This list focuses on the residential golf courses themselves, not the communities as a whole or other amenities.
Welcome to Golfweek’s Best 2024 ranking of top residential golf courses in the United States.
The hundreds of members of our course-ratings panel continually evaluate courses and rate them based on our 10 criteria. They also file a single, overall rating on each course. Those overall ratings on each course are averaged to produce a final, cumulative rating. Then each course is ranked against other courses in the region.
This list focuses on the residential golf courses themselves, not the communities as a whole or other amenities. Each golf course included is listed with its average rating from 1 to 10, its location, architect(s) and the year it opened.
Gil Hanse and Jim Wagner sought classic inspiration when building Ballyshear Golf Links near Bangkok.
SAMUT PRAKAN, Thailand – There’s been a lot of Lido talk in recent years in golf architecture circles. A new Lido opened this summer at Sand Valley in Wisconsin, attempting to recreate in great detail the original Lido course that was built in 1915 on Long Island, New York, with a design by C.B. Macdonald – that course was closed during World War II.
But Sand Valley’s rendition isn’t the only one.
Ballyshear Golf Links at Ban Rakat Club just east of Bangkok opened in 2021, and like its cousin in Wisconsin, this Gil Hanse and Jim Wagner design attempts to recreate many of the holes from the original Lido, sometimes in principle and at other times in detail.
At Ballyshear, Hanse and Wagner put into play many of the template holes established by Macdonald at the original Lido and beyond. The Eden, Channel, Alps, Short and Redan – each of those template holes and more are there to be played in Thailand. Such holes present shot values and demands identified by Macdonald that are now in play around the world, many of them borrowed from classic links courses. These holes are immediately recognizable to golf architecture buffs.
The back nine of Ballyshear Golf Links at Ban Rakat Club near Bangkok, Thailand (Jason Lusk/Golfweek)
Ballyshear was built on the site of the former Kiarti Thanee Country Club on a flat piece of land less than half an hour’s drive from Suvarnabhumi International Airport. The former course on the property featured tree-lined fairways and was often wet, as land in this area outside Bangkok is often inundated during heavy rains – the property is surrounded by rice fields.
Hanse and Wagner – the team behind several restorations of top classic courses, including Los Angeles Country Club before the 2023 U.S. Open – removed the trees, shaping the land into an open parcel more reminiscent of a classic links course. Much better drainage was installed, and a fair amount of engineering was necessary to create frequently rolling terrain that would hold up in the area’s climate.
That’s important, because the course needs to play relatively firm and fast to get the most of the template holes, their designs having been established on links ground and the best of them playing across sandy conditions. The ball needs to roll to make the most of such holes.
The private Ballyshear was covered with a local zoysia grass that does, indeed, play relatively firm and fast, especially in comparison to most other courses in Southeast Asia. A well-traveled player won’t confuse the conditions with those found on the links of Scotland or Ireland, but the ball does want to roll out a fair bit at Ballyshear, bringing the ground game into play.
Using the Lido templates was an intriguing idea for the Ballyshear site, as the land was flat to begin with. The original Lido was created by dredging a saltwater expanse and piling up the land until it was dry, then establishing interesting contours. Hanse and Wagner were able to do the same in Thailand. The use of the template holes from the Lido expanded on that theme.
The best part of Ballyshear: the shaping of the greens. Hanse and Wagner built some tremendous swales, valleys and ridges into these greens, many of them utilizing the traditional template greens. The putting speeds of the zoysia greens at Ballyshear will likely never be too fast, allowing the slopes to serve their purposes without getting out of hand. In that regard, they play much more like classic greens would have decades ago before the pursuit of speed rendered some classic slopes unplayable.
In all, Ballyshear (par 71, 6,690 yards) makes for a very different experience than found in much of Thailand, which has rapidly expanded as a golf destination in recent decades. From the low-slung, unobtrusive and perfectly comfortable clubhouse to all the nods at classic design, it’s a beautiful place to spend a day chasing a bouncing golf ball.
Check out a selection of photos from my recent trip to Thailand that included a stop at Ballyshear below.
Check out every hole of the new Lido at Sand Valley.
The Lido was long a historical fascination for golf architecture enthusiasts – until Peter Flory’s research led first to the famed Long Island layout being recreated as a video game and now coming fully to life again at Sand Valley in Wisconsin.
Flory – an amateur golf course historian from Chicago – collected photos and historical narratives that eventually led to Tom Doak’s Renaissance Golf Design firm rebuilding the Lido in exacting detail. The layout fully opened to member play recently, and there are options for guests of the popular resort to score slots on the tee sheet at select times (check with the resort for details).
There’s plenty to take in at the new Lido. Flory – a financial consultation who also serves as a Golfweek’s Best rater ambassador – takes us through each hole below with videos shot by Golfweek videographer Gabe Gudgel before the course opened (notice that not all the bunkers are yet full of sand).
The Lido at Sand Valley opens to limited resort play this month.
NEKOOSA, Wis. – One of the most anticipated courses openings of recent years didn’t start with a golf architect’s vision or a developer’s financial plan. This project started with a video game created by a Chicago-based financial consultant and eager golf historian who dabbles at length in no-longer-existing golf courses as a hobby.
Peter Flory (@nle_golf on Twitter, with the handle standing for no-longer-existing courses) has never built a golf course, but he’s played plenty – his list of courses played is enough to send even a golf travel writer into fits of envy.
More importantly, he dreams of playing historically significant courses that have been lost over the decades, plowed under for redevelopment or, occasionally, simply abandoned. Flory is also one of the best hickory golfers in the country, collecting and often utilizing a vast store of antique clubs so that he can appreciate how classic courses played in the era in which they were built.
One course topped his list of interest: The Lido, designed by Golden Age architects C.B. Macdonald and Seth Raynor on Long Island in New York and opened in 1917. The course, reputed to be the toughest and among the best in the world at the time, was plowed under by the U.S. Navy in World War II. Including an 18th hole inspired by Alister MacKenzie’s entry in a course-design contest, the Lido featured many of the classic template holes such as the Redan, Biarritz and Punchbowl that are still in use today.
Peter Flory, the golf history buff whose digital reproductions of the famed Lido led to the course being rebuilt at @Sand_Valley, makes his first own-ball birdie (on the tough 11th) at his dream course brought to life. @golfweekpic.twitter.com/Jc2K7sl2W6
Flory researched the Lido at length, discovering photos and historical narratives that provided insight not only to how it was built, but how it played. His goal was to re-create the course in a video game for his kids and friends to play.
He never imagined it would become a real course again. But this year, thanks to Flory’s efforts, a new Lido opens at Sand Valley in Wisconsin. Built by Tom Doak’s Renaissance Golf Design firm, the new Lido is a painstaking recreation of the original on Long Island. A few tees and greens have been shifted a few degrees to accommodate safety in an modern era where golf balls travel much farther, but the new Lido was designed to be as close to the original as possible.
How close? When asked if it’s down to the inch, Flory has said, “Maybe even better.” Using digital tools undreamed of at the time of the original course’s inception, Flory and Doak efforted to re-create every hump, hollow, bunker lip and green slope from the original course.
It was all made possible because of the interest of fans of classic golf architecture, including Sand Valley developers Michael Keiser Jr. and Chris Keiser, the pair of brothers who greenlighted the project in Nekoosa, Wisconsin. They already operated two highly ranked courses at the resort – the eponymous Sand Valley and Mammoth Dunes – but they were looking for a cool idea for another parcel of land just across the street.
The result of the video game, the research and the financial investment opens to limited resort play June 28. The Lido is mostly a private club, but there will be tee times available to resort guests at select dates and times. Check with the resort for details.
Flory – who now serves as a panelist and ambassador for the Golfweek’s Best course-rating program – shares more insight in the Q&A below.
Check out the photos and renderings of Rodeo Dunes, which will begin with two 18-hole layouts.
Sure, it might have involved a bit of trespassing, but Michael Keiser has proved that not all who wander are lost.
That classic J.R.R. Tolkien line is apt, as Keiser’s head apparently is always on a swivel as he searches for sand and hills and available land suitable for great golf courses. Developer and co-owner of Sand Valley Golf Resort along with his brother, Chris Keiser – and the son of Bandon Dunes Golf Resort founder and owner Mike Keiser – Michael brims with energy in his hunt for a next interesting golf opportunity.
Now on the slate is the public-access Rodeo Dunes in Colorado. The developers officially announced Tuesday that construction soon will start in earnest on 36 holes across 2,000 acres of idyllic sand dunes less than an hour northeast of Denver. Preview play might be available on one of the courses by the end of the 2024 with that course fully opening in 2025, Michael Keiser said, adding that the timeline is still loose but the second course likely will follow a year later. The order of which course opens first is still to be decided.
The site for Rodeo Dunes in Colorado includes natural blowouts and sandy expanses. (Courtesy of Rodeo Dunes/Brandon Carter)
Both course routings have been completed, or at least as complete as they can be before construction progresses with possible changes. And they likely won’t be the only two courses there for long – there’s room to build as many as six full courses at the site. A short course and Himalayas-style putting green are expected to be added soon, and Michael Keiser said eventually there might be accommodations but that nothing is set in stone. The property will operate as part of Dream Golf, a collaboration with Bandon Dunes, Sand Valley and Cabot.
The Keiser brothers will lean on the famed design team of Bill Coore and Ben Crenshaw to design one of the 18-hole layouts, a running relationship that has proved extremely successful for the Keiser family and partners with previous tracks such as Bandon Trails and the Sheep Ranch in Oregon, the eponymous Sand Valley course in Wisconsin and Cabot Cliffs in Nova Scotia.
The other 18 goes to a new signature designer but a familiar face: Jim Craig. A longtime course shaper for Coore and Crenshaw, Craig gets his first crack at a routing of his own in Colorado. Michael Keiser established a bond with Craig during construction of Sand Valley, and Keiser said he couldn’t be more excited to give the Texan a breakthrough opportunity at Rodeo Dunes.
“He’s a bit of a savant,” Michael Keiser said of Craig, who in his 25 years working as an associate for Coore and Crenshaw has contributed to layouts such as East Hampton and Friar’s Head in New York, Old Sandwich in Massachusetts and the aforementioned Sheep Ranch. “He sees things other people don’t see. And I’ve learned to trust that. … He has a very special mind. You’re not always going to say, this hole reminds of ‘blank.’ You’re going to say, I’ve never seen a hole quite like that before.”
When the Keisers first became interested in the ranch land that will become Rodeo Dunes, Craig would drive up from Texas to walk the site and offer his opinions at Michael’s request. His enthusiasm was a major part in landing his first solo design, Michael Keiser said.
Craig is a soft-spoken man of long labor and relatively few words, but his sharp wit shines through in conversation. He said that after landing the job at Rodeo Dunes, he feels like Forrest Gump during the movie character’s first meeting with Lieutenant Dan at a U.S. Army camp in Vietnam. Craig quotes the line, “I sure hope I don’t let him down.”
The Rocky Mountains are in view from the site of Rodeo Dunes. (Courtesy of Rodeo Dunes/Brandon Carter)
It will be a big job, for sure, as Michael Keiser has a goal of greatness. He said he’s taking inspiration from Sand Hills Golf Club in Nebraska, also designed by Coore and Crenshaw and ranked No. 1 on Golfweek’s Best list of modern courses in the United States.
“We will strip everything out but the bare essentials to have the purest form of golf that I think we’ve ever done,” Michael Keiser said. “Our goal is to present golf in its purest form the way I think Sand Hills has done as well as anyone in this country. Bandon Dunes is that in so many ways, but if I was to come down to it, Sand Hills is even more of the model because I think it’s even more raw and pure. So our goal is to build Sand Hills for the public, with multiple courses.
“I say all this humbly. We always start with who we aspire to be. … There’s never going to be another Sand Hills. Ever. Period. Full stop. But everything they’ve done well there is what we’re trying to be.”
The land certainly appears to lend itself to such aspirations. Michael Keiser said the natural site will require minimal shaping, making construction relatively easy now that the two routings have been roughly determined. The site is full of sandy blowouts and dunes that reach 80 feet in height, which takes us back to that trespassing interlude mentioned above.
Michael and Chris were stuck in an airport years ago, discussing what would make ideal sites for more golf. They mentioned the private Ballyneal Golf Club, a Tom Doak layout in Colorado that ranks No. 4 among all modern U.S. courses. Could there be much more land like that available in Colorado, they wondered. Michael Keiser studied Google Earth and topographic maps for clues, and curiosity eventually led him onto an airplane then onto Interstate 76 northeast of Denver. He found a site that had caught his eye, and he couldn’t believe the dunes.
Michael said exuberance got the best of him and he took off jogging through the golden hour as the sun set, trying to see what was beyond each of the ensuing hills. The place stretched for miles, full of potential golf holes. But as vast at that sky might have been, Keiser wasn’t alone.
“I was trespassing on the site, which is probably a dangerous mistake in hindsight, in cowboy country,” Keiser said. “I did get caught by a rancher, who turned out to be a very pleasant fellow. But he wasn’t thrilled that I was trespassing. He was 200 yards away, and I’m walking toward him and we’re both thinking, ‘How’s this going to go? This might not be good.’
“I just walked right up to him and asked, ‘Are you a golfer?’ And he was sort of startled, and he said ‘Yeah, I do play sometimes.’ So I said these dunes are fabulous for golf, and he looked at me cross-eyed. But we had a nice chat. He was a really friendly guy, and he kindly escorted me off the property. That’s how it all started.”
Turns out the land was owned by the Cervi family, owners and hands-on operators of a major rodeo production company – real cowboys. Michael said it took years for him, a Chicago developer, to fully earn their trust. But after they “realized I wasn’t crazy, or too crazy,” the Cervis agreed to sell a portion of ranch land for golf development, and the family will continue as partners in Rodeo Dunes, Michael said.
Colorado has proved to be a lucrative state with plenty of sand sites, perfect for firm and bouncy golf courses. (Courtesy of Rodeo Dunes/Brian Krehbiel)
It’s a busy time for the Keiser brothers, who soon will open the much-anticipated Lido course constructed by Doak, the third traditional 18-hole layout at Sand Valley, with member play beginning in May and opportunities for resort guests to play it at the end June. They also are opening Doak’s Sedge Valley course at Sand Valley, with limited preview play possibly beginning this year and the full opening coming sometime in the spring of 2024. And no doubt there are other potential projects around the country – speculation swirls constantly about where the Keiser family might build next.
Michael Keiser, with a fair dose of boyish enthusiasm, said it’s all about finding even more fun places to hit a golf ball, even if it happens to be found in a rancher’s field.
“The site feels like you’re in Ireland,” he said of Rodeo Dunes. “We’ve had a drought for two years so it isn’t green now, but when I first stepped on the property it was emerald green. The contours and the topography are very Irish. I mean, it feels like you’re at Lahinch. That’s the size and topography and scale and amplitude of those sand dunes. …
“My dad started with the idea of elite private golf, stripping it down to the pure golf, and bringing it to the public. That’s what we’re trying to do.”
Strategy, difficulty and beauty on full display in these photos of Sand Valley’s new Lido course.
NEKOOSA, Wis. – You can’t let your mind wander on a single shot at the new Lido course at Sand Valley in Wisconsin. Not on a putt. Not on a chip or pitch. Not on a single approach, and certainly not on a tee shot. Every swing demands your attention, and there might be no greater compliment for a golf course.
Built as a recreation of the famed Lido on Long Island in New York that was purchased and then demolished by the U.S. Navy during World War II, the new Lido is a stunning test of every aspect of a golfer’s game, especially the mind. It’s no exaggeration to call it the most strategic course – at the very least among a handful of contenders – in the United States.
The original Lido was designed by Golden Age architects C.B. Macdonald and Seth Raynor, with several individual holes designed by contestants in an architecture contest that included Alister MacKenzie. It was built along the shore on soil dredged from the sea floor, then shaped by teams with horse-drawn equipment. The new reproduction and its many template holes were meticulously laid into place by Tom Doak with a giant assist by Peter Flory, a Chicago-based banker (and Golfweek’s Best course-rater ambassador) who used old photography to generate a digital replica of the New York original. Doak used those digital models to recreate the old layout as closely as possible.
Judging by two rounds this author played with Flory in early September, it’s easy to guess the hickory-equipped golfers of the 1920s had their hands full on the original.
Bunkers seemingly are everywhere. The Lido offers plenty of width, with fairways sometimes playing more than 100 yards wide as they overlap, but the traps appear to be unavoidable, especially the first time a player goes round. Woe to any golfer who gets out of line.
The 11th fairway (center) of the Lido at Sand Valley is flanked on either side by No. 17 (left, in the opposite direction) and No. 2 (right, playing in same direction as 11 with the green in the upper right). With several options for avoiding all the bunkers, the 11th effectively plays more than 100 yards wide. (Golfweek)
Players must stand on each tee and plot their way to the flag. It’s an exhilarating exercise that every course designer should strive to produce, but nowhere is such strategizing more important than at the Lido. A well-struck shot on the wrong line, even one that finds short grass, might as well have found a bunker closer to the proper line. It’s an awkward moment when you realize you picked the wrong angle off the tee – you can see the flag ahead on the green, but you can’t even begin to imagine how to get close in regulation when playing into the new and bouncy putting surfaces.
But if players take the time to study the various pathways offered for the tee ball and choose wisely, then the greens open up. That flag that appears tucked from one side of the fairway probably is reasonably approachable from the opposite side. You have to play the holes backward in your mind before you ever swing.
It’s all complicated by the bunker design. Many of these fairway traps would be better described as trapdoors, with their tops even to the surrounding grades. Most modern course designers flare their bunkers into hillsides or manufactured inclines, giving the players visual clues as to where they should play and what they must avoid. Many of the fairway bunkers at the Lido, by contrast, are flat on the ground and often hidden beyond rolling terrain. It’s hard to stand there and know exactly where all the trouble waits because you can’t see half of it. If your caddie tells you to avoid an area, even if it appears safe from the tee, take that advice to heart. Flory pointed out that the best well-known example of similar bunkering is the Old Course at St. Andrews, where nasty traps often lurk just out of view.
Even those traps you can see aren’t necessarily easy to avoid, and many of the greenside bunkers in particular have fearsomely steep faces – nearly vertical and more than 8 feet high in some cases. Just the intimidating sight of such bunker faces will send some players wayward.
The trouble doesn’t end with the tee shots and bunkers. The waste areas and steep grassed banks surrounding many of these greens present incredibly difficult chips, pitches and blasts to elevated putting surfaces that feature beautiful tiers and ridges. From short and center of many greens, the flags are reasonably approachable to players with solid short games, but most attempts from pin-high or long grow exponentially more difficult. The more you challenge the course in an attempt at a low score, the more the course challenges you back.
So yes, the Lido is difficult. It’s also beautiful, fascinating and incredibly fun. It’s in no way impossible to play, so long as golfers think. As soon as a round ends, most players will want another shot at it to try different routes. A golfer could play it a dozen times and never replicate all the same routes.
Key examples are the fourth, a par-5 that offers a safer route to the left or a risky drive rightward to a small patch of fairway flanked by sandy waste areas. Players who pull off the riskier tee ball are rewarded with a reasonable chance to reach the green in two shots, but those who miss into the sand are faced with a tough second shot over water just to reach the safety of the main fairway.
The tee shot at the par-5 fourth of the Lido provides for a longer, safer route to fairway on the left or a tougher, longer carry to a small patch of fairway to the right that significantly shortens the hole. (Golfweek)
The par-4 11th is another great example of width providing options. Flanked by the 17th fairway to the left and the second fairway to the right, players have a choice of vectors over, around and short of a minefield of bunkers and scrub. In our first round together, Flory went well right off the tee while I fired one off to the left just to be obstinate. We both hit solid tee shots, and our golf balls finished 118 yards apart as measured by laser rangefinder. Flory’s line paid off with a birdie 3, his first on the Lido, while I made a 7.
There are plenty of such examples, especially as the wind and its directions changes. On the wide-open, treeless expanse upon which this Lido was built, the breezes tend to be stronger than at the resort’s other two existing courses, Mammoth Dunes by David McLay Kidd and the eponymous Sand Valley by Bill Coore and Ben Crenshaw.
We wanted to share some of the photos of our two days at the Lido. Keep scrolling for those, but first the answers to several frequent questions in the days after our trip:
The Lido is still growing in, and the course will not officially open until the summer of 2023.
The resort is allowing small groups of members to play nine-hole preview rounds now while the grass is still taking hold, but many of the bunkers do not yet have sand (as you will see in the photos below). It is still very much a work in progress.
The Lido will accept very limited resort play. It will be a private course operated by the resort, but don’t expect to just show up as a guest and play on a weekend. Details on how to obtain a round on the Lido are still forthcoming. Plan to stay at the resort for any chance, and book earlier as excitement about the Lido builds among golf architecture fans.
Golfweek will present plenty of more coverage on the Lido before it opens, including Flory’s take on how it all came together. We just want to provide a sneak peak on how it all looks and plays.
There are some really beautiful courses featured on this list of the top golf travel stories.
As you’re relaxing during the holiday break, taking stock of your year in golf and thinking about where you might play in 2022, we figured this would be a good time to run through the numbers and tally up which travel stories drew your attention.
For the final days of 2021, we’re offering up a snapshot of the top 10 stories from each of Golfweek’s most popular sections, including travel, the PGA and LPGA tours, instruction and amateur golf. Here’s what we’ve already counted down.
Here’s a look at the top 10 golf travel stories, as clicked on by you (we should note, this doesn’t include lists, which will be featured on Friday):
Landmand, Te Arai, among others have golf architecture fans champing at the bit for 2022 to arrive.
After a decade of course closings dominating the headlines starting with the economic downturn in 2008, architects have been busier moving earth over the past several years. Coast to coast as well as abroad, several top-tier layouts have come online from noted architects – think Tom Doak, Gil Hanse and Jim Wagner, Bill Coore and Ben Crenshaw, even Tiger Woods.
This new year promises more of the same, with the following five new courses being among those I can’t wait to see in 2022.
In keeping with recent development trends, these courses aren’t necessarily close to major population centers. Only one of them – the East Course at PGA Frisco – is near a big city, situated as it is on the northern outskirts of Dallas. The other four on this list? You’ll need planes, trains, automobiles or maybe a boat, and definitely a passport.
Doesn’t matter. Great golf is worth any travel. So in no particular order, here are five new courses I want to sink my nubby spikes into during 2022.
