Are you a big fan of Golden Age golf architecture? You’re in the right spot. Welcome to the Golfweek’s Best 2023 list of the Top 200 Classic Courses opened before 1960 in the United States.
Each year we publish many lists, with this Top 200 Classic Courses list among the premium offerings. Also extremely popular and significant are the lists for Top 200 Modern Courses 2023, the public-access Best Courses You Can Play in each state and Best Private Courses in each state.
The hundreds of members of our course-ratings panel continually evaluate courses and rate them based on 10 criteria on a points basis of 1 through 10. They also file a single, overall rating on each course. Those overall ratings are averaged to produce these rankings. The top handful of courses in the world have an average rating of above 9, while many excellent layouts fall into the high-6 to the 8 range.
To ensure these lists are up-to-date, Golfweek’s Best in recent years has altered how the individual ratings are compiled into the rankings. Only ratings from rounds played in the past 10 years are included in the compilations. This helps ensure that any course in the rankings still measures up.
Courses also must have a minimum of 25 votes to qualify for the Top 200 Modern or the Top 200 Classic. Other Golfweek’s Best lists, such as Best Courses You Can Play or Best Private, do not require as many votes. This makes it possible that a course can show up on other lists but not on the premium Top 200 lists.
Each course is listed with its average rating next to the name, the location, the year it opened and the designers. The list notes in parenthesis next to the name of each course where that course ranked in 2022.
After the designers are several designations that note what type of facility it is:
- p: private
- d: daily fee
- r: resort course
- t: tour course
- u: university
- m: municipal
- re: real estate
- c: casino
* Indicates new to or returning to this list.