America’s Oldest Golf Resorts
by James A. Frank for LINKS magazine
America’s oldest golf resorts combine the elegance and traditions of days gone by with some fun and challenging courses.
In 1766, two years after the Old Course at St. Andrews shrank from 22 holes to 18, an 18-room wooden hotel opened near a series of natural hot springs in Virginia’s Allegheny Mountains. Golf didn’t come to The Homestead Resort for another 126 years, but that property still holds the titles of both first resort and first resort golf course in the country. A number of other early American golf resorts—all listed among the Historic Hotels of America, part of the National Trust for Historic Preservation—are still going strong, offering the chance to enjoy the modern game at long-tenured venues. Here are the 10 oldest.
