Jacob Sjöman
World's 100 Greatest Courses: 2026-2027
When golfers travel, they tend to seek out target-rich environments, the dense clusters of places like the London Heathlands, the Melbourne Sandbelt or the Hamptons on Long Island where they can play as many great courses as possible in the shortest amount of time. Golfers visiting Scotland, for instance, typically attempt to gobble up chunks of A-list venues concentrated in regions up and down the east coast, where they can get to four of the top 10 layouts in our new World’s 100 Greatest Courses ranking and 14 of the top 100. But that sprint ranges from Muirfield (ranked third) and North Berwick (11th) in East Lothian all the way north to the Highlands and Royal Dornoch (fourth), more than eight hours apart by road. In the name of consumption, they speed past other stars like Gullane (94th), Panmure (No. 99), Elie, Fraserburgh or, God forbid, Cruden Bay (No. 26) and Brora.
Likewise, a trip to Melbourne will include rounds at Royal Melbourne’s West and East courses (ranked sixth and 33rd, respectively), Kingston Heath (ninth), Victoria (28th) and Metropolitan (59th). But how many will visit other equally profound Sandbelt designs like Peninsula Kingswood (69th) or Huntingdale? And if they stop on King Island to check off Cape Wickham (13th), will they venture just 45 minutes south to Ocean Dunes (100th), another stunning but lesser-known seaside design?
There are advantages to taking golf travel slow. Lingering for an extra day or two to play “secondary” courses in a flush golf market can deepen understanding of the local culture and history while turning up profound surprises. While it’s nice to be able to say you played Tara Iti in New Zealand (seventh) or Ireland’s Old Head (72nd), it’s the off-package forays to quirky courses with strange customs that produce the strongest memories and best stories.
Most of the 16 courses that debut on our new world ranking illustrate the joys of traveling off the beaten path or at least seeking places devoid of bus caravans. Some, like West Sussex (97th) and St. George’s Hill (53rd) in the London heathlands, are as aesthetically vivid and architecturally bulletproof as Sunningdale’s Old and New courses (ranked 12th and 36th, respectively), Swinley Forest (29th) or Walton Heath (81st) if not as well known. Others like Point Hardy at Cabot Saint Lucia (23rd) or Carne in northwest Ireland (63rd) are remote points of light that demand dedicated but existentially worthwhile efforts to see.
No one will be faulted for focusing an overseas trip around Royal County Down, our No. 1 course for the sixth consecutive ranking, or taking an entire day to ensure a tee time at the Old Course at St. Andrews (ranked second). These and every entry on the World’s 100 Greatest Golf Courses ranking deliver outstanding, sometimes transcendent golf. But our favorite rounds are often those that come with the least expectations played on the strength of faith alone. And that can make all the difference.
Below is Golf Digest's new ranking of the World's 100 Greatest Golf Courses for 2026-2027.
(Golf Digest will be releasing our new country-by-country rankings over the next few months.)
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Jacob Sjöman
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Previous rank: NEW
Few golf courses in the world get out of the box as quickly and to such dizzying effect as Ocean Dunes, set on the eastern shore of King Island midway between Australia and Tasmania. The first four holes—beginning with a blind, risk-reward drive over a dune to a par 5 that rambles downhill—each play along the Indian Ocean with greens misted by waves crashing along the coastal rocks. The 10th and 11th holes also play above the ocean, and several others provide gorgeous panoramic views of the sea. Broad, upland links-inspired holes provide delightful if heavily consequential strategic options, but the punishing roughs and intense gales make rounds here a measure of endurance as much as golf acumen. Nevertheless, this is one of the world’s most spectacular golf settings, and stay-and-play packages make it the perfect partner to Cape Wickham, ranked 13th in the world, just a 45-minute drive to the north.
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Mark Alexander
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David Cannon
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Mark Alexander
Previous rank: NEW
Ben Hogan spent two weeks practicing at Panmure before winning the 1953 Open Championship down the road at Carnoustie. During his stay, he recommended to the club that a bunker be added in front of the par-4 sixth green, a hole later named “Hogan” in honor of the legend. The first three and last three holes, pinched side-by-side into a narrow strip of land, prevent the course from a higher ranking but the middle section is ideal linksland with spacious holes that rumble across sea swell contours and low dune ridges, including back-to-back par 4s at 12 and 13 that must contend with a menacing burn.
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Gary Lisbon
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Gary Lisbon
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Gary Lisbon
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Gary Lisbon
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Gary Lisbon
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Gary Lisbon
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Gary Lisbon
Previous rank: 96
Few authentic sand-based links in New Zealand had an international following before the development of Tara Iti and the courses at Te Arai. Paraparaumu Beach is the exception. James Watt built the course on the Kapiti Coast north of Wellington in two sections, one nine in 1930, the other in 1937. New owners took charge in 1949 and to remodel it they hired Alex Russell, the Australian champion golfer who turned to course design after working with Alister Mackenzie. Russell spent six weeks on the property, reshaping dunes and creating splashy bunkers. Two years later, he returned and altered bunker faces from sand to turf because heavy winds were constantly eroding the steep sand faces. The club has preserved a number of mature trees throughout the links to act as buffers against wind.
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Kevin Murray
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Courtesy of the club
Previous rank: NEW
West Sussex, known as Pulborough, sits on a vein of white sand and heather amid a quiet countryside of heavy soil agricultural crops. The contrast makes playing here feel timeless, as does the unconcerned par of 68 and a bucolic design by Campbell and Hutchison that’s punctuated with extraordinary cross-bunkering demanding strategic dissection. Initially known for its vast open layout, the course began planting pine and birch trees in the 1930s, giving it a distinctly woodland character, complemented by an abundance of heather flower. The five par 3s steal the show, each completely individual ranging from 145 to 226 yards, including the long sixth that often demands a lay-up approach.
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Courtesy of the club
Previous rank: NEW
The Serapong course at Sentosa has had a headlock on the No. 1 spot in Singapore for years, and it’s unlikely to relinquish it anytime soon. In a land-starved nation where all coastal property is controlled by the government, its varied and challenging seaside holes are a premium that no other course will ever share. Finding the short grass off the tee is a worthy accomplishment for most weekend golfers considering the design is among the toughest in the land and has played host to the national open since 2005. But Serapong does make for great theater when the Asian Tour, and lately LIV Golf, comes to town, bringing fans from all over to gawk at its stunning backdrop of Singapore’s commercial skyline.
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Kevin Murray
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Courtesy of the club
Previous rank: 76
Royal St. David’s, Bernard Darwin wrote, “fascinates at first glance.” The course plays under the visage of Harlech Castle, a fortress set high atop sheer bluffs and constructed under the orders of Edward I in the 1280s during his conquest of Wales. The interior holes to the east cut in different directions across milder terrain over low, speedbump-like ground movements, and the holes along the western edge and to the south, particularly 11, 14 and 15, camber through high dunes that divide the links from Cardigan Bay in the St. George’s Channel. Like Brora, Pasatiempo and Garden City, the round finishes with a par 3.
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David Cannon
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David Cannon
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David Cannon
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David Cannon
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David Cannon
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David Cannon
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David Cannon
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David Cannon
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David Cannon
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David Cannon
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David Cannon
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David Cannon
Previous rank: NEW
Gullane Golf Club is home to three courses, two of which are must-plays. Gullane No. 1 is a Final Qualifying site for the Open and has hosted the Scottish Open. About 40 minutes east of Edinburgh, Gullane No. 1 overlooks the Firth of Forth. From an old Dan Jenkins piece on Scotland: "Gullane is a classic links course. Humpy, bumpy fairways, fast greens and deep, sod-faced bunkers. It winds up, around and down Gullane Hill, although only two holes—the second and fifth—involve serious climbing duty. Actually, the view from the seventh tee, the highest point on the course, is worth a few minutes’ pause. On a clear day you can see the distant tracery of the great Forth bridges—rail and road versions—the southern coast of Fife, and behind you, far below, the links of Muirfield.The back nine is long and tough, especially when the prevailing west wind is blowing either into your face or from your right. You do get a break at the end, though, if only for the reason that any course that goes uphill must eventually come down. The 17th hole—again take in the view from the tee—is straight downhill. It’s drivable if (A) you happen to be the master of the high slinging hook, and (B) the club decides to remove the two 30-foot-wide bunkers directly in front of the green.At Gullane, you play up an enormous hill and spend most of your time hitting shots along a towering cliff with exquisite vistas of the sea until you come down again. One hole, the par-4 11th, plays along a cliff where stone gun placements still exist, a reminder that the Scots once feared a German invasion.
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David Cannon
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Miles Willis
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David Cannon
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David Cannon
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David Cannon
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David Cannon
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David Cannon
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David Cannon
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David Cannon
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Getty Images
Previous rank: NEW
The iconic layout on the outskirts of London was originally designed by Harry Colt but underwent a complete, altering facelift from four-time major champion Ernie Els in 2017. It’s the perennial host of the BMW PGA Championship, and if the roll call of past champions can be used as evidence of quality, Wentworth passes even the closest scrutiny. Since ’84, 10 major champions—Bernhard Langer, Ian Woosnam, Nick Faldo, Seve Ballesteros, Jose Maria Olazabal, Angel Cabrera, Rory McIlroy, Francesco Molinari, Danny Willett and Shane Lowry—have inscribed their names on the trophy, as have eight-time European No. 1 Colin Montgomerie (three times in succession) and former World No. 1 Luke Donald (twice in succession).
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Stephen Szurlej
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Stephen Szurlej
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Stephen Szurlej
Previous rank: NEW
In golf-rich East Lothian, an American family, the Sarvadis, leased land featuring 300 acres of pine trees planted by Britain’s Forestry Commission after World War II and hired Tom Doak to design a links-style course. Though over 8,000 tons of wood was cleared from the site, Doak kept a number of trees on the site until the club cut down more trees a few years after opening. The Renaissance Club traded some land with neighboring Muirfield, which Muirfield used to lengthen its ninth hole ahead of the 2013 Open Championship. Renaissance Club acquired some extra dunesland that Doak and his team incorporated into the current layout on its holes nine through 11 (holes 12 through 14). The land offers beautiful views of the Firth of Fourth, and the tumbling land provides a good links-like test ahead of The Open Championship each year.
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Evan Schiller/Courtesy of the club
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Evan Schiller
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Evan Schiller
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Stephen Szurlej
Previous rank: 89
Tralee, on rugged sand dunes astride Tralee Bay in the southwest corner of Ireland, has long been considered the finest design of Arnold Palmer. Working with architect Ed Seay (partner in Arnie’s design firm) and their associate Bob Walker, the layout was fashioned in the early 1980s in the same manner that Norman would later route Doonbeg, by locating greensites and then scouring the landscape to figure out natural fairways that would lead to them. Tralee is a captivating design, starting along high cliffs, like Pebble Beach, and finishing in high dunes similar to those found at Ballybunion. Fourteen years ago, Brandon Johnson added a new alternate par-3 seventh on land just crying out to be used as a hole.
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Gary Lisbon
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Gary Lisbon
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Gary Lisbon
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Gary Lisbon
90. County Sligo G.C.-Rosses Point (Colt Championship)
Rosses Point, Co. Sligo, Ireland
Previous rank: 88
Significant work was done in 2014 to bring this gem on Ireland’s northwest coast up to the standards and demands of modern players. The old Colt course, set across beautiful links terrain, gained roughly 300 yards through the addition of new tees and green extensions (the par-5 third received an entirely new green 65 yards beyond where it was) along with numerous new fairway bunkers and several putting surface expansions. Holes 12 through 17 skirt the beach making for a lovely run of holes (the course is named for the peninsula of land that juts into Drumcliff Bay), but the real intrigue comes from a system of burns that meander in rhymeless direction through fairways and in front of greens.
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Courtesy of Highlands Links/Chris Gallow
Previous rank: 86
On the opposite Nova Scotia coast from Cabot Cliffs and Cabot Links is the 80-year-old Highlands Links in Cape Breton, a sterling Stanley Thompson design routed to give golfers the full coastal experience, from ocean beach, to deep forest, to river’s edge and back. Thompson even shaped greenside mounds to mimic certain mountain ridges in the distance. A national park operation, Highlands had long been criticized for spotty maintenance, but after a 2010 flood, serious efforts, directed by Canadian golf architect Ian Andrew, were undertaken to restore its luster and improve its turf quality.
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Gary Lisbon
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Gary Lisbon
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Gary Lisbon
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Gary Lisbon
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Gary Lisbon
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Gary Lisbon
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Gary Lisbon
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Gary Lisbon
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Gary Lisbon
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Gary Lisbon
Previous rank: 92
Although golf architect Willie Park Jr. did fiddle with a few holes in 1913, Portstewart’s Strand Course is mostly the result of amateur architects. A.W. Gow, the greenkeeper from nearby Portrush, staked out the original course by 1910. Eighty years later, math teacher Des Giffin, who was Portstewart’s green chairman, and Michael Moss, the club secretary, added seven new holes, the second through eighth, in dramatic dunes. Mike Stachura, Golf Digest’s longtime Senior Editor of Equipment and savvy course design buff, describes its dramatic setting: “The first tee at the Strand is set on high dunes, like you’re surveying the kingdom, with beach and waves down to your right and all of County Antrim in front. It’s no wonder the television series Game of Thrones used the nearby land as scene-stealers.”
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Gary Lisbon
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Gary Lisbon
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Gary Lisbon
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Gary Lisbon
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Gary Lisbon
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Gary Lisbon
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Gary Lisbon
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Gary Lisbon
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Gary Lisbon
Previous rank: 73
John Darby, a New Zealand land planner and golf architect, routed Jack's Point through one of the South Island’s most dramatic backdrops highlighted by continuous panoramic views of the mile-high Remarkables Mountains. The routing is like an amusement park ride, building anticipation through the opening holes with a slow climb toward the elevated green at the par-5 fifth and a stunning reveal of Lake Wakatipu. From there it’s a thrilling rush that doesn’t stop, moving steeply downhill at the lakeside sixth and drop-shot par-3 seventh, then back into the heart of the property with holes that play across the central plateau along and over ravines before a final, sharp descent back down into the interior valley. What the design sacrifices in walkability it more than makes up for in explosive aesthetics, heart-in-throat tee shots and rugged bunkering that guards greens and serve as visual guideposts. Golfers expect big, spectacular experiences when visiting New Zealand, and Jack’s Point delivers one of its best.
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Courtesy of the club
Previous rank: NEW
Like many of the most prominent old courses in Australia, the destiny of Royal Adelaide was altered by Alister MacKenzie’s visit to the continent in 1926. The original holes were laid out by founding members over two decades earlier, but MacKenzie provided the club a blueprint for major modifications to be undertaken after he departed. Though not all his recommendations were implemented immediately, those that were transformed the course, including rerouting holes, moving greens, expanding fairways to create angles and shaping holes around the site’s natural sand craters for greater strategic thrill. Slowly over the ensuing decades, more of his ideas have been installed, and Royal Adelaide is a riveting, authentic expression of MacKenzie’s design concepts that rivals his best work in Melbourne.
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David Cannon
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David Cannon
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David Cannon
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David Cannon
Previous rank: NEW
Constructed just after the First World War by James Braid, with the assistance of then-budding designer C.K. Hutchison, and studiously preserved for the last hundred years, the King’s Course at Gleneagles Hotel has been overshadowed in recent times by the emergence of the resort’s Jack Nicklaus-designed PGA Centenary Course, which hosted the 2014 Ryder Cup. But to golf architecture fans, and Golf Digest panelists, the King’s is still king, (Braid, by the way, always considered King’s to be his best work.) The course meanders along novel topography, full of odd elephant-shaped mounds, humps and abrupt gulches, lined with pine, fir, heather and bracken. It’s a pleasant stroll but a difficult test of golf. Over the decades, various publications have listed various Gleneagles holes as Best in the World, including the long, uphill par-4 fourth, the dinky “Denty Den” 14th, now a drivable par 4 thanks to advanced technology, and the short par-4 17th with its wasp-waist of a fairway. But the hole everyone must see to believe is the par-3 fifth, “Het Girdle,” its green a frying pan turned upside down with bunkers gouged into its sides.
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Laurence Lambrecht/Courtesy of the club
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Laurence Lambrecht/Courtesy of the club
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Laurence Lambrecht/Courtesy of the club
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Laurence Lambrecht/Courtesy of the club
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Laurence Lambrecht/Courtesy of the club
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Laurence Lambrecht/Courtesy of the club
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Laurence Lambrecht/Courtesy of the club
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Laurence Lambrecht
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Laurence Lambrecht
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Laurence Lambrecht/Courtesy of the club
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Laurence Lambrecht/Courtesy of the club
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Laurence Lambrecht/Courtesy of the club
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Laurence Lambrecht/Courtesy of the club
Previous rank: NEW
Adare Manor was one of the last that Robert Trent Jones’ firm designed (he passed away, at age 93, in 2000). The course was laid out over an attractive country estate in County Limerick with holes that play on either side of the River Maigue. The property has been the site of a luxury hotel and was purchased a decade ago by an Irish billionaire who initiated a significant reinvestment, highlighted by Tom Fazio’s remodel of the course. Fazio works primarily domestically and only the most premium of commissions have motivated him to take on international work. Adare Manor fits the bill. The entire course was stripped and redesigned, including the installation of SubAir systems under the greens. The course has the reputation for being the finest conditioned in Ireland with a number of engaging holes that should produce excitement during the 2027 Ryder Cup. These include the par-3 16th with a 90-yard deep green (it can play to a four- or five-club difference depending on the tee) and the par-5 18th where players will have to hit long approaches over the river if they want to get to the green in two.
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The Drone Guys
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The Drone Guys
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Mel Maclaine
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Mel Maclaine
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Mel Maclaine
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Courtesy of the club
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David Cannon
Previous rank: 90
One of the newest courses to be built on genuine Irish linksland, Brittas Bay Golf Club (formerly The European Club) is the lifetime accomplishment of Pat Ruddy, a golf writer from the 1960s and a golf architect from 1975 onward. He mortgaged his home to buy the land and spent five years designing and building it before it opened in 1992. Hard against the Irish Sea's Arklow Bay, Brittas Bay rolls across an untamed landscape with pot bunkers lined in railroad ties and two extra par-3 holes. The routing explores the diverse coastal dunes with returning nines, a marsh off the seventh tee and a burn looping in front of the 18th green with not a single blind shot anywhere. Ruddy, who tinkered with the course the way Donald Ross groomed Pinehurst #2, says he was once offered to sell it for 22 million pounds and passed. His sense to hold on was a savvy one: he got 30 million pounds when he did finally sell the club in 2025 at age 80. Kyle Phillips is currently performing restoration work at the rebranded Brittas Bay for the new owners.
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Courtesy of the club
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Mickael Tannus
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Mickael Tannus
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Courtesy of the club
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Courtesy of the club
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Jacob Sjoman
Previous link: 71
Designed by American Kyle Phillips, whose breakthrough course was No. 22 Kingsbarns in Scotland, Yas Links is part of a massive Arabian Gulf entertainment complex that includes a Formula 1 racetrack and a Ferrari World amusement park. As the name suggests, Phillips fashioned this as a warm-weather links, using two million cubic yards of sand dredged from an adjacent marina to give the layout the shape and contour, then covering everything with salt-tolerant Paspalum turf. Eight holes play along a vast intracoastal waterway that leads to the Persian Sea, including holes 13, 14 and 16 through 18, a most invigorating stretch.
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Jason Livy
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Jason Livy
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Jason Livy
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Jason Livy
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Jason Livy
Previous rank: 69
Herbert Fowler’s earliest design, done in 1904, is an out-and-back routing with rippling fairways, tight turf, cross bunkers, ground-hugging greens and fields of heather, all borrowed from coastal links. One writer has suggested Walton Heath ranks with Pine Valley as the best neophyte design in golf. It opens with a par 3, closes with five stern holes, including the par-5 16th, which is played as a long 4 for tournaments. Donald Steel altered holes and added length early in this century.
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Courtesy of the club
Previous rank: 59
Debuting in the World 100 rankings in 2022, de Pan feels like it was cut through the dark woods of a medieval fairy tale, though the city of Utrecht is just two miles away. The holes wander, spin and double back as if searching for a way out, with very few offering any glimpse of another. A beautiful collection of short par 4s await, including the sharp, partially blind dogleg seventh and the remarkable 10th snaking through a narrow passage of mounds. Colt’s golf influence in the Netherlands, here as well as at Kennemer and Koninklijke Haagsche (aka Royal Hague), is almost as significant as it is in the London Heathlands, which makes sense given the similarities of the landscapes.
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Courtesy of Les Bordes Estate
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Courtesy of Kevin Diss
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Courtesy of Les Bordes Estate
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Courtesy of Les Bordes Estate
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Courtesy of Kevin Diss
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Courtesy of Les Bordes Estate
Previous rank: NEW
At Les Bordes, Hanse and design partner Jim Wagner were given a sand-based site—a golf architect’s dream—allowing for firmer, faster playing conditions. As you play the course it feels as though the 18 holes were always there, and that there must’ve been little movement of the existing terrain. “We worked really hard to make sure our course sat softly in the landscape,” Hanse says. Whether by sprawling heathland or fescue-lined bunkering that’s rugged yet refined, the New Course not only sits softly in the landscape, it feels as though it is the landscape.
Despite its moniker, the New Course is a return to an older, more classic style of golf course architecture. One that demands a more nuanced strategy than simply trying to avoid an imposing water hazard—and where angles, created by clever contouring and well-placed bunkering must be properly navigated in order to create the easiest shot into the green. And one that allows the golfer to run the ball up onto nearly every putting surface, incentivizing creativity while giving options to the higher handicapper.
Even with all of the strategic elements, the New Course is incredibly walkable—in fact, it’s a walking-only course. The terrain has plenty of subtle undulations to create some blind shots, but there is hardly an elevation change that will leave you catching your breath.
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Clive Barber/Courtesy of the club
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David Cannon
Previous rank: 78
Western Gailes is perhaps the least-known grand old Scottish links. It’s located north of Royal Troon, just off the Firth of Clyde, squeezed on the east by active railroad tracks (like Troon), and thus its north-south routing over and between rolling sand dunes seems far tighter than its neighbors. Holes one through four, all par 4s, head north, then five through 13 march due south along the beach, with fairways mostly aimed southeast or southwest. The closing five play due north and sport some of the most intense bunkering on the 18. The club insists Fred Morris, its first greenkeeper, laid out the course, but we say Willie Fernie, who expanded Troon to 18 holes in the 1880s, did it.
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William Watt
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William Watt
Previous rank: NEW
The The National: Old course in Cape Schanck, Victoria is one of the best golf courses in Australia. Discover our experts' reviews here.
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Photo by David Cannon/Getty Images
Previous rank: 56
One of the least known of Scotland's great links, Royal Aberdeen offers an old world/new world contrast to its neighbor to the north, Trump International Golf Links, 125 years its junior. The first nine runs north through dramatic dunesland along the shoreline, with the inward nine backtracking inland along softer terrain to the clubhouse. Though the final stretch might be a bit underwhelming visually, its holes are just as testing. The links saw a few touchups by Martin Hawtree prior to the 2011 Walker Cup, which mostly included the addition of bunkers and a new green on the 15th hole. Royal Aberdeen also hosted the 2014 Scottish Open, won by Justin Rose.
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Gary Lisbon
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Gary Lisbon
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Gary Lisbon
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Gary Lisbon
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Gary Lisbon
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Gary Lisbon
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Gary Lisbon
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Gary Lisbon
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Gary Lisbon
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Gary Lisbon
Previous rank: 79
Resting just three miles from Royal St. George's (No. 18), the Royal Cinque Ports links rolls over gentle oceanfront sand dunes with some holes playing off a single prominent ridge that runs the length of the property. Cinque (pronounced "sank") Ports hosted two British Opens, in 1909 won by J.H. Taylor, and 1920 won by George Duncan. It was slated to host three others, in 1915, 1938 and 1949, but a combination of a World War and ocean storms forced officials to move the championship elsewhere each time. The present course is far different than Tom Dunn’s original design. Before the 1920 Open, James Braid rearranged the layout, adding several new holes, including all four of the present par 3s. In the process, he abandoned the beloved, blind par-3 fourth, called “Sandy Parlour,” but his replacement fourth, playing off a dune toward the ocean, has become beloved as well.
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Joann Dost
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Joann Dost/Courtesy of the club
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Joann Dost/Courtesy of the club
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Courtesy of the club
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Courtesy of the club
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Courtesy of the club
Previous ranking: 72
This extravagant Kyle Phillips design has gained attention as visitors from around the world compare its stunning architecture and scenery to everything from Kingsbarns (another Phillips design, which also features ocean views from every tee), to Teeth of the Dog (South Cape has even more holes along the coast) to Cabot Cliffs (there will be a debate as to which has the more dramatic ocean-carry 16th hole, with Point Hardy at Cabot Saint Lucia also jumping into the mix) to the granddaddy of ocean courses, Pebble Beach. If anything, South Cape’s tiny downhill par-3 14th to a thumb in the ocean is more treacherous than the short 7th at Pebble Beach.
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Stephen Szurlej
Previous ranking: 100
When Jack Nicklaus first saw this Baja Peninsula site, what can best be described as Scottsdale-meets-the-Sea of Cortez, he told reporters, “This is my chance to design a Pebble Beach.” He took advantage of that chance, routing an exciting 18 that plays from highlands of desert cacti over dry washes and down to the sea on both nines. When the layout opened in 1994, Nicklaus said it had the three finest finishing holes in golf, running along rocks above the crashing surf of Whale Bay. That’s not true anymore. In 2020 the 17th and 18th holes were demolished and replaced by two inland holes to make oceanfront space for expanded resort development. Still, panelists find the remainder of the design is compelling enough to keep it comfortably inside the World's top 100.
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Courtesy of the club
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Previous rank: 77
In the 1980s, the golf potential of this 220-acre swollen thumb of land poking into the Atlantic had many course architects excited. The job went to Ron Kirby, one-time design partner of Gary Player and former associate of Dick Wilson, Robert Trent Jones, and later, Jack Nicklaus. He consulted with Irish legends Paddy Merrigan, Eddie Hackett, Joe Carr and Liam Higgins. Kirby lived on the site for two years, determined to find an ideal routing that would maximize the rocky ocean cliffs that encircle the peninsula. It opened in 1996 with nine holes along ledges 300 feet above the surf. Kirby later returned to add a second nine, relocating the par-3 13th to cling along an ocean slope.
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Taku Miyamoto
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Taku Miyamoto
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Taku Miyamoto
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Taku Miyamoto
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Taku Miyamoto
Previous rank: 83
The most mountainous of the Japanese courses ranked on our World 100 Greatest, Naruo reminds many Americans of courses found on the Monterey Peninsula, with hilly fairways slashed by gulleys that run to the sea lined by dense Monterey-like pines. Originally designed in 1920 by brothers Harry, Bert and Joseph Crane, it was rebunkered by C.H. Alison during his 1930s tour of the country. With that dramatic deep bunkering, Naruo looks both lovely and lethal. Only the flattish greens, many on hilltop locations, seem out of place.
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Courtesy of the club
Previous rank: 70
St. Enodoc’s placed in our inaugural World’s 100 Greatest Courses ranking in 2014, when it came in at No. 99, then disappeared before a return in 2022. The layout, located in Cornwall in the extreme southwest corner of England, traverses some of the most ideal natural golf land in the UK, bumping through sand hills on the banks of the River Carmel estuary. The routing takes full advantage of the land, turning, twisting and crossing as it works out to far fields, having too much fun to be in any hurry home. One of the world’s most famous hazards is located here, the Himalaya bunker on the short, blind par-4 sixth, a massive crater carved into a dune that was once over 70-feet high, though less so now due to wind and erosion.
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Gary Lisbon
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Gary Lisbon
Previous rank: NEW
PK, as Peninsula Kingswood is called locally, bears all the technicolor elements that define the Melbourne Sand Belt: wavy contour, thick coastal flora, ornate bunkers eating into the edges of greens and glassy surfaces non-Australians can find hard to deal with. A newcomer to Melbourne’s upper golf tier, it’s the result of a merger of two longstanding independent clubs in 2013 that catalyzed a total reconstruction of the 36 holes by the firm of Ogilvy, Cocking and Mead (OCM) along with former partner Mike Clayton. The overhaul, opened in 2019, was a project of personal importance to Cocking, a longtime member of the facility. His work here, including the remodel of the 18-hole South Course, has been undertaken with the same devotion as Donald Ross' modifications of his beloved #2 course at Pinehurst, or Pete Dye's revamping of Crooked Stick or Harbour Town.
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Jon Cavalier/@LinksGems
Previous rank: 81
A great myth is that Rye hasn't changed in a century. In truth, during World War II the Royal Army built pillboxes and buried fuel storage tanks on the existing course. Architect Guy Campbell reclaimed the course in 1946, using a bulldozer to create new holes. To play such seemingly natural holes as the par-3 seventh on Rye's rolling links today, you'd never suspect it. Rye has long been considered the toughest par 68 on earth. This ranking confirms that.
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Courtesy of Ganton Golf Club
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Courtesy of Ganton Golf Club
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Courtesy of Ganton Golf Club
Previous rank: 85
Not everyone has been enamored with Ganton, the great Harry Vardon's home club. Back in 1949, American Ryder Cupper Jimmy Demaret described the course, still recovering from WWII, as "a sort of Pennsylvania Turnpike with trees." It's matured greatly since then. Situated on a pocket of sand in an otherwise inland landscape of clay and rock, Ganton plays firm and fast with holes hemmed in by blooming gorse. Among the course's difficult hazards include more than 110 vertical-edged bunkers, many deep enough to require wooden steps. Bernard Darwin famously said golfers playing Ganton suffer either sandy or prickly disaster.
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Courtesy: Fairmont Hotels & Resorts
Previous rank: 60
Where No. 77 Old Head in Ireland plays along the top of escarpments, Banff in the Canadian Rockies of Alberta lies beneath escarpments, with near-vertical cliffs of Mount Rundle towering 3,000 feet over almost every fairway. The course, another masterful design by Canadian Stanley Thompson, is tucked into the narrow Y-shaped valley formed by the Bow and Spray Rivers. Bunkering at Banff may be the best of Thompson's career. There are 150 of them, often in circular clusters, with ebbs and flows in their shapes that mirror mountain peaks.
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Photo by Stephen Szurlej
Previous rank: 51
Once he completed Kingsbarns (No. 22), owner Mark Parsinen found another ideal venue farther north on the shores of the Moray Firth. Golf architect Gil Hanse and partner Jim Wagner hand-built Castle Stuart, with Parsinen, who passed away in 2019, involved in every step of the design. Each nine opens with holes framed by shore's edge on one side and a high bluff on the other. Then each nine moves to a mezzanine level where the views are spectacular and several "infinity greens" seem perched on cliffs directly over the sea. Castle Stuart, now part of the Cabot Highlands property, soon to be joined by a Tom Doak-designed course, has hosted several Scottish Opens. Parsinen's dream was to host The Open.
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Photo by Angus Murray /Sports Illustrated/Getty Images
Previous rank: 47
Mexico's first true links, fashioned by Davis Love III and his design team (which included his brother Mark Love and designer Paul Cowley) from a fantastic set of white sand dunes along the Pacific Ocean, huge portions of which are without vegetation and seem like enormous snow drifts. Holes hug the flowing terrain with little artificiality. Two holes on the back nine once played past around a long lagoon, but have been replaced by new 12th and 13th holes on the beach. Now all of the second nine is adjacent to the ocean, amidst the tallest dunes. No other links in the world sports cactus.
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Courtesy of the club
Previous rank: NEW
Undisturbed mountainous dunes in the tiny town of Belmullet in County Mayo, a five-hour drive from Dublin, created a stunning pallet for Eddie Hackett to design what was once one of golf’s best hidden gems. Hackett employed local farmers with shovels and rakes to ensure the dunes wouldn’t be disturbed, and eight years later, the first nine holes opened. A year later, a second nine was added. Jim Engh, an American architect, discovered Carne several years after that and became a member. He routed nine new holes through the site’s enormous unused dunes, which Irish designer Ally McIntosh completed in 2020 with his own alterations. These new holes combine with the original Hackett holes to make the Wild Atlantic Dunes 18, a course so surreal it’s no longer a hidden gem but a destination of its own.
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Mark Alexander
Previous rank: 61
We should rejoice in the fact that the World’s 100 Greatest has room for at least one museum piece of golf architecture—an authentic relic from a time when golfers played cross-country without benefit of crisply mown turf and inviting targets. The third hole demands a forced carry over the notorious Cardinal bunker. There's a blind tee shot over a ridge dubbed the Himalayas into par-3 fifth green, a blind approach shot down an escarpment to the 15th green and another blind approach over dunes known as The Alps to reach green on the par-4 17th. Prestwick hosted 24 Open Championships but none since 1925. That doesn't matter. It's an anachronistic design worth preserving.
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Michael Wolf/@BamaBearcat
Previous rank: 99
It is a common misbelief that Toyko Golf Club was designed by C.H. Alison, the talented Englishman who visited Japan in the early 1930s and transformed the country’s golf architecture with such courses as Hirono and Kawana Hotel. Alison did design a course for Tokyo in 1932, but its land was requisitioned by the Imperial Army in the lead-up to WWII. The club moved to a new layout designed by Japanese architect Komei Ohtani in 1939, while Alison’s course became potato fields. That didn’t keep golf architect Gil Hanse, who has done extensive remodeling of Tokyo G.C. over the past 15 years, to fashion features that reflect Alison’s, not Ohtani’s, philosophy of design.
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Photo by David Cannon/Getty Images
Previous rank: 63
Hoylake is a layout of stark contrasts—a series of splendid natural holes within coastal sand dunes (holes attributed to a 1930s H.S. Colt remodeling), with a less scenic start and finish inland on dead flat land. Still, the first hole, a stern dogleg-right around an internal out-of-bounds, is considered one of the most testing opening holes in links golf. Almost 20 years ago, our architecture editor emeritus Ron Whitten suggested that Royal Liverpool, which hadn't seen an Open since 1967, was past its prime as a championship venue. It has hosted three Opens since then, including two won by a pair of the modern era’s greatest players, Tiger Woods in 2006 and Rory McIlroy in 2014. It has had an uncanny knack for crowning the game’s best player of any given time, though we’re not yet sure of what to make of Brian Harman’s six-stroke victory in 2023.
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Gary Lisbon
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Previous rank: 42
Metropolitan was designed by club members J.B. Mackenzie and C.W. Chapman in 1908 and was revised in 1926 by famed architect Alister MacKenzie, as part of his two-month visit to Australia. But the present design is the work of American architect Dick Wilson, who added eight new holes in the late 1950s. Wilson also revised the remaining holes to reflect his philosophy that golf is meant to be played through the air. Bunkers front nearly every green and pinch nearly every fairway. Metropolitan hosted the PGA Tour's World Cup of Golf in 2018.
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Clyde Johnson
Previous rank: 49
It’s always been known that the dunes to the south of the original Rosapenna resort on Ireland’s northwest coast in County Donegal were some of the country’s most profound linksland, though the two original courses that had occupied them since the 1990s with slender, simple fairways running mostly in parallel directions never fulfilled that promise. It wasn’t until Tom Doak began reworking the land in 2019—eliminating most of the holes, maintaining the corridors of others and finding new territories of dunes and sand ridges to explore within the site’s 300 acres along Sheephaven Bay—that the land’s true potential was realized. Opened in 2021, the routing of each nine moves out through buffered channels toward the shore, utilizing broad, bouncy fairways that camber into greens that are either set in hollows or elevated on wind-battered bluffs. In buoyancy, variety and seaside topography, St. Patrick’s rivals the best of what Irish golf has to offer.
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Evan Schiller
Previous rank: 41
Jack Nicklaus got his start in golf design working with Pete Dye, and his Punta Espada is a lively version of Dye's 1971 design of the Teeth of the Dog course (No. 54) farther down the Dominican coast, from the pot bunkers to the broad waste areas of brilliant white sand usually associated with Pete's work, as well as the low-profile greens and the eight green complexes right on the Caribbean shore. Punta Espada starts and finishes on the Caribbean and returns to it early in the back nine, with the awesome 249-yard, par-3 13th directly over an ocean cove.
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David Cannon/Getty Images
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David Cannon/Getty Images
Previous rank: 57
This par-73 layout is named for obscure architect S.V. Hotchkin, who purchased the club in the early 1920s and remodeled the course, which consisted of a 1905 nine by Harry Vardon and a 1912 nine by H.S. Colt. Hotchkin tinkered with the lovely, ground-hugging heathland layout until his death in 1953, producing what some call the most ferocious bunkers in Great Britain. Some are hidden from view, others are steep and deep and some are ringed with heather. American architect Tom Doak has recently been involved with restoration work.
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Ricky Robinson
Previous rank: 55
Like Cape Kidnappers 400 miles to the southeast, Kauri Cliffs occupies an old sheep ranch atop an ocean-front plateau laced with canyons. Unlike Kidnappers, the 2000 layout by design-and-build architect Dave Harman of Orlando has hills of native rough, stands of fern and more forced carries over gorges. The topography allowed Harman to string the seventh and eighth and 14th through 17th holes parallel to the edge of the Pacific, although several hundred feet above it. Sadly, Harman died in 2004 of tongue cancer. Kauri Cliffs was his finest achievement.
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Jon Cavalier/@LinksGems
Previous rank: NEW
In his classic 1925 book, The Links, Robert Hunter raved about H.S. Colt's "bold hazards, well designed" at St. George's Hill. And while, nearly 100 years later, some are now tamer, with less ragged, jagged edges, their placements are still ideal. Towering fir trees and patches of heather add additional challenge and charm to what many consider to be Colt's finest heathland design, more stirring even than Swinley Forest. St. George's Hill's main 18, now the Blue & Red 9s, opened in 1913 as one of the first residential golf projects in the world.
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Previous rank: 58
Capilano is definitely Old School updated to modern times. The holes of this Stanley Thompson design, now nearly 90 years old, are terraced in pairs into the mountainside, and the enormous Douglas fir, hemlock and cedar that line them give the mistaken impression that the corridors are narrow. Thompson’s bunkering is spectacular and prolific. In recent years, Doug Carrick has rebuilt three greens and expanded others to accommodate desired green speeds of 10 to 11 on a Stimpmeter. From the elevated first tee, the city of Vancouver, five miles south, is visible, and the last six holes provide outstanding views of the Coastal Range, particularly Hollyburn Mountain.
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Courtesy of the club
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Previous rank: 53
Waterville has some superb dunes holes, next to the Ballinskelligs Bay, and several laid out in former potato fields. Original owner John Mulcahy and 1947 Masters champion Claude Harmon (Butch's dad) collaborated with Irish golf architect Eddie Hackett on the early 1970s design. A decade ago, Tom Fazio added the new par-3 sixth and par-4 seventh holes and altered 13 others, building new tees, greens and much-needed humps and bumps to the flattish front nine. The collection of par 3s is as strong as any in Ireland, highlighted by the “Mass” hole across a deep basin to a naked green and the 17th, “Mulcahy’s Peak,” playing toward a horizon along the bay.
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51. Koninklijke Haagsche Golf and Country Club: Royal Hague
Wassenaar, South Holland, Netherlands
Previous rank: 48
Though located inland from the sea, there’s no question Royal Hague is links golf. The course, north of the city, sits on the edge of a vast region of sand dunes that would be the home to several more world-class courses if it had been developed in the 19th century (as the links of Scotland had) and not environmentally protected. The Charles Alison and H.S. Colt design is a lesson in restraint—following Frank Pont’s restorative efforts over the last decade and a half, there are only 23 bunkers and almost none guarding fairways, and five holes have zero bunkers. Royal Hague doesn’t need them with fairways that caterpillar over electric landforms leaving numerous shots uphill to semi-blind greens that seem like the only calm parts of the property.
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Previous rank: 54
The Teeth of the Dog turned the Dominican Republic into a golf destination in 1971. Pete Dye rebuilt and updated the course several times, sometimes after hurricane damage and sometimes to fine tune the design. The routing is stunning, a clockwise front nine, counterclockwise back nine, with seven holes hunkered down on the ocean, no more than 20 feet above the surf. The sea is on the left on holes five through eight, on the right on holes 15 through 17. Every hole is unique and scenic. Former PGA Tour player Jerry Pate, along with design partner Steve Dana, conducted a comprehensive renovation of the course in 2025 to upgrade the turf, drainage and bunkers, and thankfully resisted any urge to architecturally alter Dye's masterpiece.
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Gary Lisbon
Previous rank: 67
Jay Morrish and Tom Weiskopf were the first American architects to work in Scotland, not on the coast but west of Glasgow on the shore of Loch Lomond. The design is mostly the work of Weiskopf, who lived on site supervising construction while Morrish recovered from a heart attack at home. Opened in 1992, it's a graceful layout, the third, sixth, seventh and 18th holes touching the shoreline, others winding through inland hazards of oaks, sculptured bunkers, streams, marsh and a pond. There are a pair of reachable par 4s, the ninth and the 14th, the latter a favorite of Weiskopf's, who passed away in 2022.
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David Cannon
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David Cannon
Previous rank: 94
The first bones of Turnberry’s King Robert the Bruce were laid out by Willie Fernie, the professional responsible for expanding Royal Troon to 18 holes. These and the holes from the championship Ailsa course were lost during the world wars when the land was converted to an air base but returned afterward in the form of the short Arran Course. In 2001, Donald Steel remade them once again, rebranded the Kintyre Course, with a layout that included the addition of several new holes along the property’s northwestern cliffs. In 2016, Martin Ebert, who also remodeled the Ailsa, revamped the course once more, making alterations to the interior of the site and reversing the direction and orientation of the seaside holes to enhance the dramatic vistas. The new name is in reference to the Scottish king who built Turnberry Castle that once stood where the famous lighthouse now does. The result is the debut of Turnberry’s second course on our World’s 100 Greatest ranking.
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David Cannon
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Stephen Szurlej
Previous rank: 52
To reach Machrihanish, Old Tom Morris needed a train, a steamboat and a long carriage ride. Visitors today have to resort to much the same mode, so remote is Machrihanish, on the southern end of Scotland's Kintyre Peninsula. It's a journey rewarded, from one of the game’s greatest opening tee shots, which the bold will carry over a beach and Atlantic tide on the left, to the remainder of the links in some of the most rugged dunes known to links golf.
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Ricky Robinson
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Courtesy of the club/Ricky Robinson
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Ricky Robinson
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Ricky Robinson
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Courtesy of the club/Ricky Robinson
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Courtesy of the club/Ricky Robinson
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Courtesy of the club/Ricky Robinson
Previous rank: 36
Tom Doak’s North Course at this new resort development on the northeast course of New Zealand is the highest-ranked debut in 2024. Unlike the South Course, which opened a year earlier, only a few holes play near the Pacific Ocean. The North doesn’t need them. Doak’s routing begins and ends on the ocean, but the spirit of the design resides in the majority of holes that play inland through sand barrens and a forest of conifers. As expected from Doak, the greens are full of robust movements and there are few level stances anywhere that’s not a tee.
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Kevin Murray
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Photo by David Cannon/Getty Images
Previous rank: 37
A true links on rolling ground with soft rather than dramatic dunes, Portmarnock, on a spit of land in the Irish Sea north of Dublin, is known for its routing, which hasn't been altered in over a hundred years and was revolutionary at the time for constantly changing wind direction with every shot. The links is also known for its fairness, as nearly every feature is plainly in view from tee to green, which makes its maze of bunkers and subtle greens all the more testing.
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John Singleton
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John Singleton
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John Singleton
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John Singleton
Previous rank: 64
This was C.B. Macdonald's lone international design, done in the early 1920s with his faithful assistant Seth Raynor, who according to ship records, made most of the trips to the site. Spurred by the 18th Amendment, which established alcohol prohibition in America, Macdonald and his partners bought a collection of onion and potato fields on the northeast coast of Bermuda to build the course. Macdonald used his pet template holes mainly on the par 3s—Short, Eden, Biarritz and Redan are all represented—but the par-4 fifth is the standout, with its bite-off-what-you-dare tee shot over Mangrove Lake, perhaps the most famous version of his Cape hole. Gil Hanse and Jim Wagner have been renovating the course over the last several years.
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The Preferred Lie
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The Preferred Lie
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The Preferred Lie
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The Preferred Lie
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The Preferred Lie
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The Preferred Lie
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The Preferred Lie
Previous rank: 84
George Fazio once lost a U.S. Open in a playoff to Ben Hogan and his architecture reflected the sort of discipline needed to win that championship: tight well-guarded fairways, big, well-bunkered, fast-paced greens and polished conditions. National G.C. of Canada reflects that and more, with gambling water hazards and double doglegs. In 2005, Tom Fazio, who helped his uncle with the original 1974 design, rebunkered some holes and created a new par-4 16th.
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Nick Wall
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Gary Lisbon/Courtesy of the club
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Courtesy of the club
Previous rank: 40
The courses at Te Arai are cousins of Tara Iti, a private course that jumped to No. 2 in the ranking shortly after it opened in 2015 (it’s currently seventh). The two public resort courses are situated roughly five miles to the south along the same long stretch of Pacific beach, where Bill Coore’s figure-eight routing of the spellbinding South Course begins in a forest behind a wall of inland sand dunes before exploding onto the oceanfront headlands stringing parts or all of 10 tumbling, rambling holes along the sea.
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Previous rank: 38
Another outstanding Stanley Thompson design, St. George's is routed through forest-covered glacial land, with meandering fairways that diagonally traverse valleys to greens perched on domes. The putting surfaces are tightly bunkered and full of hidden undulations. These are considered some of Thompson's best bunkering, thanks in part to American architect Tom Doak and Canadian architect Ian Andrew, who recently collaborated to restore their shapes, highlighting their sweeping lines and graceful movements. St. George’s hosted the Canadian Open six times, including the 2022 event won flamboyantly by Rory McIlroy.
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Photo by Atsushi Tomura/Getty Images
Previous rank: 50
C.H. Alison's 1936 design for Japan's first golf resort has long been dubbed the "Pebble Beach of Japan," but the layout is far more mountainous. That's evident from the opening hole, which drops down a tumbling fairway framed by twisted pines to a green with Sagami Bay as its backdrop. The sea also backdrops the steep downhill fourth, seventh, 10th, 11th, 14th and 15th holes. Unlike at No. 26 Hirono, Alison's bunkering here is subdued.
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Chris Fry
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Chris Fry
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Courtesy of the club
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Previous rank: 44
A fascinating H.S. Colt layout, with holes routed in clusters of triangles, traversing the hilly landscape both face-on and diagonally, with meandering creeks winding across fairway landing areas. Tom Clark, who spent 20-plus years as consulting architect, rebuilt greens and did work to further emphasize the land contours. More recently, Englishman Martin Ebert was brought in to re-establish Colt's design philosophy from original drawings, though he had to monitor the shaping work via remote technology due to COVID-19 travel restrictions. Hamilton has hosted the Canadian Open seven times, including five since 2003, most recently the 2024 event won by Scot Robert MacIntyre.
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Photo by Stephen Szurlej
Previous rank: 39
On a site just across the river from sister Barnbougle Dunes (No. 16), with taller dunes but fewer of them, Lost Farm has not 18, but 20 holes, counting its two short pitch-shot bye holes. The design is dramatic and unusual, particularly the par-4 fifth, a dogleg right along the river, whose blind tee shot brings to mind the 17th at St. Andrews. Instead of old black sheds, a high dune blocks view of the fairway from the tee. Billed as a Coore and Crenshaw design, schedule conflicts kept Ben Crenshaw from participating. Bill Coore used the usual C&C construction team, though.
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Courtesy of the club
Previous rank: 43
Considered a seaside venue but not a true links, Royal Porthcawl, situated on the south coast of Wales, doesn't have returning nines, but it's not an out-and-back routing either. Instead, the front nine moves in a clockwise crescent-shaped manner, with the back nine running counterclockwise inside the crescent. Only the first three holes play adjacent to Bristol Channel, but there are ocean views and ocean winds on all the inland holes too, which are on higher ground. The 2017 Senior Open was contested at Royal Porthcawl, with Bernhard Langer winning a record 10th senior major, and Alex Cejka won the 2023 Senior Open here.
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Jon Cavalier/@LinksGems
Previous rank: 35
H.S. Colt, who was the club's secretary from 1901 to 1913, laid out the New Course in 1923, well after he'd established his reputation as a grand golf architect. It's considered by most to be tougher than No. 15 Sunningdale Old, mainly because Colt's greens are smaller, with subtle contours that nudge balls toward bunkers hard along the collars. It's a toss-up as to which course is prettier. Both have fields of heather, gorse, Scotch broom and clusters of pine, oak and silver birch.
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Courtesy of Fairmont Hotels & Resorts
Previous rank: 45
Jasper Park actually lies farther north than Stanley Thompson's other Alberta masterpiece, No. 60 Banff Springs, and is a perfect complement to it. The routing has holes lined up with every prominent mountain peak in the distance. Thompson's typical sprawling bunkers are everywhere, some staggered diagonally across lines of play, others on the margins of a hole, poking out from beneath tree lines. Built in 1925 by the hand labor of some 200 men, holes are carved through fir, aspen and silver birch trees, and rocks were piled and covered with earth to create greens like the one on the short par-3 15th, a shot so precarious it's like hitting to the back of a slumbering sea lion.
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Courtesy of Valderrama
Previous rank: 29
Best known as the site of the 1997 Ryder Cup, won by Europe in a squeaker, Valderrama was a favorite design of the late architect Robert Trent Jones. His tight, twisting fairways, pinched at every turn by squat olive trees, led to surprisingly small putting surfaces protected by his trademark splashy bunkers. Valderrama contains one of the more controversial holes in golf: The par-5 17th guarded by water in front, which European captain Seve Ballesteros toughened for that Ryder Cup. It influenced the outcome then, and was a game changer again in 2017, when Sergio Garcia won his own foundation's tournament, the European Tour's Andalucia Valderrama Classic. His birdie on 17 in the final round was the margin of victory.
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The par-3 16th hole on the East Course at Royal Melbourne Golf Club.
David Cannon
Previous rank: 18
Former Australian Open champion Alex Russell and greenkeeper Mick Morcom built the West Course to plans of Alister MacKenzie, then added the East in 1931, on somewhat less inspiring land, flatter and more wooded. But the bunkering and green contours are very similar to the West. (Mackenzie had routed a nine-hole East Course that was never built. Russell incorporated a few of those holes.) A slight flaw may be that all four par 3s play in the same northerly direction. For composite tournament play, East's holes 1-3 and 16-18 are used along with 12 of the West holes.
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Nick Wall
Previous rank: 15
Not a links, more like a stratospheric Pebble Beach, high atop a windswept plateau some 500 feet above the sea. The 2004 design truly demonstrates the lay-of-the-land philosophy of American architect Tom Doak, who ran holes out and back along a series of ridges perpendicular with the coastline, most framed by deep canyons. The fairways are wide, but Doak rewards bold tee shots that flirt with ravines and sets strategies using some of the deepest bunkers he has ever built. Cape Kidnappers was also the International winner of a 2012 Environmental Leaders in Golf Award, co-sponsored by Golf Digest.
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Courtesy of the club
Previous rank: 33
Perhaps the least dramatic-looking links in The Open rota, mainly because it's surrounded by houses and a rail line, with the seacoast hundreds of yards distant and never in sight. Lytham boasts more than 200 bunkers, most built a century ago, when the club was heralded as a pioneer of natural bunkering. Its par-3 first hole is unusual, while its finish, six straight par 4s, is a terrific challenge that was, in 2012, the downfall of Adam Scott and a triumph for Ernie Els. The club boasts one of the great rosters of champions including Bobby Jones, Bobby Locke, Peter Thomson, Gary Player and Seve Ballesteros (twice).
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Dom Furore
Previous rank: 34
The biggest mover in this year’s ranking, this Martin Hawtree design is set in sand dunes that are as dramatic as there is in golf, better than those at No. 19 Royal Birkdale and No. 20 Royal St. George's. Some dunes reach 100 feet above fairways. All are covered in deep marram grasses. Fairways pitch and tumble, often posing downhill lies to uphill targets. Every bunker is at least knee deep, encircled with stacked-sod faces. Greens are perched and edged by deep hollows. It’s a setting as grand as it gets, though some critics label it the most “American” of any links in the ranking for the elevated tees and “framing” of the greens and fairways.
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David Alexander/Getty Images
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Jon Cavalier
Previous rank: 32
Due west of Sunningdale in London's heathland is Swinley Forest, which H.S. Colt described as the "least bad course" he ever designed. Much of its reputation is built around its five par 3s, each with its own personality and challenge. Colt supposedly located them first, then built around them, using an ideal balance of short and long par 4s on each nine. The par 3s are indeed outstanding; the 17th looks like it might have been the role model for A.W. Tillinghast's 10th at Winged Foot's West course.
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Gary Lisbon
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Gary Lisbon
Previous rank: 31
Located kitty-corner across a road from Royal Melbourne, Victoria Golf Club is the home course of professional tour stars Peter Thomson (who passed away in 2018) and Geoff Ogilvy, now of the architectural firm Ogilvy, Cocking & Mead (OCM). It was designed originally by a couple of club founders. Alister MacKenzie made bunkering suggestions during a 1926 visit, changes later implemented by Alex Russell. Victoria has smaller greens than at other prominent Melbourne courses, and bunkers that sit hard against the collars, making them play even tighter. Once heavily forested, the club has been uncluttering the property over the past two decades, and in 2016, OCM, with former partner Mike Clayton, carried out the most significant renovation of the course since MacKenzie was there, rebuilding every green complex, adding bunkers and revamping the natural vegetation.
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David Cannon/R&A
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Carlos Amoedo
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David Cannon/R&A
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David Cannon/R&A
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David Cannon/R&A
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David Cannon/R&A
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Courtesy of the club
Previous rank: 28
Looks are deceiving at Royal Troon. The links appear straightforward, almost docile, until the wind blows. Then, if it’s downwind out to the ninth hole, as it usually is, the homeward nine becomes a long march into a stiff breeze, if not an ocean gale. Troon dates from 1878 and was given its Royal title 100 years later. Few know its famed 123-yard 8th, the Postage Stamp, the shortest in British Open golf, was originally a blind par 3—the present green wasn't built until 1910. In 2016, Royal Troon was the site of one of the most dramatic duels in Open history, with Henrik Stenson prevailing over Phil Mickelson to win his first major title. Xander Schauffele won by two strokes when the Open returned in 2024, his second major win that season (the PGA Championship at Valhalla).
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Mark Alexander
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Photo by David Cannon/Getty Images
Previous rank: 21
Cruden Bay is among the elite, marvelous Scottish links, stretched along the base of a high bluff with tall dunes to the immediate east blocking views of the North Sea shoreline. Within the course, holes lie among what have been described as "stumpy dunes." They may well be, compared to those at nearby Trump International, but the routing is excellent, looping north then south, crisscrossing at the eighth and 16th. There are many blind shots, including consecutive ones to hidden punchbowl greens on the par-4 14th and par-3 15th.
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Evan Schiller
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Evan Schiller
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Generation Golf
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Jacob Sjöman
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Rob Romard
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Jacob Sjöman
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The Preferred Lie
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The Preferred Lie
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Jacob Sjöman
Previous rank: 25
The older sister to No. 14 Cabot Cliffs is not a natural links, though it looks and plays like it. Cabot Links was man-made by designer-shaper Rod Whitman, with help from Dave Axland and Keith Cutten, on a coastal coal transport staging area that serviced mines beneath the sea. Bump-and-run shots on firm fescue turf is the game on this understated layout, with muted dunes, austere bunkering and gentle, generous greens. Call it Canada's Portmarnock (ranked 45th), though Ireland has no match for Cabot's postcard par-4 sixth, a dogleg-left around a tidal yacht basin. In early routings, that was going to be the closing hole.
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Courtesy of the club
Previous rank: 22
Just down the coastline from the links at St. Andrews, Kingsbarns looks absolutely natural in its links setting. It’s a tribute to owner Art Dunkley and architect Kyle Phillips and Mark Parsinen (all Californians) who are responsible for what once was a lifeless farm field transformed into a magnificent course that fools even the most discerning eye. The routing is ingenious, crescent-shape along the Fife coast, with holes on three separate levels (130 feet of elevation change in all) to provide ocean views from every fairway. Six holes play right on the shoreline, and every hole offers genuine alternate angles of attack.
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Brian Oar
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Brian Oar
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Brian Oar
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Brian Oar
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Brian Oar
Previous rank: NEW
Located on the extreme northern tip of Saint Lucia, Point Hardy is as far from the Caribbean island’s southside airport as possible. But the drive over the jungle pass is worth it as nine holes sit on rocky ocean bluffs, rivaling and even surpassing Pebble Beach and Cypress Point for drama and beauty. Architects Bill Coore and Ben Crenshaw were far out of their comfort zone working on the site of volcanic rock that required earthmoving on a scale unprecedented for them. The engineering succeeded in taming the more extreme parts of the land to give the inland holes a serene playability that looks natural. The reason golfers will travel half way around the world to play here, however, is for the chance to hit do-or-die shots over coves of crashing waves at holes eight, 15, 16, 17 and 18.
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Gary Lisbon
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Gary Lisbon
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Gary Lisbon
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Gary Lisbon
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Gary Lisbon
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Gary Lisbon
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Gary Lisbon
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Gary Lisbon
Previous rank: 23
On the dramatic rugged seacoast of Botany Bay near Sydney, on the spot where Captain Cook first stepped onto Australia in 1770, La Perouse is renowned for its ocean views and high winds. On his brief but productive 1926 trip, Alister MacKenzie prepared a routing for the course, but it was radically altered during a 1936 remodeling by Eric Apperly and by neglect during World War II. A succession of post-war architects has slowly re-established the integrity of the design, most recently by the British firm Ebert & Mackenzie.
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Photo by Stephen Szurlej
Previous rank: 27
Considered by some to be the St. Andrews of Ireland, the splendid links at Lahinch reflects evolution in golf architecture. After Alister MacKenzie remodeled it in the 1920s, only a few of Old Tom Morris' original holes, like the Klondyke par-5 fourth, and Dell par-3 fifth, both with hidden greens, remained. In the 1980s, Donald Steel altered some of MacKenzie's holes and in the 2000s Martin Hawtree rebuilt everything and added four new holes. One classic MacKenzie par 3, the old 13th, is now a bye hole.
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Photo by Stephen Szurlej
Previous rank: 30
A 2004 collaboration of American designer Tom Doak and Australian tour-pro-turned-architect Michael Clayton, Barnbougle Dunes is a tremendous 18 in a fantastic stretch of sand dunes along Bass Strait, the sea that separates Tasmania from Melbourne. What's most fascinating is that the back nine is completely reversed from how Doak originally routed it. So was the site so good that, once construction started, Doak and Clayton were able to find nine new green sites at the opposite ends of holes originally envisioned? Or did they create those "natural" green sites?
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Gary Lisbon
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Gary Lisbon
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Gary Lisbon
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Gary Lisbon
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Gary Lisbon
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Photo by David Scaletti
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Previous rank: 17
A timeless 1927 design north of Paris by British architect Tom Simpson, perhaps the greatest bunker artist of his generation, Morfontaine looks suspiciously like a heathland course around London with windswept Scotch pines and clumps of heather atop a base of sand. But it's tighter than Sunningdale or St. George's Hill, and the forest surrounding holes is far denser. American architect Kyle Phillips updated the layout in 2004, adding a new 12th green to extend the par 5 by 60 yards. It fits in perfectly.
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A view looking back to the tee of the par-3 sixth hole at Royal St. George's
David Cannon
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Photo by Stephen Szurlej
Previous rank: 20
Royal St. George's, in dunes along the English Channel, is what writer Adam Lawrence calls the ideal mix of championship golf and gentle quirks. Its quirks include a duo of massive bunkers that howl at tee shots on the par-5 fourth. Once as tall as a six-story building, they've eroded over the years, and have been stabilized the past 20 years by the addition of 93 railroad ties along their top edges. An Open Championship venue since 1894, Royal St. George's is the most unpredictable in the rota, often kicking balls in mysterious directions and alternating between legendary champions like J.H. Taylor, Harry Vardon, Walter Hagen and Bobby Locke and surprise victors like Reg Whitcombe, Bill Rogers and Ben Curtis. Collin Morikawa won his second major championship here in 2021.
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David Cannon/R&A
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David Cannon/R&A
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David Cannon/R&A
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David Cannon/R&A
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David Cannon/R&A
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David Cannon/R&A
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David Cannon/R&A
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David Cannon/R&A
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David Cannon/R&A
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David Cannon/R&A
Previous rank: 19
Site of Jordan Spieth's remarkable Open victory in 2017 where he went on a birdie-eagle-birdie-birdie tear on holes 14-17 in the final round, Royal Birkdale has also been the venue for past Women's British Opens, Ryder Cups, Walker and Curtis Cups. Three generations of the Hawtree design firm, oldest in the world, are responsible for Royal Birkdale. Patriarch Frederic G. did the present design, with its surprisingly flat fairways and docile greens between towering dunes, in 1931. Thirty years later, son Fred W. remodeled it, adding the now-classic par-3 12th. Forty years after that, grandson Martin revised the course for its 10th Open Championship, the tournament Spieth won, but now the curatorship of the course has been turned over to Tom Mackenzie of the firm Mackenzie & Ebert, who remodeled it for the 2026 Open. That included building new tee clusters, altering bunkers, completely remodeling the short par-5 fifth and adding a new, long par 3, the 15th, to replace the old par-3 14th that was taken out of play and converted to a short game practice area.
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Photo by Taku Miyamoto
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Photo by Taku Miyamoto
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Photo by Taku Miyamoto
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Michael Wolf/@BamaBearcat
Previous rank: 26
This is undoubtedly the finest design of globetrotting C.H. Alison, longtime partner of H.S. Colt. He laid out Hirono in the early 1930s in a hilly pine forest slashed by gulleys, clearing wide corridors and positioning greens on the crests of ridges. What makes Hirono special was Alison's spectacular bunkering, which ranged from diagonal cross bunkers, fearsome carry bunkers and strings of ragged-edged ones. Soon after completion, writers were calling Hirono the Pine Valley of Japan. The restorative work by Tom Mackenzie and Martin Ebert has sharpened the teeth of Alison’s bunkering and restored the lost tees of the par-3 13th, making the hole play once again at an angle to the fronting lake rather than directly across it.
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Stephen Szurlej
Previous rank: 16
Perhaps the homeliest, certainly the longest and toughest of Open venues, Carnoustie is a no-holds-barred layout intended to test the best. James Braid is usually credited with the present design, but it was green chairman James Wright who in 1931 created the stirring last three holes, with 17 and 18 harassed by twisting, turning Barry Burn. In the 1968 Open, Jack Nicklaus complained that a knob in the middle of the ninth fairway kicked his drives into the rough. When he returned for the 1975 Open, he found it had been converted to a pot bunker.
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Matt Hahn
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John and Jeannine Henebry
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Generation Golf
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Generation Golf
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Jacob Sjöman
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Generation Golf
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Matt Hahn
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Matt Hahn
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Jacob Sjöman
Previous rank: 13
Another sensational Bill Coore and Ben Crenshaw design, Cabot Cliffs overflows with variety with its southernmost holes in Lahinch-like sand dunes, its northernmost atop Pebble Beach-type ocean cliffs and bits of pine-lined Scottish Highlands in between. The course has six par 5s, including three in the space of four holes, and six par 3s, plus an additional one-shot bye-hole aside the fourth. Sporting the same fescue turf mix as nearby sister course Cabot Links (ranked 25th), some tee shots seem to roll forever, but so do errant shots that miss greens. The cliff-edged par-3 16th has become one of the game's most photographed holes.
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Stephen Denton
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Courtesy of Cape Wickham
Previous rank: 14
American Mike DeVries and Australian golf writer Darius Oliver collaborated on a breathtaking site along Bass Strait, a notorious stretch of Australian seacoast that once shipwrecked voyages of old. The routing on this glorious collection of holes is heart-pounding, starting along rocks and crashing surf, moving inland but not out of the wind, returning to ocean edge at the downhill 10th, pitch-shot 11th and drivable par-4 12th. It then wanders into dunes before a crescendo closing hole curving along Victoria Cove beach, which is in play at low tides.
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Jon Cavalier
Previous rank: 12
A strong case can be made that Sunningdale’s Old Course was the first great inland design, and the course that was most successful in emulating the naturalness and strategies inherent in links courses when Willie Park Jr. built it in 1901. Chopped from a pine forest but routed like a links, with the ninth at the far end of the property, it plays like a links, too, for there's a sand base beneath the turf. The Old has big greens, as Park put a premium on approach putting, and artful bunkers, with both angled cross-bunkers and necklaces of sand hampering direct routes to some greens. Harry Colt’s remodel two decades later (he was Sunningdale's first club secretary) brought the Old into the new modern era and is responsible for the playability and ranking the course deserves today. To American visitors, the look of Sunningdale brings to mind Pine Valley or Pinehurst.
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David Cannon
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David Cannon/Getty Images
Previous rank: 9
North Berwick must be played with good humor. To do otherwise is to not properly appreciate its outrageous topography (some terrain is like an elephant cemetery) and outlandish holes, like the sunken 13th green beyond a stone wall, the renowned Redan par-3 15th, blind from the tee, and the long, narrow 16th green with a gulch separating front and back plateaus, surely the model for the infamous Biarritz green, although purists say otherwise. The out-and-back routing that begins and ends in town is reminiscent of St. Andrews, and the four par 3s, all vastly different, comprise one of the best sets in the game of golf.
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Photo by David Cannon/Getty Images
Previous rank: 10
Ballybunion has always been great, but it wasn't until they relocated the clubhouse in 1971 to the southern end that it became thrilling. Tom Watson’s effusive praise for the course after his first visit in 1981 also helped put the relatively unknown Ballybunion on everyone’s mind. The clubhouse move turned the old finish of anticlimactic back-to-back par 5s into the fourth and fifth holes and shifted the new closing holes to ones in spectacular dunes just north of the intersection of the Shannon River and the Atlantic Ocean. By then an honorary member, Watson suggested modest design changes in the 1990s, and later Martin Hawtree added new tees atop dunes on several holes.
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Stephen Denton
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Stephen Denton
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Stephen Denton
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Stephen Denton
Previous rank: 11
Kingston Heath is often considered an Alister MacKenzie design, but in fact Australian golf professional Des Soutar designed the course in 1925. MacKenzie made a brief visit the following year and suggested the bunkering, which was constructed by greenkeeper Mick Morcom before he built Royal Melbourne's two courses. The bunkers are long, sinewy, shaggy, gnarly, windswept, and of course, strategically placed. Some say MacKenzie's tee-to-green stretch of bunkers on the par-3 15th set the standard for all Sandbelt layouts. Under the recent guidance of Mike Cocking of Ogilvy, Cocking & Mead (OCM), the tournament tees and several bunkers and green complexes have been reworked, and a new short course and 19th hole were added.
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Courtesy of Trump Turnberry
Previous rank: 8
A legendary links ravaged by World War II, architect Philip Mackenzie Ross re-established it to its present quality, tearing away the wartime concrete landing strips to create a dramatic back nine and building a set of varied greens, some receptive, other not so much. After Donald Trump purchased the course, Martin Ebert of the firm of Mackenzie & Ebert made notable changes, creating new par 3s at Nos. 6 and 11, converting the old par-4 ninth into an ocean-edge par 3, and turning the fifth, 10th and 14th into par 5s and the 17th into a long par 4. New tees on 18 eliminate its old dogleg tee shot. To complete the new look, Ebert replaced revetted bunkers with ragged-edged ones.
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Nick Wall
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Nick Wall
Previous rank: 7
Built by American designer Tom Doak from what had been a pine-covered Sahara along the northeastern coast of New Zealand's North Island, Tara Iti is far more links-like than the country's other coastal courses, most of which are on rock. Doak and design associate Brian Slawnik spent more than two years gently resculpting the sandy soil into hummocks, punchbowls and sand dunes that look like they were formed by wind and vegetated by nature. There's lots of sand but no bunkers. Golfers may ground the club anywhere. With holes inspired by Cypress Point, Royal Dornoch and Royal St. George's, and views everywhere of the Hauraki Gulf, this is New Zealand's answer to Pebble Beach's Carmel Bay. The greatest meeting of land and sea is clearly up for debate.
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Gary Lisbon
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Gary Lisbon
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Gary Lisbon
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Gary Lisbon
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Gary Lisbon
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Gary Lisbon
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Gary Lisbon
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Gary Lisbon
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Gary Lisbon
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Royal Melbourne
Previous rank: 5
Alister MacKenzie's 1926 routing fits snuggly into the contours of the rolling sandbelt land. His greens are miniature versions of the surrounding topography. His crisp bunkering, with vertical edges possible due to the unique compaction qualities of the Sandbelt soils, stand a foot high—or sometimes taller—and chew into fairways and putting surfaces. Most holes are doglegs, so distance means nothing and angle into the pin is everything. For championships, holes 8 and 9 and 13 through 16 are skipped in favor of six from the East Course, which is ranked 18th. That "composite course" was once ranked among the best in the world by several publications.
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Mark Alexander
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David Cannon/Getty Images
Previous rank: 4
Portrush is still the only Irish course to host The Open. The Old Tom Morris design, made what it is today by H.S. Colt in the 1930s, was the Open site back in 1951. It was revived as a rota course for the 2019 Open, won by Irishman Shane Lowry, and so popular were the links it only had to wait six years for a return performance, when Scottie Scheffler won the third leg of his career Grand Slam. In preparation for the 2019 event, architect Martin Ebert added new seventh and eighth holes, fashioned from land on the club's Valley Course, to replace its weak 17th and 18th holes. That means the notorious Calamity Hole, an uphill 210-yard par 3, is now the 16th instead of the 14th, and the old dogleg-right par-4 16th is the closing hole, with a new back tee. Ebert retained most of Colt's greens, considered one of the best set of putting surfaces in the world, but remodeled others such as at the par-4 10th that were built after Colt left, better working them into the contours of the surrounding dunes.
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J.D. Cuban
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Kevin Markham
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Previous rank: 2
Herbert Warren Wind called it the most natural course in the world. Tom Watson called it the most fun he'd had playing golf. Donald Ross called it his home, having been born in the village and taught the game on the links. Tucked in an arc of dunes along the North Sea shoreline, Dornoch's greens, some by Old Tom Morris, others by John Sutherland or 1920 Open champion George Duncan, sit mostly on plateaus and don't really favor bounce-and-run golf. That's the challenge: hitting those greens in a Dornoch wind.
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Photo by Stephen Szurlej
Previous rank: 6
Muirfield is universally admired as a low-key, straightforward links with fairways seemingly containing a million traffic bumps. Except for a blind tee shot on the 11th, every shot is visible and well-defined. Greens are the correct size to fit the expected iron of approach. The routing changes direction on every hole to pose different wind conditions. The front runs clockwise, the back counterclockwise, but history mistakenly credits Old Tom Morris with Muirfield's returning nines. That was the result of H.S. Colt's 1925 redesign.
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(Photo by David Cannon/Getty Images)
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The fourth green at the Old Course.
Dom Furore
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Dom Furore
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David Cannon
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David Cannon
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David Cannon
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David Cannon
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AdShooter
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Dom Furore
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Tom Shaw/R&A
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Dom Furore
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David Cannon
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David Cannon
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David Cannon
Previous rank: 3
The Old Course at St. Andrews is ground zero for all golf architecture. Every course designed since has either been in response to one or more of its features, or in reaction against it. Architects either favor the Old Course's blind shots or detest them, either embrace St. Andrews' enormous greens or consider them a waste of turf. Latest polarizing topic: design changes ahead of the 2015, 2022 and 2027 Opens—adding tees in awkward locations, shifting and restructuring historic bunkers—which many consider blasphemy. The angst is justifiably directed at the changes that compromise the integrity of golf’s greatest blueprint, but perhaps even more so at the sport’s governing bodies that failed to adequately regulate equipment that results in the gross distance gains threatening to make St. Andrews obsolete. After Zach Johnson's dramatic overtime victory in 2015, however, few mentioned the alterations, and the duel of the Cam’s in 2022, with Smith’s Sunday 64 nosing out Young’s 65, both surging ahead of overnight leader Rory McIlroy, put the focus on the race and not the architecture. It remains to be seen how much of a fight the Old Course can put up going forward in the absence of a stern 20 mph wind, but notwithstanding the games of a few thousand global players it remains the world’s most influential and fascinating merger of nature and architecture.
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Nick Wall
Previous rank: 1
On a clear spring day, with Dundrum Bay to the east, the Mountains of Mourne to the south and gorse-covered dunes in golden bloom, there is no lovelier place in golf. The design is attributed to Old Tom Morris but was refined by half a dozen architects in the past 120 years, most recently by Donald Steel. Though the greens are surprisingly flat, as if to compensate for the rugged terrain and numerous blind shots, bunkers are a definite highlight, most with arched eyebrows of dense marram grasses and impenetrable clumps of heather.
