Golf's Dream 18s

"Golf Magazine"'s David Barrett has curated eighteen 'ultimate' courses, choosing the most scenic, the most strategic and the most difficult. Golfers love to dream about exotic courses they may never get a chance to play. And then there are courses you can play only in your dreams - fantasy courses made up of real holes from around the world. Here, in "Golf's Dream 18s", are fabulous courses made up of great holes, each meant to test particular skills and to give particular pleasures. Among them are Scenic Holes, Historic Holes, Short Holes, Long Holes, Water Holes, Strategic Holes, Bunkerless Holes, etc. At the end there is the Ultimate Course, made up of the best of the best from the other 17. Each course is designed on the same blueprint as regular courses, with the usual mix of par threes, par fours and par fives - and a variety of challenges. So it's a dream, but a dream based on real golf. David Barrett, author of "Golf Courses of the U.S. Open" and a longtime editor of "Golf Magazine" and other golf publications, describes each hole with loving care, giving tips on how to play it, where the hidden dangers lie, who designed it and why it fits into a particular Dream 18. The photographs, carefully selected to show each hole at its best, bring the challenges to life.