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John Steinbreder

John Steinbreder is the managing editor of GGPBiz and the course architecture and travel editor at Global Golf Post. An award-winning journalist with some 40 years experience, John is the author of 24 books. Prior to graduating from the University of Oregon’s School of Journalism, Steinbreder studied at Franklin University in Lugano, Switzerland and the University of Nairobi in Kenya. He and his wife Cynthia have two daughters, Exa and Lydia, and live in Redding, Connecticut.

Articles by John Steinbreder

Idyllic Iberia

Setting sail on a voyage of culture, cuisine and golf

Some have said it's impossible to be a golfer and a sailor. John Steinbreder and his wife put that to the test with a voyage of culture, cuisine and golf.

Cruising in style

High seas adventure, with great food and golf

One of the keys to a successful - and enjoyable - golf and cruise vacation

No one does it better

Annual PGA Show thrives with Major mojo

When tens of thousands of people gather for the annual PGA Show, it's important that vendors and businesses reach the right customers and no one helps make that happen like Sherry Major. Our John Steinbreder has the story.

Finding her voice

Amanda Renner establishes strong presence In golf broadcasting

Since 2017, Amanda Renner has used a knack for getting answers from golf's biggest stars by asking the right questions at the right time during on-course interviews for CBS Sports' golf coverage.

Off-course, of course

Industry trends toward nontraditional venues

Few golf-industry numbers in recent years have stunned observers quite as much as those indicating that more golfers in the United States are playing exclusively at off-course venues than those who tee it up only on actual courses.

Sullivan Uses Home Depot Model To Build PGA Tour Superstore

As CEO of PGA Tour Superstore, Dick Sullivan taps into his past experience as an executive at Home Depot and touts the golf retailer’s “three legs of the business: service, assortment and price.” Our John Steinbreder has the story in his latest rendition of “19th Hole.”

A Tilly Gem On Display At U.S. Amateur Championship

Though Ridgewood Country Club traces its roots back to 1890 – and to a two-hole track that came to be called the Ho-Ho-Kus Golf Club – it was not until the spring of 1929 that the course on which this year’s U.S. Amateur is being contested opened. Our John Steinbreder has the story.

Performance, Hidden In Plain Sight

Our John Steinbreder recently visited the Golf Performance Center in Ridgefield, Connecticut, and he came away impressed.

Hanse Restores Tillinghast Vision To Baltusrol

The newly restored Lower Course at Baltusrol – implemented by Gil Hanse using A.W. Tillinghast's original designs – opened this past spring and our John Steinbreder has the story.

Brambles An Unpretentious Experience In California Wine Country

After building golf courses all over the world as an associate of Bill Coore, Ben Crenshaw and Tom Doak and crafting several layouts of his own, James Duncan has taken on a different role in his latest project, a golf club in the Northern Californian wine country called Brambles. Our John Steinbreder has the story.

Kohler’s Straits Should Be Ryder Cup Popcorn

When the site of this week's Ryder Cup opened in 1998, Pete Dye had given Herb Kohler exactly what he asked for – the Emerald Isle in the American Heartland. Our John Steinbreder has the story.

Hudson’s Largesse Kept Ryder Cup Alive

Seve Ballesteros may be known as the savior of the Ryder Cup, but he was not the first. Decades earlier a Portland grocer named Robert A. Hudson played a major role in keeping the matches alive. Our John Steinbreder has the story.

Torrey Pines Delivers Championship Muni Vibe

There is a lot to like about Torrey Pines, the site of this week’s U.S. Open. Our John Steinbreder takes an inside look.

Fazio Team Brings Raynor Back To Life At Fox Chapel

Tom Fazio and his design team have done a masterful job restoring Fox Chapel Golf Club, a Seth Raynor design in western Pennsylvania. Our John Steinbreder has the story.

Making The Hay While The Sun Is Shining

Simply put, the Hay – a short course at the Pebble Beach Golf Resort – is a gas to play. It also makes one of the great golf getaways in the world even better. Our John Steinbreder has the story.

Recounting A Late Love With An Ancient Game

American author Luke Reese has developed a passion for links golf, and as our John Steinbreder writes, it was initiated and has been sustained by his friendship with Scotsman Allan "Bondy" Bond.

Postcards From The Edge

Yale Coach Collects Vintage Club Postcards From A Bygone Era

Colin Sheehan, the 45-year-old head coach of the men’s golf team at Yale University and a co-founder of the Outpost Club, used the pandemic lockdown to expand a collection of vintage clubhouse postcards. Our John Steinbreder has the story.

The Last American Duel

Property Near Harding Park Is Site Of 1859 Shootout

In a spot just south of Harding Park and between the boundaries of the Olympic Club and San Francisco Golf Club stand two small stone obelisks, carefully measured 10 paces apart. This is the site of the last American duel. Our John Steinbreder has the story.

Payne’s Valley Is Tiger’s Fitting Tribute To Stewart

Payne's Valley is the new course from Tiger Woods' TGR Design, and as our John Steinbreder reports, it adds to an already stellar lineup at Big Cedar Lodge in Missouri's Ozark Mountains.

A Perfect Time For New Greens At Streamsong

Streamsong Resort in Central Florida has updated the greens on its Red and Blue courses. Our John Steinbreder reports the new turf is a strain of Bermuda called Mach I, and it is offering a more consistent roll on the putting surfaces.

One Of Raynor’s Last Is Among New Jersey’s Best

Watchung Valley Golf Club features a course that is among the best in New Jersey. Our John Steinbreder explains how the layout recently came to be recognized as a Seth Raynor design.

A Place Of Honor

Nicklaus, Rooney Create Club Like No Other At American Dunes

American Dunes Golf Club – created by Lt. Col. Dan Rooney and Jack Nicklaus – will be "a safe haven and tribute to the military." As John Steinbreder reports, that gives it a unique position on the landscape of United States courses.

Steel And Grace

Saucon Valley A Historic Gem In The Game

Saucon Valley Country Club celebrates its centennial this year. Our John Steinbreder examines the club's history and the three courses there, each of which presents a distinct profile and its own set of challenges.

Major Comeback

Revitalized Harding Park Shines For PGA

As TPC Harding Park hosts the PGA Championship this week, our John Steinbreder reports that its time in the spotlight represents the culmination of a major comeback for the storied San Francisco course.

Championship Golf Returns To Classic Inverness Course

Inverness Club in Toledo, Ohio boasts a lengthy and distinguished championship history. Our John Steinbreder chronicles the evolution of the course, as well as the top-shelf competition it has hosted.

At 6,800 Yards Kittansett Club Still Tests The Best

The Kittansett Club in Massachusetts will host the U.S. Senior Amateur in 2022, in conjunction with its centennial celebration. The course demands both power and precision, John Steinbreder reports, and it remains a test for top-level players.

Toney Penna: A Name And A Man Worth Remembering

As a player, a teacher, a clubmaker and a businessman, Toney Penna made his mark on the game. Penna's golf story began at age 11 and followed a long and colorful path, our John Steinbreder writes.

Architect Aficionados Find Home At Golf Club Atlas

Ran Morrissett has taken his passion for the subject of golf course design and run with it at the Golf Club Atlas website. It has become an indispensable stop for those interested in learning about or offering opinions on a topic that is near and dear to many golfers' hearts. Our John Steinbreder has the story.

A Perfect Match

The Ohoopee Match Club, which opened in fall 2018 on more than 2,100 remote acres in Vidalia onion country just west of Savannah, Ga., is designed to be a place wholly about golf – and golf as it is so often enjoyed in the Old World, in matches as opposed to medal play. Our John Steinbreder has the story.

John Ashworth Persists On His Soulful Golf Journey

Cool is more than just a personal trait for John Ashworth. It is also what has driven his business endeavors since he started the eponymous Ashworth apparel company more than three decades ago, when he was just 26. Our John Steinbreder has the story.

Brooklawn Course Still Worth Celebrating

This year's 125th anniversary celebration at Brooklawn Country Club in Connecticut will not include the U.S. Senior Women's Open as planned. But any disappointment there is tempered by the knowledge that the A.W. Tillinghast-designed course remains a classic, our John Steinbreder reports.

The Legacy Of Tom Cousins

Tom Cousins will be remembered in part for his work on Atlanta's skyline, but his greatest legacy is saving nearby East Lake GC and its neighborhood.

Time To Make Room For Marion

With strong qualifications as both an amateur player and a developer of golf courses and clubs, Marion Hollins merits induction into the World Golf Hall of Fame. Our John Steinbreder has the story.

Palmetto Golf Club Keeps Augusta Area Top Of Mind

Located 20 miles northeast of Augusta National, just across the South Carolina border in the historic town of Aiken, Palmetto Golf Club is one of the oldest clubs in America, with a clubhouse designed by architect Stanford White, a course fashioned in part by Alister MacKenzie and an aura that is stylish yet restrained – and all about golf. Our John Steinbreder visited Palmetto before last year’s Masters and has the story.

Five Norman Courses That Matter

With 106 tracks to his credit, Greg Norman has assembled an impressive body of work as a golf course architect. Determining which are the best of that rather extensive bunch, however, is no easy task, given the whims of personal preference. So, we took an alternative approach by asking Norman and two of his longtime design associates – Jason McCoy and Danny Fore – to name five of his most significant creations and the reasons why. Ellerston (Australia): Norman designed this ultra-private track in the Upper Hunter Valley of New South Wales for his friend and business mentor, the late media magnate Kerry Packer. It opened in 2001 and those individuals who secured rare invitations to play that track raved about the layout. Their accolades did a lot to bolster Norman’s reputation as a course designer, especially in his native land. Cathedral Lodge (Australia): This track outside Melbourne only recently came on line, yet it already is regarded as the Augusta National of Australia for its exclusivity and also its conditioning. Once again, Norman was working for a good mate, in this case investment banker David Evans, who once had run the iconic Essendon Australian Rules Football Club. The Shark routed several of the holes in and around a ridge than runs through a canyon and by the Goulburn River, with several of them framed by the Cathedral Mountains in the background. Architecture critics have lauded this design as well and praised it for taking high-end golf in Australia to the next level. Medalist (Jupiter, Fla.): This club was established in 1995, with the course Norman designed with Pete Dye the centerpiece of what has become a hangout for PGA Tour players. It is significant for the collaboration that occurred between a pair of World Golf Hall of Famers in […]

Moving Dirt With Greg Norman

How The Great White Shark Has Carved A Course Design Niche

It cannot be easy for a golfer who was so good for so long to find happiness in another profession once his playing days are done. But Greg Norman has managed to do just that as a course designer. Our John Steinbreder has the story.

Pete Dye, 1925-2020

With the passing of Pete Dye, golf has lost perhaps the greatest course designer of the modern era. Certainly, nobody built better layouts over a longer period of time. Our John Steinbreder writes of Dye's life and legacy.

Remembering Alice Dye, A Singular Figure In Architecture

John Steinbreder remembers golf course architect Alice Dye, Pete Dye's partner in life and design. This story, published on Feb. 3, 2019, is reprised to honor Pete Dye's passing.

Dominican Dye

In 2019, the Latin America Amateur Championship was staged for the second time in its five-year history on the Teeth of the Dog course at the Casa de Campo resort. The fact that organizers brought the championship back to this Pete Dye gem so soon speaks to two basic truths: Teeth is among Dye’s best creations, and the course deserves to be ranked, as it so often is, as one of the top 50 in the world. This story, published on Jan. 20, 2019, is reprised to honor Pete Dye's passing.

Hail Yale

Iconic University Course Still Among Nation’s Best

Yale Golf Course is an architectural treasure and one of the most dramatic and demanding tracks in the game. Our John Steinbreder chronicles the layout’s storied history and highlights its singular qualities.

Capital Improvement

Amid Divisive D.C. Climate, A Good Golf Proposal Looms

Amid the political rancor in Washington, D.C., there is an exciting proposal to revitalize three municipal courses there. Our John Steinbreder has the story.

Old-School Golf In New-World Shanghai

Yangtze Dunes, a Shanghai course recently revamped by an architecture firm that includes 2006 U.S. Open champion Geoff Ogilvy, is generally regarded as the only traditional links-style course in mainland Asia. Our John Steinbreder weighs in on the experience of playing it.

Bound To The Game

World’s Best Golf Library Is In IMG Veteran’s Home

Alastair Johnston was a 21-year-old intern at IMG in Cleveland when he started collecting books. Fifty years later, the man best known as Arnold Palmer’s longtime business manager has assembled arguably the best private golf-book collection on earth. Our John Steinbreder has the story.

The Unsung Brilliance Of The New And Jubilee

The Old Course gets most of the attention in St. Andrews, but the less-celebrated New and Jubilee courses also rank among the very best tracks in Scotland, if not the entire British Isles. Our John Steinbreder has the story.

Q&A: Mike Keiser

Mike Keiser, the man who revolutionized golf course development over the past two decades, is preparing to open a fifth course at Bandon Dunes and beginning work on a new seaside course on the Caribbean isle of St. Lucia. He sat down with our John Steinbreder to discuss his life in golf, his views on the game and his plans for the future.

Welcome Renewal

Coleman Invitational Integral To Seminole’s Renaissance

It is hard to imagine Seminole was anything other than what it is today, which is one of the most revered clubs in golf. But go back a few decades and you’ll find a place that had somewhat lost its way. The fabulous Donald Ross course was overgrown and overwatered, and wasn’t playing anything like the links-style layout it was supposed to be. Our John Steinbreder explains how the decision to hold the Coleman Invitational brought the club and course back to the limelight.

Hook, Line And Sinker

With Ozarks National, Johnny Morris Catches A Keeper

Players competing in the Bass Pro Shops Legends of Golf beginning next week will be treated to something old and something new when they return to the Ozarks Mountains of Missouri for this popular PGA Tour Champions event. The old is Top of the Rock golf course, and the new – highlighted by GGP+ Staff Writer John Steinbreder – is scenic Ozark National.

Q&A: Fred Ridley On The Augusta National Women’s Amateur

Augusta National Golf Club Chairman Fred Ridley recently sat down for an exclusive interview with Global Golf Post to discuss his decision to create the Augusta National Women's Amateur Championship and what he hopes it will accomplish. GGP+ Staff Writer John Steinbreder brings you the interview.

The Workout Revolution

How Tiger And Titleist Made Golf Fitness Cool

hrough the years, competitive golf has had its share of fitness fanatics. One of the first was Frank Stranahan, also known as the “Toledo Strongman,” who won pair of British Amateurs in the 1940s and who was as devoted to his gym workouts as he was to his golf game. Then came nine-time major winner Gary Player, who at age 83 still likes to brag about how many sit-ups he can do. In later years, Greg Norman and Nick Faldo took themselves to the top of the professional game, thanks in no small part to the workout regimens they followed. But it wasn’t until Tiger Woods joined the PGA Tour that professional golfers fully realized the importance of physical conditioning and what an advantage it could be in terms of distance and stamina. Woods first showed that when he won the 1997 Masters, using his prodigious power to transform the par-5s at Augusta National into par-4s as he secured a record-setting 12-stroke victory. He might have looked like a skinny kid at the time but even as a 21-year-old Woods was a committed gym rat. By 2000, when he won the U.S. Open at Pebble Beach by a staggering 15 shots, he had developed a tremendous amount of muscle mass, which showed as he powered shots from Pebble’s high rough. A month later, his eight-stroke victory at the Open Championship on the Old Course in St. Andrews was one of the greatest ball-striking exhibitions in major championship history. Woods at his peak could do things no other player in the history of the game could do. The 213-yard 6-iron bunker shot to win the 2000 Canadian Open (and become the first man since Lee Trevino to win the U.S., British and Canadian opens in the same year); hitting no more […]

Harry S. Colt: A Master Designer From A Golden Age

hen I told a few of my golf buddies last summer that I was going to tour Belgium and the Netherlands with my sticks and some good mates from the Outpost Club, they regarded me with a mix of curiosity and concern. “Are the courses there any good?” one asked. “Wouldn’t it be better to check out the clubs around London?” inquired another. “It’s not that far away.” One good pal suggested that I leave my clubs behind and concentrate instead on the things he knew were really world class in that part of the world. “There are great microbreweries in Belgium,” he said. “And the hash bars in Amsterdam cannot be beat.” I concurred, having visited both those countries in my reckless youth. But I was also confident that what I was about to discover as a golfer was as good if not better than anything else found there. That is because I was set to play a handful of heathland-style courses designed by the great English architect Harry S. Colt, among them Royal Zoute in Belgium and a foursome of great repute in the Netherlands that included Utrechtse Golf Club and Kennemer, as well as Eindhovensche and Royal Hague. Each is routed on well-contoured, sand-based soil near the North Sea, and they are regularly ranked among the top 100 courses in Continental Europe. That those tracks should be so highly regarded is not surprising when you consider the man who created them. One of the architects who made the Golden Age of golf course architecture a century ago golden, Colt contributed to the design of more than 300 courses in his lifetime. Among his best-known works in England are the New Course at Sunningdale, the Old Course at the Rye Golf Club and Swinley Forest (which he famously […]

Good Training

When Martin Trainer won the El Bosque Mexico Championship on the Web.com Tour in March 2018, Global Golf Post told his feel-good story. In recognition of Trainer winning his first PGA Tour event last week at the Puerto Rico Open, GGP+ reprises his story for you now.

Q&A: Bret Baier

Bret Baier is best known as the anchor and executive editor of Special Report, the Fox News Channel show that airs weekday evenings from 6–7 p.m. Eastern time. But the 48-year-old New Jersey native is also a golf fanatic who carries a handicap index of 3.7. While that puts him in the upper echelon of recreational golfers, it also puts him at some financial risk in weekend Nassaus, given how little he practices. “I’m a walking wallet,” he laments.   Baier, who played college golf at DePauw University in Greencastle, Ind., is a member at Washington, D.C., area clubs Burning Tree (where last year he won the men’s club championship) and Congressional, as well as Pine Valley in New Jersey. He has made the cut on several occasions in the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am. The author of three best-selling books, including one on Dwight Eisenhower’s last days in office, Three Days in January, and another on his son Paul’s battle with heart disease, Special Heart, Baier is celebrating his 10th anniversary as the anchor of Special Report, which is the No 1 cable news program in its time slot. Previously he served as the chief White House correspondent for Fox News and the national security correspondent for the network. He joined Fox in 1998, opening its Atlanta bureau in his garage apartment. Shortly after signing a multiyear deal to continue as the anchor and executive editor of Special Report, Baier found time to chat with GGP+. How and when did you get into golf? Growing up in Rumson, New Jersey, I played tennis but not golf. Then, when I was 9, my father was transferred to Atlanta. I remember playing in a city (tennis) tournament there and losing a match and getting so frustrated that I wanted to try another […]

Short Tees A Great Long-Term Strategy For The Game

In the days of 7,000-plus yard layouts, another trend is taking shape in the golf course architecture business: short tees. GGP+ Correspondent John Steinbreder takes a look at the short-tee phenomenon, which can reduce mammoth courses to as short as 4,000 yards.

Design’s Golden Age 2.0

he first few decades of the 20th century are much celebrated for their artistic and cultural awakenings. Louis Armstrong. Duke Ellington. Scribner’s published the first novels of a pair of expat authors, F. Scott Fitzgerald and Ernest Hemingway. Surrealists such as Man Ray and Salvador Dali dazzled the art realm, and Coco Chanel unshackled the fashion world from the constraints of Victorian life. Equally impressive was the emergence of a Golden Age in golf course architecture, especially in the United States. Having established its first toeholds in America in the late 1800s, the sport was an increasingly popular diversion. As it grew, men such as Charles Blair Macdonald, George C. Thomas, A.W. Tillinghast, Alister MacKenzie and Donald Ross employed Old World design principles at places like Bel-Air and Riviera in Southern California and the National Golf Links of America outside New York City. Other gems that came on line in that period included Seminole in South Florida, Cypress Point on the Monterey Peninsula and Shoreacres on the north shore of Chicago. All these years later, they still stand up as among the very best in the country and the world. Decades later, a pair of modern-day Medicis – Dick Youngscap, who loved the Nebraska cowboy lifestyle, and Mike Keiser, who made a mint in the greeting card business – instigated a renaissance in golf design by engaging present-day architects such as Bill Coore, Ben Crenshaw, David McLay Kidd and Tom Doak to construct links-style tracks on remote, sand-based sites. The results, first at the Sand Hills Golf Club that Youngscap created in central Nebraska in 1995 and then a few years later at Keiser’s Bandon Dunes resort on the southwest Oregon coast, were throwback tracks that evoked the game as it was played in its ancestral home. With generous and […]

Tales From The Design Trail

More than anything else, golf course architects are artists, imaginative and inventive people able to turn raw and rugged land into layouts that delight the soul and rouse the mind. And they use rather clunky tools like bulldozers and backhoes to do so.

Bob Ford: A Pro’s Pro

Some years ago, the PGA of America produced an advertisement that extolled the virtues of its club professionals and detailed the many things they have to do – and do well – to prosper in their business. Like merchandising golf apparel and mentoring aspiring assistants. Teaching lessons and running tournaments. Handling rules disputes and dealing with club politics. Another item on the list was playing. With their members, to be sure, but also in competitions on local and national levels. And that made good sense, for PGA club professionals are first and foremost golfers, and the vast majority of them developed their initial passions for the game as players. It was a powerful bit of promotion that spoke to the many talents PGA members possess. But it inadvertently highlighted an increasingly difficult part of that job, and that is maintaining a high level of skill as a player. The job of club professional now entails so many different aspects and demands that it is difficult for many to find the time to practice and play. There simply are not enough hours in the day anymore to nurture a game that truly holds up in competition, especially when that competition includes golfers who play the game for a living. Then, there is the cold truth that teeing it up in tournaments sometimes can be a detriment to the employment security of a club professional, as some clubs prefer that their professionals be around their shops and practice ranges, and not trying to go low in competition. With those matters in mind, it is hard not to admire the PGA club professional who plays – and plays well – as he, or she, handles all the other duties the position entails. In fact, that talent is something worth celebrating, and perhaps no […]