The Seven Best Golf Courses That Tangle with Train Tracks

A little more than a century ago, riding the rails was the preferred mode of transportation to reach golf clubs situated in the countryside. In fact, the building of golf courses often went hand in hand with where the railroad stopped, making it a leisure-time marriage of convenience and enjoyment.

While passenger train travel has ebbed significantly in most locations, it’s hardly an anachronism in others. Many great and not-so-great courses continue to feature trains that rumble past at least one of its golf holes.

4. Chambers Bay Golf Course—University Place, Wash.

Home to the 2015 U.S. Open, where Jordan Spieth nipped Dustin Johnson, this 7,585-yard, walking-only, Robert Trent Jones II design unfolds atop an old gravel mine at the southeast tip of Puget Sound, 45 minutes south of Seattle. Originally scheduled to be a parkland test, the Jones design team proposed a links instead. “With all of that sand and a railroad line that edged the property, the course seemed ideal as a links,” said Jones. “This could be Ballybunion on steroids.”  Indeed, the 16th and 17th holes feature the rumblings of Amtrak trains on the Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railway line. Jordan Spieth memorably played a recovery shot at the par-three 17th on the final Sunday with a locomotive whizzing by. USGA executive director Mike Davis warned players of potential loud noises, but Phil Mickelson wasn’t having any of it. “It was slow, it was quiet, it was not a problem,” he said.