No. 29 · America's 100 Greatest
The Honors Course
Ooltewah, Tennessee · Pete Dye
Jack Lupton's tribute to amateur golf: a Pete Dye course in a valley outside Chattanooga that has hosted the U.S. Amateur, Curtis Cup and NCAA Championships.
Coca-Cola bottling heir Jack Lupton founded The Honors Course to celebrate amateur golf, and the clubhouse displays Richard Tufts' creed of the amateur. He hired Pete Dye with two instructions: route the holes along the natural ground rather than bulldozing it, and build greens more forgiving than those at TPC Sawgrass. The course opened in 1983 on 460 acres at the foot of White Mountain.
The opening holes wind through woods with mountain views, the middle of the round circles lakes cut from red chert and edged with limestone, and native grasses frame much of the back nine. The 17th green sits beside an 1808 Cherokee cemetery. Dye's shaping is strongest near the greens. True to its mission, the club hosts amateur events: the 1991 U.S. Amateur, 1994 Curtis Cup, 1996 NCAA Championship won individually by Tiger Woods, 2024 U.S. Senior Amateur and 2026 U.S. Women's Amateur.
Holes to know
17
Returns to the lakes late in the round; the green borders a Cherokee cemetery dating to 1808.
Championships
- U.S. Amateur 1991
- Curtis Cup 1994
- NCAA Division I Men's Championship 1996, 2010
- U.S. Mid-Amateur 2005
- U.S. Senior Women's Amateur 2011
- U.S. Junior Amateur 2016
- U.S. Senior Amateur 2024
- U.S. Women's Amateur 2026