The January 2008 issue of Golf Digest features that magazine’s latest “Best New Courses” list.

While I’ve always been skeptical of such lists, I still think they’re a lot of fun to read. I always scan them to see if there are any within driving distance of GolfBlogger World Headquarters. There aren’t any in Michigan this year, but there’s one in Fairfax, Virginia, near my brother’s home.

The truth, of course, is that the BEST new course is one that you can easily get to, and that makes you think “That was fun. I’d like to go back.”

A new course opening in Luxembourg will have synthetic putting greens, and architect Steve Marnoch says that it is now possible to build a totally synthetic golf course, right down to the bunkers.

“There is gathering interest in such a project,” Marnoch, a senior member of the European Institute of Golf Course Architects admitted. “There would be a huge initial outlay but, against that, there would be relatively little in the way of upkeep. The variety of today’s synthetic grasses is such that we could produce everything, right down to the different grades of rough they use for championships.”

The Kikuoka club doesn’t go that far, and its plastic greens apparently are not up to championship standards, but Marnoch gives them a seven out of ten. Speed can be adjusted by the amount of sand that is raked among the plastic blades of grass.

I actually had an idea for a synthetic, indoor golf course a few years ago when I was driving through Willow Run, Michigan. I had noticed (how could you fail to notice) the massive, empty factory buildings and was wondering what could be done with them. It then occurred to me that they would be perfect for an indoor golf course. They are impossibly large, and the roofs are several stories high. An entrepreneur could gut the insides and build an 18 hole pitch-and-putt or maybe even several full sized holes.

There’s got to be a market for that sort of thing in Michigan. 

As any geek (like myself) knows, The Lord of the Rings was filmed in New Zealand and for the movie Peter Jackson built a replica of the Shire, complete with the requisite underground houses. The hobbit holes, which are shown at left, were left behind and now apparently are a major tourist attraction.

The idea apparently has caught on. A New Zealand developer has built a course with an underground clubhouse that has a grass roof. The roof is in play.

Developer Michael Hill’s course (known as The Hills, naturally), will host the New Zealand Open this week.

Hill also plans to build 17 homes on the course. Presumably much bigger than Bag End, these luxury villas will range from around 4,000 to 7,000 square feet.

Whether they match a hobbit hole in comfort remains to be seen. Tolkien tells us that hobbit holes “mean comfort.”

Hills says: “The whole idea is for the houses to merge into the landscape...If we can get them to remain nearly invisible then we’ve achieved what we want for the site.”

Its an amazing idea, and one that I’m surprised has not been thought of before.

Sports Illustrated has a list of the most terrifying course names: Purgatory Golf Club, The Devil’s Claw, The Blue Monster, Hell’s Point, Deep Cliff, Shark River, Devil’s Lake (I’ve played this one), The Monster Course, and the Bigfoot Golf and Country Club.

You can read more about the courses here.

I wrote about Devil’s Lake here as a part of my Halloween Week celebration a couple of years ago.

The World’s Most Dangerous Golf club is arguably the Kabul Golf Course in Afghanistan. It’s a true desert course, with greens made of sand and oil. Worse, the threat of suicide bombers loom, making the bunkers at your local course look positively inviting.