Fry/Straka Lands Two of the Top 10 Private Short Courses per Golfeek

Below are excerpts from an article that originally appeared in Golfweek.

Welcome to the Golfweek’s Best 2025 ranking of the top par-3, short and non-traditional private golf courses in the United States. To acknowledge a recent and rapid rise in short courses, Golfweek’s Best introduced a ranking of these layouts in 2023. In 2024 we broke the category into two: public-access courses and private layouts.

Basically, they all fit the bill of not being a traditional-length, traditional-par course. And just like the best short courses, we threw out some of the rules used for rating traditional courses and asked our raters to submit one overall score for each course based on how much they enjoyed the design and the environment. Those individual ratings were then combined to form one average rating. Each course had to receive a minimum number of 10 votes.

For this list, we included each private course’s average rating on a points scale of 1 to 10. We also included each course's 2024 ranking if applicable, its location, the designers, the year it opened, the number of holes, the total length and the par. An asterisk indicates a course that is new or returning to the list.

5. Hamilton Farms (Hickory)

2024 ranking: (7)

Average rating: 7.69

Location: Far Hills, NJ

Architect(s): Dana Fry, Michael Hurdzan

Year opened: (1998)

Details: 18 holes, 3,080 yards, par 54

T9. Shelter Harbor (Par 3 Course)

2024 ranking: (11)

Average rating: 7.60

Location: Charlestown, RI

Architect(s): Dana Fry, Michael Hurdzan

Year opened: (2005)

Details: Nine holes, 1,206 yards, par 27

The full article can be read on Golfweek by clicking here.