion, he's golf's Ted Lasso.) Malnati's speech was a highlight of player meeting On Tuesday, during the Tour's mandatory player meeting, he gave 'an impassioned speech' – that's how fellow pro Mark Hubbard described it – to those players in the 156-man field at the Rocket Classic. [Not all 156 attended. Some were excused because they already had attended a similar meeting the week before at the Travelers Championship or because the meeting time conflicted with a sponsor commitment or other excused absences.] 'Peter talks from his heart,' said fellow Tour policy board member Camilo Villegas. 'He's had a chance to sit on the board and understand why the decisions that have been made in the last few years have been the right decisions at the moment they were made and how the goal posts keep getting moved in an evolving business and constantly analyzing what's for the best because it's a fast-moving and evolving business.' 'I'm pretty honored that anyone referred to it as an impassioned speech, but it was something that I feel really strongly about,' Malnati said in a voice message to Golfweek. Malnati went on to recount the message he delivered to players on Tuesday, during which he admitted he may have signed off on losing his job someday with the Tour implementing a new policy reducing the number of players who retain fully-exempt status from 125 to 100 beginning this year. [Malnati, who entered the week at No. 194 in the FedEx Cup is exempt for next season as the winner of the 2024 Valspar Championship.] What you're about to read is shades of Jim Colbert, a mid-tier Tour member who would go on to win eight Tour titles, who once famously said at a Tour players meeting in 1983, 'It's real simple, boys. Just play better.' When players make arguments that don't directly benefit their own cause, the professional golf ecosystem should listen its hardest … because they're rare. Malnati does that with these remarks. 'I just wanted to say to the membership that I ran for a seat on the board because I cared – really, really, strongly about not losing opportunities and not seeing the Tour get smaller and in my time on the board, both of those things have happened. And because I was on the inside and I saw the thought process, I supported them – doesn't mean they're easy for me. It doesn't mean they don't hurt because they do," Malnati began. 'I feel like the Tour at its core was built around the idea of maximizing playing opportunities and may the best man win. So it hurts to see the best option be to reduce playing opportunities and to see the Tour shrink." Malnati said shrinking Tour makes sense, even if it hurts Malnati continued to share with the membership that there's tangible evidence of late that validates the thought process. [Over the last six months, the Tour has closed nearly $1 billion in new or renewed contracts. Additionally, CBS reported a 13 percent year-over-year ratings increase and a 19 percent year-over-year increase at signature events. Many other metrics are ticking in the right direction, such as its digital platforms.] 'Seeing the success in renewing full-field title sponsorships for long-term deals in the 9-plus-million-dollar per range that's impressive – that's really impressive. It speaks to the fact that these full-field events feel that they're getting good value. And you know it's marked and measurable to see that their fields are stronger than they were when the invitational events that had 120-player fields and then obviously the first year of signature events, they still played at their regular field sizes. That was crushing the full field events and sponsors were really concerned and now to see the momentum where sponsors are back supporting the full-field events at really nice purse levels – that's a huge win for the entire membership.' Malnati wanted them to hear that directly from him and also address the elephant in the room, what he termed 'the thing that we all hate the most, which is the smaller fields and the signature events and the upcoming reduction of fully-exempt cards from 125 to 100 for next season. 'That is simply a re-prioritizing of PGA Tour members that takes guys who go out and play a season on the Korn Ferry Tour and finish in the top 20 and says to them you deserve starts in all the full-field events and I think that's absolutely true now. Is it a great accomplishment to finish in the top 125 on the PGA Tour? It is, it's really good. Is it an even greater accomplishment to finish in the top 100? Yes, I've achieved that twice in my 10 seasons on Tour. I shared that with the membership yet I still think this was the right thing to do because the point of everything we're doing is to identify players who can become superstars and drive the brand forward and so we've got to give those guys that graduate from the Korn Ferry Tour a fair shot to play and so I think going from 125 cards to 100 and then putting the guys that finish 101 to 125 in the next-best conditional category after the Korn Ferry Tour graduates was absolutely the right thing to do even though in a way I was cutting my own head off.' New PGA Tour system to closer mimic Formula 1 How many players would support a decision that might be 'cutting their own head off?' Malnati realizes that barely any players outside the top 100 on Tour generate standalone attention. Sure, there are exceptions like Joel Dahmen (and Tiger Woods wouldn't be Tiger Woods without fields of 156 to beat up on). But fewer players in the arena make it easier for the Tour to market players, easier for fans to know more contenders on a leaderboard, and it's more assuring to sponsors that top-tier players contend or win in their tournaments. Look no further than F1, which is its most popular now, with just 20 drivers who all drive in every race. Same with NASCAR. Athletes in team sports are expected to play in every one of their teams' games. 'Then lastly shared the fact that the system while it creates a very narrow funnel, I said the whole point of what we're doing – the Tour doesn't want to use this language quite this bluntly – we're identifying the top players and get them competing against each other more regularly,' Malnati said. 'So, yes, the signature event model caters to top players, it does, but the thing that I want everyone in that room and everyone on Tour and every fan and every partner to realize is that even though smaller fields are inherently a little bit less competitive because there's fewer guys, the system (we're implementing) right now there's no rules that rule out anyone. J.J. Spaun was not exempt into a single signature event at the start of this year … and he's currently ranked eighth in the world. He played his way there. Maverick McNealy played his way into the top 10 in the world – I think he's 14 right now but he was top 10 in the world. Ben Griffin and Andrew Novak, in terms of everything they're able to accomplish now on Tour, they have played their way into that group of top players. They're going to qualify for the BMW Championship this year, be fully exempt for signature events next year and they've played their way into it. 'This system is aspirational,' Malnati continued. 'The funnel is small, but the opportunity is there and it's still objective. It's still golf. If you shoot low enough scores, you will be there, so, I closed by saying my challenge to Brian Rolapp is to continue to grow the opportunity on the PGA Tour. I want to see him grow it for top players, I want to see him grow it for every single member and my challenge to all the members in the room was to go be as competitive as you can be and believe. But the guys who shoot the best scores are our top players and the more that we do that, the more that we go out and put on a show and strive to become top players, the better our product is, the more fans are going to engage with it and the more opportunity will be for everyone. So that was my spiel …. I'm glad someone thought to call it impassioned. I felt very passionate about it. I still feel very passionate about it but it's definitely been hard.'
Newsweek
9 hours ago
- Newsweek
Brooks Koepka Smashes Tee Box at LIV Dallas, Withdraws with Illness?
Based on facts, either observed and verified firsthand by the reporter, or reported and verified from knowledgeable sources. Newsweek AI is in beta. Translations may contain inaccuracies—please refer to the original content. Brooks Koepka just pulled a Rory McIlroy move, but in a way that might result in a penalty. During the 2nd round of the U.S. Open at Oakmont earlier this month, McIlroy smashed a USGA tee marker on the 17th tee after a poor drive. Though the damage was minimal, the USGA later confirmed he was fined an undisclosed amount for violating Rule 1.2a, which governs player conduct. Fast forward to today at LIV Golf Dallas, Brooks Koepka found himself in a similar situation. Only this time, it ended with a smashed tee marker, and a more shocking news - withdrawal due to illness? OAKMONT, PENNSYLVANIA - JUNE 13: Brooks Koepka of the United States looks on from the 16th green during the second round of the 125th U.S. OPEN at Oakmont Country Club on June 13, 2025 in... OAKMONT, PENNSYLVANIA - JUNE 13: Brooks Koepka of the United States looks on from the 16th green during the second round of the 125th U.S. OPEN at Oakmont Country Club on June 13, 2025 in Oakmont, Pennsylvania. (Photo by) More Getty Images It occurred during the LIV Dallas first round. Koepka, already 6-over through eight holes, yanked his tee shot left on the par-4 9th. Frustrated, he slammed his driver into the turf and then took a full swing at the tee marker, sending it flying toward the gallery. 🚨😳⛳️ #NEW — Brooks Koepka has withdrawn from the 1st round of LIV Dallas due to illness. He was +7, smashing a tee box marker due to poor play. LIV communications reports that Brooks could return this weekend but the score would only count towards the team. @TrackingKoepka — NUCLR GOLF (@NUCLRGOLF) June 27, 2025 The outburst came just moments before he bogeyed the hole, pushing his score to +7. He would go on to play the 10th and 13th, both bogeys, before declaring his withdrawal after the 14th hole. LIV Golf later confirmed the withdrawal was due to illness. "Brooks Koepka has withdrawn from the 1st round of LIV Dallas due to illness," the league's communications team posted. "Reserve Luis Carrera will replace him for the remainder of Rd. 1. Their combined score will count only for the team total". Lineup change for @SmashGC at #LIVGolf Dallas presented by Aramco. Brooks Koepka departs after 8 holes with illness. Reserve Luis Carrera to replace him for remainder of Rd. 1. Their combined score will count only for the team total. Koepka could return this weekend to… — LIV Golf Communications (@LIVGolfComms) June 27, 2025 Koepka is eligible to return for the weekend rounds, but any scores he posts will count solely toward Smash GC's team leaderboard. While LIV did not specify the nature of Koepka's illness, reports suggest he had been "feeling under the weather all week." The timing, however, raised eyebrows, especially given the visible frustration and the violent tee box moment just minutes before his exit. As of now, there's been no official word on whether Koepka will face disciplinary action for the outburst. The withdrawal also means Koepka risks his chance at a share of LIV Dallas's $25 million purse. It's another blow in what's been a disappointing season for him. Brooks Koepka's 2025 season Koepka missed the cut at both the Masters and PGA Championship, his first back-to-back missed cuts at majors. He showed signs of life with a T12 finish at the U.S. Open. "From the first weekend in April until about June, you didn't want to be around me," he admitted earlier this month. "It drove me nuts. It ate at me. I haven't been happy. It's been very irritating." Despite two top-10 finishes this season, including a solo second in Singapore, Koepka has struggled to find consistency. His short game has been particularly shaky, and his putting struggles at Augusta were well-documented. He's also been candid about his swing mechanics being off by "eight to nine inches" earlier this year, something he's worked to correct with longtime coach Pete Cowen. Whether Koepka returns to the course this weekend remains uncertain. But the Smash GC captain lived up to his team's name, just not in the way he intended. More Golf: LPGA: Megan Khang Literally Stops Traffic with Unreal Shot By the Road
