“Best” is a subjective word at, err… best. What one person or group values as the “top” will never be the same for everyone – still, when you’re looking for something and you want the “best”, it’s always nice when someone compiles a list. Whether you agree or not with their assessment, in 2007 Golf.com published a list chronicling the “100 Top Golf Courses in the World“.¹

Because seven out of the top ten are all within the continental U.S., today we’re looking at the Top 5 Golf Courses scraped from their list, whilst allowing only one entry per country.

#5 Hirono Golf Club, Kobe, Japan

Situated between rolling hills overlooking the city of Kobe, Japan, the Hirono Golf Club is the location of a very exclusive 18 holes. Its claim to fame isn’t the number of major world competitions it’s held², instead it’s simply how hard it is to get in. Apparently this is the course that all other Asian courses are measured against, but I’m not sure how anyone would know; given that getting a tee time at Hirono is nigh on impossible.

Coming in at #37 on the Golf.com’s list, the C.H. Alison-built course is the only entry in our worldwide Top 5 that comes from a non-English speaking country.

#4 Royal Melbourne (West), Melbourne, Australia

Just south of the main urbanised area of Melbourne is the West course of the Royal Melbourne Golf Club which is known for its “intricate bunkering, tough but fair challenge, variety of shotmaking, and exceptionally fast and true greens”. Designed by world renowned course architect, Dr. Alister MacKenzie it’s ranked 6th on Golf.com’s list, but comes it at number 4 on our improved version!

#3 Royal County Down Golf Club, Newcastle, Northern Ireland

Our third course was designed by Old Tom Morris for just 4 guineas. Considered the best in Ireland, the Royal County Down opened in 1889 and today is considered the tenth most exclusive club in the world.

The imagery isn’t the brightest, but does capture the climatic conditions of Northern Ireland perfectly. However, according to the club website, the Royal County Down is one of the most photographed links courses in the world, and with rolling greens peering out over the Irish Sea, it’s easy to see why.

#2 St. Andrews (Old Course), St. Andrews, Scotland

This is of course where the game of golf began. Officially recognised as being designed by “nature”, the 14th century-built Old Course at St. Andrews is the blessed hope of all that play the game. It is the oldest course in the world and probably #1 on the “must play” bucket-list for most golfers. For our list, it comes in at #2 (#3 on Golf.com’s list).

The Open Championship,³ the oldest professional golfing competition, has been held at the Old Course at St. Andrews every five years since 1873. Unfortunately, the last time a Scot won was in 1910.

The Old Course is held in the public trust by an act of Parliament, and every Sunday golfing is banned for the day to allow the course to rest, so it is instead enjoyed by locals for family picnics and leisurely strolls through the greens.

#1 Pine Valley Golf Club, Pine Valley, New Jersey

Finally we reach the Pine Valley Golf Club. Originally built upon 164 acres of marshland by George Arthur Crump, today the private course sprawls nearly 2 sq km in the thick pinelands of New Jersey.

According to Wikipedia, Crump, a hotelier who knew the area from his hunting expeditions, was subject to obsessive idiosyncrasies that ultimately contributed to designing the #1 course in the world.

Some of those peculiarities included:

1. Holes should not be laid parallel to each other.
2. Consecutive holes should not play in the same direction.
3. Players should only be able to see the hole they are playing on.

Don’t expect to play here anytime soon however – to get a tee time at Pine Valley you have to be personally invited and accompanied by one of the board members! Interestingly, Tiger’s been invited, though he’s never played.

Have you played Hirono, taken in the views at the Royal Down, or paid homage at the Old? What do you think about Golf.com’s assessment of the “best”? Have they got it spot on or are there others that deserve the honour? Let us know in the comments, and make sure to leave a link to your favourite course.

As we’re sure you’ll have heard by now, Michael Jackson, the King of Pop, has died in Los Angeles.

We first posted Neverland Ranch to the site back in April 2005, but at the time Jackson was in the news for very different reasons.

This is the theme park at Neverland – a property which Jackson built here in 1988 at a cost of $17 million. Neverland Ranch was Jackson’s permanent residency from 1988 until 2005, when the main house was eventually closed as a cost-cutting measure in the wake of the star’s declining fortunes.

Despite having been out of the property since 2005, it wasn’t until November 2008 that Jackson finally transferred the title deed to the Sycamore Valley Ranch Company, and in April 2009 a widely reported exhibition of Neverland’s contents opened in advance of all the items going to auction.

In truth however, the Sycamore Valley Ranch Company is a venture that Jackson himself set up¹ – and the auction was actually cancelled at the last minute. Meaning that at the time of his death, Michael Jackson still owned at least some proportion of Neverland Ranch itself, as well as all of its contents.

So maybe this isn’t the last we’ll see of Neverland – perhaps one day it will be reborn to become the Graceland of the pop-era.

Goodbye MJ, thank you for the music.

Welcome to the second annual GSS Desert Week! In time-honoured tradition, we’ll mostly be posting about deserts. For about a week!

It appears that snow has fallen in hell! At least it has along “The Devil’s Highway“. Let’s take a drive down former US Route 666 to see what kind of trouble we can get into.

Beginning in the mile high state of Colorado and running south through the Sonoran desert, the demonically-named road ends in Douglas, Arizona along the Mexican border.

This highway was of course named for bearing the Number of the Beast, but a high number of vehicular fatalities attached a stigma to the road that persists, despite it having been renamed in 2003. This may have been due in part to a serious bout of “chronic sign theft“.

Theft along the Devil’s Highway you say? To be expected for sure!

There’s definitely some sort of dark magic happening on the highway, as you can see in this aerial shot south of Gallup, New Mexico, where the road has been sliced into two parts, which run alongside but never into each other¹!

While the route number and nickname draw many tourists on their own, many often stop by to see another spectacular sight, the Shiprock rock formation (Wikipedia). It’s close enough to the road that even the Street View car got a good look!

“The day it snows in hell” appears to have arrived in this shot as well, as there is clearly snow on the ground right in the middle of America’s hottest desert.

Like Route 666, the Sonoran desert stretches from the Mexican border to Colorado; covering an impressive 311,000 square km. It’s home to dozens of mammal, fish and amphibian species, hundreds of bird species, and thousands of native bee and plant species; as well as America’s only population of Jaguars!

It is also the only place in the world the famous saguaro cactus grows, despite being an international symbol for deserts.²

Route 666 and the Sonoran desert are in an area of extremes. In the day the sun scorches down on all weary travellers. At night the heat dissipates to the point that there is often snow on the ground by morning. You fall asleep sweating, you wake up freezing.

So consider yourself warned. The desert is is desolate, rugged, and rough. But come on! If you’re going to travel the Devil’s Highway, you going to face some evils, right?

Welcome to the second annual GSS Desert Week! In time-honoured tradition, we’ll mostly be posting about deserts. For about a week!

Death Valley National Park, part of the greater Mojave Desert, is an expansive 13,630 square kilometre natural preserve located on the border between California and Nevada. As its name would suggest, the valley has a climate that is most inhospitable to human settlement, but attracts over 700,000 visitors annually. It also holds the triple honour of being the hottest, driest, and lowest (in altitude) place in North America.

The valley’s floor receives an average annual rainfall of around 4 cm and lies predominantly below sea level. Its unique location between the Sierra Nevada Mountains and the Amargosa Range allows temperatures to regularly rise above 40°C in the summer months. In fact, the hottest temperature ever observed in the Western Hemisphere was recorded at Death Valley¹ in 1913 when the mercury hit 56.7 degrees Celsius!

Badwater Basin, pictured below, is a broad salt flat located at the southern end of the park. At 85.5 metres below sea level, it is the lowest point in the valley and in all of North America!

Given its low altitude, the basin drains a large area and can actually become a full-blown lake on rare occasions. Above right we see a Landsat-5 satellite image from back in February of 2005 when unusually high rainfall filled the basin for several days creating a salt lake.

Just a few miles up the valley you can clearly make out the colourful rock formations that make up another Death Valley attraction known as Artist’s Palette.

Along a stretch of road known as Artist’s Drive, a rich spectrum of colours can be seen in a relatively isolated space. The variation of red, pink, yellow and green hues are caused by the oxidation of different metals within the rock.

Toward the northern end of the park, Death Valley’s diverse topography can be seen in many different stages of wind erosion.

On the left, Zabriske Point overlooks an extreme erosional landscape composed of sediment from a prehistoric lake bed. The Mesquite Sand Dunes, some as tall as 40 meters, are pictured to the right and located at the northern edge of Death Valley National Park. Due to their relative proximity to Los Angeles, the dunes have been a generic desert backdrop for many Hollywood films, including the Star Wars series.

So there you have it, vast natural wonders and a week-long vacation condensed into a few paragraphs. Should you care to see it for yourself, or if you just want to find out more, Wikipedia (as always) has loads of information, as does the US National Parks Service.

Thanks to hexodus, Rob Smith, Keith, Beej and Jillian Johnson.

Welcome to the second annual GSS Desert Week! In time-honoured tradition, we’ll mostly be posting about deserts. For about a week!

The Henry Doorly Zoo in Omaha, is renowned across the US for exhibits like the largest cat complex in North America, the world’s largest nocturnal exhibit and indoor swamp, and the world’s largest indoor rainforest.

The reason we’re here today however, is that under the world’s largest glazed geodesic dome we find the world’s largest indoor desert, which is home to plants and animals from the Namib Desert, the Australian Outback, and the Sonoran Desert.

The dome has two interior levels covering 7,800 sq m (84,000 sq ft), and rises nearly 42 m (137 ft) above ground. True to the form of the best geodesic domes, there are no internal supports, with the structure’s 1,760 triangles providing all the strength it needs to remain standing.

Dubious claims to fame aside, the zoo does fantastic work in animal conservation and research, and was voted Best Zoo in America 2004 by Reader’s Digest.

Thanks to Juicio.

There’s more information at the Henry Doorly Zoo Official site and Wikipedia page.