The 13 best golf trips you can take in August to escape the extreme heat

Can a 100 Greatest course be a sleeper? The Bluffs Course at Arcadia Bluffs has been overshadowed by No. 21 Pacific Dunes ever since it finished second to it in the Best New Upscale Public Course race of 2001. And likewise it’s been second-fiddle to No. 14 Crystal Downs, a northern Michigan neighbor that every visitor wants to play, even though it’s private and Arcadia is public. And even by No. 26 Whistling Straits, the imitation links on the opposite side of Lake Michigan that Arcadia Bluffs resembles, although the sand dunes at Arcadia are natural, not manmade. More recently, the Bluffs faces competition from within, the newly-opened sister layout, the South Course at Arcadia Bluffs, designed by Dana Fry in the style of C.B. Macdonald and Seth Raynor.

Prodded by his partner, Bruce Charlton, and their then-design associate Jay Blasi, veteran architect Robert Trent Jones Jr. agreed to a radically different, vertical-links style when building Chambers Bay in an abandoned sand quarry near Tacoma. By the time Golf Digest named it as America’s Best New Public Course of 2008, the course had already been awarded the 2010 U.S. Amateur and 2015 U.S. Open. In the Amateur, Chambers Bay proved to be hard, both in the firmness of its dry fescue turf (Jones called his fairways, “hardwood floors”) and its difficulties around and on the windswept greens. For the U.S. Open, the firmness and surrounds were more manageable, but the greens were notoriously bumpy. That’s now been remedied, as the fescue turf on the putting surfaces has been replaced with pure Poa Annua. What's irreplacable are the views of Puget Sound from nearly every hole, multi-level fairways that entice bold driving to gain second-shot advantages and two holes running parallel to a railway that's invokes feelings of early Scottish and Irish links courses.

I just returned from a trip to Maine, and the weather was glorious. Though it's a small state, Maine has some really fun golf ... and the best part? Many of the best courses are public. Despite a length of just 5,859 yards long, Cape Arundel packs plenty of punch to both challenge and engage golfers of all skill levels. Designed by Walter Travis in 1921, Cape Arundel is at its best around the greens. The green complexes are small, yet undulating and provide plenty of opportunities to putt off them. Golfers must be precise with their wedges in order to have an opportunity to get close to the flag. The pin locations dictate the strategy from the tee as different pins may demand different strategies meaning the course doesn’t play the same from one day to the next. Low-handicappers who are looking to score are not granted the luxury of hitting driver on every hole as they must think their way around the golf course. While many courses that were built in the Golden Age of course design have been forced to become bigger and longer to adapt to the modern game, Cape Arundel has stayed true to itself and has remained one of the most unique and enjoyable courses in golf.

You don't need this list to tell you that the weather in and around San Diego is perfect all times of year. I'm forever jealous of my brother for living here. The public golf scene in San Diego is also pretty good, as our Tod Leonard recently outlined here. The obvious choice for this ranking is Torrey Pines, but Coronado Golf Course is arguably one of the best municipal courses in the country, with reasonable green fees and spectacular views of the San Diego downtown skyle and historic Hotel Del Coronado. The layout, featuring wall-to-wall kikuyu grass, is straight-forward and the conditioning is always top notch.

The companion to the Norman Course at Red Sky, the Fazio 18 features more elevation change, with the mostly open front nine atop a bluff dotted with hand-planted sage and juniper bushes and the back nine rising in switchback fashion far up a mountain slope through groves of aspen before plunging downhill on the final three holes. The bunkers here are some of Fazio's most elaborate. Both Red Sky Ranch courses have flip-flopped positions on the America’s 100 Greatest Public Courses ranking, but the Fazio’s design consistently gets the higher Aesthetics marks.

You might be surprised to know the Pebble Beach area is actually a little cool this time of year. To many battling heat waves around the country, that'll sound perfect. Of course, Pebble Beach needs to be a consideration if you're heading down 17 Mile Drive. Not just the greatest meeting of land and sea in American golf, but the most extensive one, too, with nine holes perched immediately above the crashing Pacific surf—the fourth through 10th plus the 17th and 18th. Pebble’s sixth through eighth are golf’s real Amen Corner, with a few Hail Marys thrown in over an ocean cove on the eighth from atop a 75-foot-high bluff. Pebble hosted a successful U.S. Amateur in 2018 and a sixth U.S. Open in 2019. Recent improvements include the redesign of the once-treacherous 14th green, and reshaping of the par-3 17th green, both planned by Arnold Palmer’s Design Company a few years back—and the current changes to the iconic eighth hole.

Edgewood Tahoe is one of golf’s most televised courses as the annual host of the American Century Championship. It also holds the distinction of being the only course in Nevada to have held a USGA championship, hosting a U.S. Senior Open and a U.S. Amateur Public Links in the 1980s. Once a member of Golf Digest America’s 100 Greatest Courses, Edgewood Tahoe is as telegenic as they come with fairways framed by stately pines, greens flanked by sparkling ponds and several holes positioned on Lake Tahoe, including the final three. At over 6,000 feet elevation the ball flies roughly 10-percent farther than at sea level. Plus, yes, it's a little cooler here—and a great destination this time of year.

Wisconsin has become the best golf state for public golf, and the options are endless. I'll be headed to Sand Valley in August, and I can't wait. I've included Whistling Straits on this list since it's a little cooler than Sand Valley or Erin Hills, which are inland and a bit hotter. At Whistling Straits, Pete Dye transformed a dead flat abandoned army air base along a two-mile stretch of Lake Michigan into an imitation Ballybunion at Whistling Straits, peppering his rugged fairways and windswept greens with 1,012 (at last count) bunkers. There are no rakes at Whistling Straits, in keeping with the notion that this is a transplanted Irish links. Of course, nearby Blackwolf Run is a must-add to your trip, as is the five-star American Club.

It doesn't get the press that courses such as Bandon Dunes, Pacific Dunes, Whistling Straits or Arcadia Bluffs, but The Quarry at Giants Ridge plays very links-like with its collection of fairway speed slots, greenside backboards and backstops and reverse-camber greens. Its very inventive design also demands some aerial play, too. A standout is its 13th, a drivable par 4 that's nearly as wide as it is long, with three alternate routes to a 100-yard-wide green. We named it the best 13th hole in America built since 2000. Giants Ridge has the Legend course as well, and the rest of the public golf scene in Minnesota is underrated—you can easily add on another top course or two to make it a great trip.

Yes, Bandon Dunes could appear on this list at the very top. But it's a bit obvious—and it's also booked up years in advance. So we're including a more unheralded Oregon option. Bend, Ore. has some incredible golf, including Juniper Reserve (formerly Pronghorn Resort) and Tetherow, just for starts. Crosswater was reportedly built in the meadow where John Wayne, as Rooster Cogburn, filmed his climactic charge with guns blazing in the 1969 film, True Grit. The Bob Cupp design is far more subtle than a Wayne western, with low-profile greens edged by graceful chipping areas and fairways intersected repeatedly by the Big and Little Dechutes rivers. Crosswater was Golf Digest's Best New Resort Course of 1995.

The Tom Weiskopf-designed Forest Dunes in Michigan is a terrific layout on a terrific piece of property, with sand dunes deposited by the nearby Au Sable River and covered with mature pines. But it's not a unique piece of property. When I first played it, I was struck by how much Forest Dunes resembles a Texas course designed by Weiskopf's former partner, Jay Morrish. That course, Pine Dunes in Frankston, Texas, is built on much the same terrain, sand dunes covered in pines. Though they were working at the same time on their respective projects (Forest Dunes was completed in 2000 but didn't open until 2002; Pine Dunes opened in 2001), I don't think Weiskopf or Morrish had any idea that they were working on such similar courses, and I don't think they stole each other's ideas. But it's uncanny how they created kissing-cousin courses. Or maybe not. The two worked together for over a decade before splitting up in 1996, and they shared a common philosophy of course design. --Ron Whitten, architecture editor emeritus

The Upper Peninsula of Michigan has a dozen courses you combine into an all-world golf trip. We've chosen the top-ranked course here. A decade before architect Mike DeVries created the world-class Cape Wickham Golf Club in Australia, he produced an equally compelling design in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, a second 18 for Marquette. It’s called Greywalls because of all the granite rock outcroppings that edge some holes and squeeze others, like the short par-4 fifth, and because the rock provides the rugged topography over which this course scampers up and plunges down. The vistas out over Lake Superior are fantastic, beginning with the opening tee shot. Like Wilderness Club (No. 44 on our 100 Greatest Public list), this is a destination course worth hiking to play.

We'll include a bit of a surprise here. Located in western Wyoming, Jackson Hole Golf & Tennis Club is a semi-private Robert Trent Jones Jr. design. Near both Grand Teton and Yellowstone National Parks, the course offers stunning views of the surrounding mountains and wildlife. The relatively flat course is framed nicely by tall, native grass and stately trees. The scenic layout hosted the 1988 U.S. Amateur Public Links and the 1993 U.S. Women’s Amateur Public Links.