Trout Club

Few clubs in central Ohio carry as much quiet prestige as Trout Club, a private retreat that has served its members for well over a century. The club takes its name from the trout streams that historically ran through this stretch of Licking County, and that connection to the natural landscape remains palpable — the course works with the area's rolling, wooded terrain rather than imposing anything artificial upon it. It is the kind of place that rewards those who know it well, where local knowledge matters and the land itself sets the terms.

Newark sits at the heart of Ohio's Licking County, a region more closely associated with the remarkable Newark Earthworks — the largest geometric earthen enclosure built by the Hopewell culture — than with golf destination tourism. That grounded, unpretentious character seems to extend to the club itself, which has never needed to market itself to the outside world.

The par-71 layout is a detail worth noting mostly because it signals a course that doesn't follow convention for its own sake — somewhere along the routing, the designers trusted the land over the template.