Pikewood National Golf Club

A course two mining executives designed and built themselves in the hills near Morgantown, West Virginia, with dramatic elevation, rock outcrops and a waterfall-backed par 3.

In 1998 John Raese and Bob Gwynne, officers of a limestone mining company, were walking forested land near Morgantown that their firm planned to quarry. Raese suggested a golf course, and Gwynne proposed they design and build it themselves using the company's engineers and equipment. Touring pros Johnny Pott and Dow Finsterwald gave advice along the way. The work took close to a decade, and the course opened in 2009.

The site is steep and rocky, and the holes use large elevation drops and exposed sandstone. The routing was built around a 40-yard-wide, 15-foot sandstone wall with a natural waterfall, now the backdrop of the par-3 5th. Golf Digest named it best new private course of 2009, and by 2013 it had joined the magazine's America's 100 Greatest list. Two holes honor Pott and Finsterwald, and the club remains small and private, well off the usual golf-travel circuit.

Holes to know

5

Par 3

Plays to a green set beneath a 40-yard-wide sandstone wall with a natural waterfall, the feature the whole routing was planned around.

12

Par 3

Plays to a modified Redan green, one of several strong short holes on a course with few bunkers.

11

Par 3

A bunkerless par 3 whose green slopes hard from front to back, often called the best green on the course.