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So, what are your favorite golf courses?
It’s usually the first question I get when I tell a fellow golfer what I do for a living. Yet every time it comes my way, I feel unprepared because the more golf courses I play, the more adamantly I believe there is no way to compare them all against one another.
Golf magazine rankings are certainly interesting for clubhouse debates – as are GolfPass’ unique annual Golfers’ Choice lists – but they are beholden to both the criteria they ask their panelists to use when evaluating courses and those panelists’ inherent biases. Fair enough; as long as golfers take rankings not as gospel but as a jumping-off point to their own travels, these lists are an interesting exercise that can shape a curious golfer’s own tastes.
But because I played my 600th lifetime golf course – TPC Sawgrass’ Players Stadium course, no less – in December 2023, it feels like a good time to take a stab at some kind of personal golf course ranking.
After 600 courses played, here is an attempt to arrive at a top 60, which I’ve broken down into three categories
1. An overall top 10
2. My 25 favorite “upscale” (i.e. high-end public or resort) golf courses
3. My 25 favorite accessible and affordable (i.e. less than $100 in most cases) golf courses
Finally, feel free to take the following grains of salt with my lists:
- The states: where I’ve played most of my golf: Florida (145 golf courses), South Carolina (86), Connecticut (64), North Carolina (38) Georgia (27), California (20).
- I’ve played golf in eight countries besides the United States, totaling 37 courses.
- You'll notice no Bandon Dunes Golf Resort courses on these lists; I have yet to visit Mike Keiser's great Oregon ode to links golf.
- I believe golf courses that can be walked are generally superior to golf courses that require carts.
- The highest compliment I can pay a golf course is that it makes me want to be a better golfer.
- That doesn’t mean that I only enjoy brutally difficult courses, however. In fact, overly penal courses that abuse golfers tend to make me want to curl up in the fetal position rather than go to the range.
- The most important skills in golf are the ones a player uses inside of 125 yards or so.
- I tend to favor unfussy holes and courses where the architect didn’t do too much. If a course is manmade, though, I appreciate boldness, as long as the shot values are sound.
- Past a certain point, maintenance is less important to me than other golfers. I have played enough highly-manicured but dull designs to know when agronomy is masking architectural mediocrity.
- In general, how a course plays is overwhelmingly more important than how it looks. Give me a mottled but firm fairway over a lush but soft one any day.
- I am a particularly tough grader on expensive public and resort courses and private courses. Leisure dollars and time are precious and there are a lot of pricy but mediocre courses out there (including some that rank highly on magazine lists). Conversely, there are several affordable hidden-gem courses that I believe blow the famous ones out of the water.
Overall top 10: the best golf courses I have played so far
Straight numerical rankings annoy me, so here are my 10 all-time-favorite golf courses, listed alphabetically (* denotes a private club):
Harbour Town Golf Links – Hilton Head Island, S.C.
In one fell swoop, Pete Dye simultaneously built a low-key, sky-high-IQ course that stands the test of time because of its cerebral challenge and started the “signature architect” era by collaborating with a young Jack Nicklaus still at the peak of his playing powers. Harbour Town espouses all of the values I treasure in golf courses.
Lahinch Golf Club (Old Course) – Lahinch, Co. Clare, Ireland
Lahinch is one of the courses people cite when asserting that Ireland’s links are known for being more dramatic than those found in Scotland and England. That Old Tom Morris and Alister MacKenzie fashioned a delightfully walkable and playable test through such a landscape is a testament to their brilliance, and Lahinch’s decades-long embrace of competitive amateur golf seals its status as one of golf’s great treasures.
Mid Ocean Club – Tucker’s Town, Bermuda
Temperate weather, a constant breeze, caddies who measure their tenure in decades and a breathtaking, classic golf course full of great C.B. Macdonald template holes? This is the first club I’m joining if I hit the lottery.
*Mountain Lake – Lake Wales, Fla.
In a chaotic world, peace and unfussiness are increasingly rare features of any leisure experience. Here, you can actually feel your blood pressure drop as you drive into the property, at least until the excitement builds at the prospect of playing one of Florida’s best golf courses, a Seth Raynor gem.
North Berwick Golf Club – North Berwick, East Lothian, Scotland
If The Old Course is Fife’s ancient golf gold standard, North Berwick's West Links is East Lothian’s. The birthplace of the Redan is relentlessly charming, quirky and deliriously fun to play. I wouldn’t change a thing about it.
*Old Town Club – Winston-Salem, N.C.
Perry Maxwell’s brilliant routing makes light work of a challenging site, and nearby Wake Forest alum Bill Coore and partner Ben Crenshaw have made sure over recent years that O.T.C. remains an O.G. of gracious Southern country club golf. I played it a decade ago and remember practically every step.
Pinehurst No. 2 – Pinehurst, N.C.
The genius of No. 2 is as much about what it lacks as what it has. There’s no breathtaking scenery to distract from the task at hand; just 18 consecutive golf holes of the highest quality, comprising an engrossing but enjoyable examination of any golfer’s complete skill set. If you want to know how good you are at the game, No. 2 will tell you bluntly.
St. Andrews Links (The Old Course) – St. Andrews, Fife, Scotland
Even as the march of time – and golf technology – prompts it to shift in small ways, the cradle of the game remains a reminder of how golf should be: exhilarating, frustrating and a little mysterious. It is the game’s best bellwether.
Sunningdale Golf Club (Old) – Ascot, Surrey, England
Most golfers bound for the U.K. confine their travels to the coastal links, which means they often overlook the great courses of the interior of the island. Of these, Willie Park, Jr.’s soulful, refined circuit not far from the famous Ascot racetrack and part of one of the world’s great 36-hole clubs is one of the very best.
Tobacco Road Golf Club – Sanford, N.C.
Trying to rank Tobacco Road against other golf courses kind of misses the point of Mike Strantz’s epic, wholly unique, slightly deranged masterwork. On a scale of 1 to 10, I rate Tobacco Road a 🍍. Its mere existence is proof that golf courses are forms of art.
The 25 best upscale public and resort golf courses I've played
Big Cedar Lodge (Ozarks National) – Ridgedale, Mo.
Coore & Crenshaw draped a clever collection of holes across finger-ridges here, adding admirably to Johnny Morris' menagerie at one of interior America's best resorts.
Caledonia Golf & Fish Club – Pawleys Island, S.C.
Mike Strantz's first golf course oozes Lowcountry charm with live oaks, flowers and lazy alligators, plus plenty of foreshadowing of his more audacious later work.
Chambers Bay - University Place, Wash.
The epic scale, gorgeous scenery and occasionally perplexing demands only makes the intrepid golfer hungrier to head back to the first tee here, perhaps after a brief calf massage.
Dooks Golf Club – Dooks, Co. Kerry, Ireland
Somewhat overshadowed by more famous southwest Irish links, this meandering routing on the Ring of Kerry has an enjoyable mix of holes and some of the most arresting surrounding scenery - sea and mountains - in which you'll ever tee it up.
The Golf House Club, Elie – Elie, Fife, Scotland
Who needs par 5s - or more than two par 3s - when you've got the crackling, rumpled turf and variety of hole lengths that Elie offers?
Erin Hills - Erin, Wisc.
Studded with giant moguls, blowout bunkering and long, winding corridors through fescue, it helps to mark a 21st-century turning point in championship golf course design.
The Greenbrier Resort (Old White) – White Sulphur Springs, W.V.
Most of C.B. Macdonald and Seth Raynor's golf courses are private, which makes Old White a must-play for architecture buffs who are smart enough to entice their better halves along for a stay at a historic American resort.
Gullane Golf Club (No. 1) – Gullane, East Lothian, Scotland
This links may not have a ton of individual standout holes, but when you reach the top of Gullane Hill at the par-4 7th tee, you'll see just how much greater than the sum of its parts a golf course can be.
Omni Homestead Resort (Cascades) – Hot Springs, Va.
One of William Flynn's only publicly-accessible courses is as genteel as afternoon tea and a relative rarity: a walkable mountain golf course.
Kiawah Island Golf Resort (The Ocean Course) – Kiawah Island, S.C.
You'd be hard-pressed to find a golf course with consistently closer proximity to the ocean or a tougher set of approach shots; thankfully these two things moderate one another.
The Club at Lac La Belle – Oconomowoc, Wisc.
Architect Craig Haltom engaged his wilder side with this total redo of one of the state's oldest courses, building some truly wild greens that elevate the layout above most other parkland golf.
Landmand Golf Club – Homer, Neb.
It's not quite Tobacco Road, but Tad King and Rob Collins certainly channeled their inner Mike Strantz by building truly maximalist bunkers and greens at this field-of-dreams course surrounded by thousands of acres of corn and soybeans.
Marquette Golf Club (Greywalls) – Marquette, Mich.
Mines don't often make good golf course terrain, which is part of why Mike DeVries deserves such high praise for turning this rocky, severe site into screaming-fun golf in the Upper Peninsula.
Nemacolin (Mystic Rock) - Farmington, Penn.
One of America's quirkiest (and best) golf resorts is home to two Pete Dye designs - this the more significant achievement - where intermittent outdoor sculptures accent the scene.
PGA Golf Club (Dye) – Port St. Lucie, Fla.
Far less heralded than other Dye greats, this course has one of the best individual sets of golf holes I have encountered on flat land.
PGA National Resort (The Match) - Palm Beach Gardens, Fla.
Kudos to resort ownership for giving architect Andy Staples near-complete creative control over the redesign of a forgettable course into an intentionally quirky, no-stroke-play-allowed playground for all sorts of on-course games.
Pinehurst No. 4 - Pinehurst, N.C.
While I politely disagree with those who would equate it with the legendary No. 2, I have to give credit to architects Gil Hanse and Jim Wagner for using the original corridors of the course to create something dynamic enough to credibly enter such a spirited debate.
Punta Espada Golf Club – Punta Cana, Dominican Republic
I've never been to Cypress Point, but I'll be (pleasantly) surprised if its famed par-3 16th is appreciably more spectacular than the arresting one-shot 13th here.
Quivira Golf Club - Cabo San Lucas, Mexico
If your course will force golfers to use a cart, you had better give them as many mind-bending moments - holes with waves crashing 200 feet below, for example - as Jack Nicklaus and team found along this Pacific-strafing journey.
Sand Valley Golf Club - Nekoosa, Wisc.
Sand Valley's cheeky original Coore & Crenshaw design is as close in spirit to England's great heathland golf courses as any I've encountered in America.
Streamsong Blue - Bowling Green, Fla.
Tom Doak's broad, ambling routing through former phosphate mines sits somewhere between Florida and Mars, to the delight of anyone who makes the trek.
St. George’s Hill Golf Club – Weybridge, Surrey, England
Harry S. Colt, a titan of early British golf course design, acquitted himself smashingly across the tony south-London suburbs, tackling ravines and heather stands here with equal alacrity.
TPC Sawgrass (Players Stadium) – Ponte Vedra Beach, Fla.
A return to the course's more rugged-looking beginnings would elevate it further, but for now, it's still one of America's greatest championship courses that the rest of us can play.
We-Ko-Pa Golf Club (Saguaro) – Fort McDowell, Ariz.
Walkable desert golf courses are rare, and the Saguaro's graceful routing and generous corridors set it well apart from most of its competition in the Valley of the Sun.
Whistling Straits – Haven, Wisc.
PGA Championships and a Ryder Cup provide the competitive bona fides, but for us mortals, the joy is in marveling at Herb Kohler and Pete Dye's commitment to completely manufacturing a fascinating lakeside golfscape.
The 25 best affordable golf courses any golfer can (and should) play
Bruntsfield Links Short Hole Golf Club – Edinburgh, Scotland
Short courses have become all the rage in recent years, but none of the new versions I've seen capture the simplicity and affordability (free) of the pre-1900 "Short Hole Club," which sits in the heart of the city.
Charleston Municipal Golf Course – Charleston, S.C.
No movement in American golf is more important than the "Munaissance," where publicly-owned golf courses of all shapes and sizes have received transformative upgrades in the last decade-plus, and Charleston's Seth Raynor-inspired makeover has been one of the top such success stories.
Connecticut National Golf Club – Putnam, Conn.
Originally a rudimentary layout cobbled together from farmland and then significantly improved by architect Mark Mungeam, this enjoyable and affordable public layout - my second-favorite in the state - is pure New England.
Copake Country Club – Copake Lake, N.Y.
Many of Devereux Emmet's quaint and mischievous golf courses are at private clubs, so the opportunity to play this one, often for less than $60, is precious and worth the journey into rural territory just west of the Berkshires.
Diamond Springs Golf Course – Hamilton, Mich.
Grand Rapids is home to three excellent public golf courses designed by architect Mike DeVries, and this one, which meanders through forests and ravines south of town, is the best of them.
Gull Lake View Resort (Stoatin Brae) – Augusta, Mich.
This effort by Tom Doak's all-stars is the clear best-in-class at a budget-level resort with six total courses, rambling over open and windswept terrain that looks like southern Michigan's answer to Prairie Dunes.
Gus Wortham Golf Course – Houston, Texas
A compact routing and the thrum of urban sprawl are features, not bugs, at this muni with tricky greens that are always in excellent shape despite the constantly busy tee sheet.
The Golf Courses of Lawsonia (Links) – Green Lake, Wisc.
Before there was Kohler, much less Sand Valley, there was Lawsonia, where James Langford & Theodore Moreau's masterpiece has attracted savvy golfers for nearly 100 years.
Jeffersonville Golf Club – West Norriton, Penn.
Renovation work for the better part of 20 years has given locals a sub-$60 Donald Ross course whose architectural intrigue competes gamely with many of the private clubs along the Main Line.
Keney Park Golf Club – Hartford, Conn.
City golf scarcely comes better than this, with Matt Dusenberry's reclamation of Keney's 1920s glory completely changing local golfers' perspective on how fun the game can be for a modest sum.
Langdon Farms Golf Club – Aurora, Ore.
Despite being divided by a highway, this John Fought design south of Portland manages to be thoroughly pleasant and assiduously welcome to all, as evidenced by the "PUBLIC ONLY" sign that overhangs its entrance.
Liberty Lake Golf Course – Liberty Lake, Wash.
Spokane may have the best municipal golf in America on a dollar-for-dollar basis and while I haven't played the city's famous Indian Canyon course, the County-owned Liberty Lake delighted with thoughtful bunkering and tremendous conditioning, with green fees around $50.
Lundin Golf Club – Leven, Fife, Scotland
Overlooked by many visiting golfers in favor of the brand-names, Lundin manages to be well at home under the radar as a quaint links test.
Memorial Park Golf Course – Houston, Texas
Though visitors can pay upwards of $150 to play, locals get such a sweet discount that this PGA Tour stop in the heart of the city, redone by Tom Doak just before the pandemic, deserves a spot here.
Orchard Creek Golf Course – Altamont, N.Y.
This family-owned public Paul Cowley (a former Davis Love III associate) layout combines thoughtful golf design with the opportunity for golfers to sample apples of 18 different varieties - one for each hole - during their rounds.
Papago Golf Course – Phoenix, Ariz.
In addition to its fun midcentury-modern course, recent renovations that turned the clubhouse into a local hangout for golfers and others alike have turned Papago into an example of just how easily a golf course can serve the greater community.
Riviera Country Club – Ormond Beach, Fla.
Truly walkable golf courses are a rarity in Florida, so this 50s family-owned spot near Daytona scores big points with its routing, as well as its pushed-up greens and its unusual no-formal-tee-times policy.
Royal New Kent Golf Club – Providence Forge, Va.
After a brief closure, this Mike Strantz epic between Williamsburg and Richmond is back up and running, and deserves a look from any golfer with a taste for golf's boundary-pushing possibilities.
Sanctuary Golf Club – Waverly, Ga.
Though it has Fred Couples' signature on it, Davis Love III's associates crafted a low-profile, scenic routing along marshes near Sea Island that reminds both of Seth Raynor and early Pete Dye designs.
San Clemente Golf Course – San Clemente, Calif.
Visitors to this surf town with a golf habit will be exhilarated by Billy Bell's fun routing, which gradually sends them uphill until the Pacific Ocean bursts into view in the middle of the back nine.
San Vicente Golf Resort – Ramona, Calif.
After Andy Staples improved on a 50-year-old routing through a valley northeast of San Diego by overhauling its bunkers and greens, San Vicente might just be the answer to the question, "What is America's greatest $70 golf course?"
Shennecossett Golf Course – Groton, Conn.
Ten of Donald Ross' 18 holes remain here, with some holes changed and other features lost to time, but once golfers get to the scenic 16th hole on the Thames River, any sense of melancholy for what was goes right out the window.
Triggs Memorial Golf Course – Providence, R.I.
As blue-collar as the day is long, this somewhat scruffy Donald Ross-designed city course can be a tough ticket in the summer, but a worthy stop for golf history buffs.
Trysting Tree Golf Club – Corvallis, Ore.
Architect and Oregon State alum Dan Hixson recently refined his alma mater's exquisitely maintained home course, whose elevated greens are sited just above spring flood stage for the Willamette River, which swaddles the property.
Wintonbury Hills Golf Course – Bloomfield, Conn.
Pete Dye charged the town just $1 to help design this course on sloping farmland, while Tim Liddy executed much of the in-field work. Every golfer gets their money's worth.
Comments (3)
Awesome list! I've played 69 out of 239 courses in my home state of Colorado. I've played in 33 out of the 50 states. Just England and Netherlands besides the U.S. I look forward to adding to my bucket list with some of Tim's picks. Happy Holidays,
Tim, thanks for a great story which made me feel good. As an aging golfer playing over 50 years I have now played 378 courses in 17 countries - never had a job in golf or a lesson or got below an 11 handicap. My bucket list is 400 in 20 countries before I am 75. So far on track. All time 6 favourites: St. Andrews (Old), Royal Melbourne (East), Pebble Beach, Wairakei International (New Zealand), Troon North (Pinnacle) and Old Head (Kinsale, Ireland). Currently have played 152 in Australia, 122 in NZ, 70 in the USA (28 states), and 34 in 14 other countries (every continent except Antarctica). As Jack wrote "The Greatest Game of All".
Thanks for the kind words, Robert. That's an excellent, eclectic top 6 you've got there! I have never been to the Southern Hemisphere so I look forward to playing Royal Melbourne, Wairakei and others in AUS and NZ someday. Troon North is also of interest, as I've only played golf in Arizona once and would love to see some more of what the desert has to offer.