Valhalla Golf Club - Kentucky, U.S.A.

Valhalla Golf Club, named for the resting place for warriors in Norse mythology, is a course of lusty proportions that has put Louisville on the world golf map. Designed by Jack Nicklaus and opened in 1986, the course was developed by leading Louisville businessman Dwight Gahm and his three sons. Nicklaus was given a ruggedly rustic 263-acre site as his canvas, consisting of two farms and an old Boy Scout camp crossed by a stream called Floyd's Fork. The first nine is laid out through relatively open land, while the back nine is hewn from more rolling terrain covered with sycamore, oak, locust, and walnut trees. The PGA of America was so smitten with the design that it purchased a stake in the course and selected it to host the 1996 PGA Championship won by Mark Brooks. In 2000, Valhalla was again the site of the PGA, with Tiger Woods clawing his way to a spine-tingling victory over Bob May in sudden death.

 

Victoria National Golf Club - Indiana, U.S.A.

Victoria National Golf Club is routed through a former strip-mining site near Evansville in southern Indiana. Terry Friedman, the developer of the course, wanted to create a private club with a demanding course of the highest caliber. He looked long and hard to find an unusual and dramatic site that would serve as the canvas for one of Tom Fazio's more distinctive creations. Fazio made the most of the jagged contours on the 400-acre site, creating deep, sinuous lakes in the pits left by the strip mines by reaching underwater springs during the construction process. The spoil heaps left over from the mining process resemble shaggy dunes, and Fazio poured the fairways through and, in some instances, across them. With only 27 acres of fairway, and trouble all around, Victoria National is both visually exhilarating and constantly challenging.