The Loop at Forest Dunes

Imagine standing on the first tee, hitting your drive, and then coming back the next day to play the exact same piece of ground — but everything's different. That's the magic of The Loop, Tom Doak's masterpiece of architectural wizardry that's unlike anything else in American golf. This is North America's only truly reversible golf course: 18 greens and fairways that become 36 distinct holes depending on whether you play the clockwise Black routing or the counter-clockwise Red routing.

Doak took inspiration from Scotland's earliest links, where courses like the Old Course at St. Andrews once played both ways. The genius here is in the execution — you'll never feel like you're playing a hole backward. The fescue fairways roll firm and fast like an inland links, rewarding creativity and the ground game over brute force. Greens are massive, wildly contoured, and designed to accept approach shots from completely different angles. One day a green is approached from the left as a par 4; the next day you're hitting into it from the right as a par 5. It's brilliant, maddening, and endlessly fascinating.

The Loop is walking-only (though carts are now available), and that's part of its charm. You're out there in the dunes and native grasses with your buddies, plotting shots you've never had to hit before, debating which direction played tougher over post-round beers. The conditions are pure: firm, fast, bouncy, and unforgiving if you can't work the ball on the ground. For groups of golfers, this is destination golf at its finest — you need at least two days to experience both routings, which means you're staying on property, bonding over a shared adventure, and playing golf that actually makes you think differently about the game.