Time to Travel
The 13 best golf trips you can take in August to escape the extreme heat
![red-sky-ranch-and-golf-club-fazio-third-hole-19610](http://golfdigest.sports.sndimg.com/content/dam/images/golfdigest/fullset/course-photos-for-places-to-play/Red%20Sky%20Ranch%20and%20GC%20Fazio%20hole%203.jpg.rend.hgtvcom.966.644.suffix/1649941090020.jpeg)
Red Sky Ranch in Wolcott, Colo., offers two courses in our ranking of America's 100 Greatest Public Golf Courses, including the Fazio course (above). A plus in August? The temperatures are usually in the low 80s.
Brendan Caffrey
August is around the corner, which means the end of the summer is coming. For many, it’s time to jam in as much golf as possible before cooler temperatures arrive. If you’re able to plan one more golf trip before the fall arrives, we’ve got a list of some of our favorite August golf trip destinations.
Temperatures in August can be scorching hot in many parts of the country, so this list is comprised of locales that can offer a little relief from the heat and humidity. If you can weather the heat in a place like Scottsdale or Florida this time of year, we tip our sweaty brims to you. But for now, we’ll offer an alternative to some locations that have our attention this time of year.
We urge you to click through to each individual course page for bonus photography, drone footage and reviews from our course panelists. Plus, you can now leave your own ratings on the courses you’ve played … to make your case for a destination we might've missed on this list, or why your favorite should be ranked higher.
![Arcadia Bluffs Golf Club](http://golfdigest.sports.sndimg.com/content/dam/images/golfdigest/fullset/2015/11/16/564a24d7bddbe7d62f03832f_Arcadia-Bluffs-Clubhouse-Aerial-Staff.jpg.rend.hgtvcom.861.485.suffix/1573527635886.jpeg)
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.
![Chambers Bay](http://golfdigest.sports.sndimg.com/content/dam/images/golfdigest/fullset/2019/01/07/5c32a6eebc9d282d38b36790_129%20-%20Chambers%20Bay%203%20-%20Jon%20Cavalier.jpeg.rend.hgtvcom.861.485.suffix/1573162614795.jpeg)
![Cape Arundel Golf Club](http://golfdigest.sports.sndimg.com/content/dam/images/golfdigest/fullset/course-photos-for-places-to-play/cape-arundel-golf-club-5092.jpg.rend.hgtvcom.861.574.suffix/1694702857163.jpeg)
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.
![Coronado Golf Course](http://golfdigest.sports.sndimg.com/content/dam/images/golfdigest/fullset/2015/09/29/560ac3df4059ed5b442ec83e_Coronado-GC-aerial.jpg.rend.hgtvcom.861.574.suffix/1573523928834.jpeg)
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.
![Red Sky Ranch & Golf Club Fazio Course](http://golfdigest.sports.sndimg.com/content/dam/images/golfdigest/fullset/course-photos-for-places-to-play/Red%20Sky%20Ranch%20and%20GC%20FAZIO%2017.jpg.rend.hgtvcom.861.574.suffix/1649941087227.jpeg)
![Pebble Beach Golf Links](http://golfdigest.sports.sndimg.com/content/dam/images/golfdigest/fullset/course-photos-for-places-to-play/Pebble-Beach-Golf-Links-TaylorMade-20978.png.rend.hgtvcom.861.574.suffix/1708461684218.png)
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 Golf Course](http://golfdigest.sports.sndimg.com/content/dam/images/golfdigest/fullset/2021/9/100-greatest-public-new-additions/86%20-%20Edgewood-Tahoe-Golf-Course-Nevada.jpg.rend.hgtvcom.861.485.suffix/1631461055836.jpeg)
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.
![Whistling Straits](http://golfdigest.sports.sndimg.com/content/dam/images/golfdigest/fullset/course-photos-for-places-to-play/whistling-straits-straits-fourth-18225.jpg.rend.hgtvcom.861.574.suffix/1651516973629.jpeg)
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.
![The Quarry at Giants Ridge](http://golfdigest.sports.sndimg.com/content/dam/images/golfdigest/fullset/course-photos-for-places-to-play/the-quarry-at-giants-ridge-minnesota-20662-brian-oar.jpg.rend.hgtvcom.861.485.suffix/1671587174490.jpeg)
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.
![Crosswater Golf Course](http://golfdigest.sports.sndimg.com/content/dam/images/golfdigest/fullset/course-photos-for-places-to-play/crosswater-club-twelfth-hole-17085.jpg.rend.hgtvcom.861.646.suffix/1652272023655.jpeg)
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.
![Forest Dunes Golf Club](http://golfdigest.sports.sndimg.com/content/dam/images/golfdigest/fullset/course-photos-for-places-to-play/forest-dunes-aerial-evan-schiller.jpg.rend.hgtvcom.861.646.suffix/1655081299233.jpeg)
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
![Greywalls at Marquette Golf Club](http://golfdigest.sports.sndimg.com/content/dam/images/golfdigest/fullset/course-photos-for-places-to-play/Marquette%20GC%20Greywall_6BA%20(3).jpg.rend.hgtvcom.861.574.suffix/1651613132812.jpeg)
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.
![Jackson Hole Golf & Tennis Club](http://golfdigest.sports.sndimg.com/content/dam/images/golfdigest/fullset/course-photos-for-places-to-play/Jackson-Hole-GC-Hole18-Wyoming-12417.jpg.rend.hgtvcom.861.574.suffix/1687293368925.jpeg)
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.
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