The Harvester - Iowa, U.S.A.

The Harvester, outside Ames, is the home course of the Iowa State Cyclones. The course represents the fulfillment of the dream of Dickson Jensen, a young, self-made entrepreneur, who majored in engineering at Iowa State and taught at the university before becoming a successful real estate investor. Jensen hired Keith Foster to design the course, and the two agreed to build it on a 300-acre site that had been a cattle farm and a campground with a 60-acre dammed lake. Foster describes the course, which opened in 2001, as "man-sized," built on a large scale with sweeping fairways through towering oaks and native grasses and with elevation changes of 40 to 70 feet. Lake Harvester comes into playas the backdrop to the downhill, par-three eighth and runs parallel to the ninth. The lake is in play again on the par-three 17th and the boomerang par-five 18th, hugging the entire right side of the fairway.

Wakonda Golf Club - Iowa, U.S.A.

Wakonda is an Indian word denoting the supernatural, roughly translated as "great spirit." Wakonda Golf Club was established by several of the old-line families of Des Moines and completed in 1922, at the then-staggering cost of $650,000. The course is very hilly, with fairways enclosed by monumental burr oaks, elm, and locust trees. Wakonda was designed by the little-known but highly accomplished Midwest golf course architect William Langford, working with civil engineer Theodore Moreau. Their work together includes Lawsonia Links in Wisconsin and Skokie Country Club outside Chicago.