Camargo Club

The verdict

Camargo is a course for the student of golf architecture, and a name spoken with reverence among those who chase the great classical designs. Seth Raynor, the protege of C.B. Macdonald, laid it out on rolling ground in Indian Hill and opened it in 1925, and it stands as his sole work in Ohio. Where modern championship courses defend par with sheer length, Camargo does it the old way, with strategy: the angles into the greens, the tilt and movement of the putting surfaces, and a famous quartet of one-shot holes that ask precise, committed iron play rather than power.

For the traveling golfer, Camargo is a private club to be respected as much as played, but its reputation is no museum piece. It is consistently ranked among the top courses in the United States and inside the world's elite, and a thoughtful restoration by Tom Doak recovered lost width, green edges and bunker shapes, returning Raynor's intent. It is short on the card and immense in interest, the connoisseur's landmark of southwest Ohio and the course to build a Cincinnati golf conversation around.

The holes worth the trip

Camargo is the clearest argument in American golf that strategy outlives length. Raynor routed the course over gently moving land and set his challenge in the greens and their surrounds, so the player who studies the angles and flights the ball is rewarded while the one who simply hits it hard is not. The fairways give room, but the correct side opens the green and the wrong side leaves a fiendish recovery across tilt and false front. It is golf to be thought around, and it rewards a second and third visit far more than a first.

The set of par 3s is the headline and deserves it. Camargo carries the classic Macdonald and Raynor templates, the Redan that runs away to the left, the Short with its horseshoe ridge, the long Biarritz with its deep swale, and the Eden modeled on the eleventh at St Andrews. Few courses in the world hold four one-shotters of this quality, and together they shape the whole round: par the par 3s and you have done the hard work, give shots back on them and Camargo will not let you forget it.

What makes Camargo special is the completeness of the design and the standard to which it is kept, a golden-age course presented with conviction rather than fashion. It is a thinking player's course, one that flatters good iron play and exposes carelessness, and the Doak restoration has only deepened its character. For the golfer who values the roots of the game and the work of its great architects, it is the southwest Ohio landmark, a fine counterpart to the modern theater of Muirfield Village and the classic Ross ground at Scioto.

Where to stay nearby

The natural base is Cincinnati, where downtown and the eastern suburbs offer hotels within easy reach of Indian Hill, and the city's airport keeps the wider Midwest in range. Staying near Cincinnati keeps Camargo close for a member's invitation and puts the rest of southern Ohio within a comfortable drive for a multi day golf trip.

Because Camargo is private, most golfers admire it as part of a wider Ohio itinerary built around what they can play. Pair the idea with Donald Ross's classic parkland at Scioto Country Club and Jack Nicklaus's Muirfield Village in Columbus, the Ross championship test at Inverness in Toledo, or the low-key modern excellence of the Double Eagle Club for a full tour of the state's best.

Looking for a base? See our recommended hotels and resorts around Cincinnati and southwest Ohio.