The 2028 Curtis Cup Match is headed to one of the best courses in the world.
Competitive women’s amateur golf has scored another victory, landing one of the top golf courses in the world as host of the 2028 Curtis Cup Match at Royal Dornoch in northern Scotland.
The Championship Course at Royal Dornoch is ranked by Golfweek’s Best as the No. 3 course outside the United States. Opened in 1877 as a nine-hole layout in the Scottish Highlands, the links course was extended to 18 holes in 1886 by Old Tom Morris. Other designers have contributed over the decades to the hilly seaside layout, including John Sutherland, George Duncan and most recently the team of Tom Mackenzie and Martin Ebert.
This year’s Curtis Cup Match, a biennial team event featuring top female amateurs representing the U.S. and Europe, is August 30-Sept. 1 at Sunningdale Golf Club’s Old Course in England, which Golfweek’s Best has tied for No. 9 among courses outside the United States. The 2026 match will be held from June 12-14 at Bel-Air Country Club in Los Angeles, which ties for No. 57 among all classic courses in the U.S.
The dates for the 2028 match are to be determined.
“We look forward to staging the Curtis Cup at such a historic venue in 2028,” Johnnie Cole-Hamilton, executive director of championships for the R&A, said in a media release announcing the selection of Royal Dornoch in the run-up to this year’s staging of the event. “We want to give elite amateur golfers world-class platforms to show us how well they can perform, and that will certainly be the case at Royal Dornoch. The Championship Course has earned worldwide acclaim and it promises to be a wonderful occasion in the rich history of the Curtis Cup.”
Royal Dornoch’s Championship Course in the Scottish Highlands (Courtesy of Royal Dornoch Golf Club)
Royal Dornoch has a track record of hosting top amateur events, including the 1985 British Amateur Championship and four Scottish Men’s Amateur Championships, most recently in 2023.
“The Curtis Cup is also going to be a tremendous occasion for the local area,” Neil Hampton, general manager at Royal Dornoch, said in the media release. “With the Championship Course consistently ranked highly in global standings and the investment in our infrastructure as we build a new clubhouse, a match of this standing and stature will only enhance the reputation of Royal Dornoch, the town and the local area.”
With access to a defibrillator in addition to CPR, the odds of someone’s survival can jump.
Royal Dornoch, a historic golf course in the northern reaches of Scotland which can trace its roots in the sport back to the early 17th century, is renowned for taking care of its members.
In keeping with this ethos, it is now thought to be the first club in the world to install life-saving defibrillators on all its golf buggies.
There are more than 30,000 cardiac arrests annually in the UK, with “an unacceptable” survival rate of less than 8 percent.
With access to a defibrillator in addition to CPR (cardiopulmonary resuscitation) the odds of someone’s survival can jump from around 6 percent to 74 percent.
Royal Dornoch has installed a Phillips AED (automated external defibrillator) on all five carts that are hired out to golfers with medical conditions. Another will be used by the club’s “roving ranger.”
The club already has two kits in its clubhouses but Neil Hampton, general manager of the club, said he wanted to go further after meeting Surrey businessman David Sullivan and former England international footballer John Salako, who are both ambassadors for the Heart Start campaign.
Sullivan took part in a three-month, 1,100-mile fundraising challenge last year which saw him hit golf balls from John O’Groats to Lands’ End, teaching CPR skills to 40,000 people en route.
He said: “Neil Hampton and the team looked after me during the challenge, listened to my story and expressed an interest in fitting their buggies with defibrillators.
“Royal Dornoch is the first course in the world to install potentially life-saving defibrillators and first aid kits on each of their golf buggies but, hopefully, it won’t be long before others follow suit,” said Sullivan, who embarked on his crusade after suffering the tragedy of losing four close friends in their forties, all to cardiac arrest.
Royal Dornoch has installed a Phillips AED (automated external defibrillator) on all five carts that are hired out to golfers with medical conditions. Another will be used by the club’s “roving ranger.”
“We are seeing more and more golf clubs around the UK purchasing defibrillators for their clubhouses. That is fantastic. But we believe clubs can go one step further to protect members and visitors by providing defibrillators in every buggy going out onto the course.”
Royal Dornach’s general manager believes other golf clubs will embrace the concept.
“We were very impressed with what David and John have been doing to promote the use of defibrillators,” he said. “We have had one at the clubhouse and at the halfway house for several years. Luckily, they haven’t been called into action so far, but defibrillators have a track record of saving lives.
“Now we have installed a Phillips AED on all five buggies that are hired out to golfers with medical conditions. Another is used by our roving ranger and that could prove particularly invaluable if someone is in distress.
“They are simple to use, the machine talks you through what to do in the event of an emergency.”
A heart attack is when blood flow to the heart is blocked.
Sudden cardiac arrest is when the heart malfunctions and suddenly stops beating. A heart attack is a “circulation” problem and sudden cardiac arrest is an “electrical” problem
Sullivan said: “Our mission is to increase investment in life-saving defibrillators and educate as many people as possible on how to perform CPR.
“The chances of a victim of cardiac arrest surviving are enhanced greatly if a defibrillator can be used within the first three minutes. Stats show the survival rate can be boosted by around 70 percent.
“Given the size of your average golf course, it makes sense to kit out buggies with equipment that can be called upon quickly in an emergency.”
Code Blue CPR offers a support package to golf clubs and defibs that require no maintenance as they self-analyze every day and alert staff of any issues, such as a low battery.
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From the Scottish Highlands around to St. Andrews, a series of true links astonish with variety, playability and charm.
Where to begin?
That is not a rhetorical question. When laying out a bucket-list golf trip to Scotland, it’s a very serious query, part of a series of such questions that will follow you around the country. Where to begin? Which course next? Toughest of all: Which courses can I bear to skip?
Headed to St. Andrews? There’s a lot more on tap than the famed Old Course, 30 times the site of the British Open – ahem, Open Championship, thank you very much. Will you play the New Course, which seems a misnomer, seeing how it was built by Old Tom Morris in 1895? How about the Jubilee? The Castle, which having opened outside town in 2008 is the newest of the seven courses managed by the St. Andrews Links Trust? Maybe sample a handful of the other layouts not far from the Home of Golf?
Headed into the Highlands for a dream round at Royal Dornoch? Everyone on other courses, on the way and on social media will tell you that you can’t skip nearby Brora (I didn’t) or Tain or Golspie (I missed both, but I already am planning to return). Scouting a classic links trip to Aberdeen? You can’t miss classic links such as Royal Aberdeen, or Murcar Links or Cruden Bay or a handful of others. The options are lined up along the coast. All the coasts of Scotland, actually.
Cabot Highlands, formerly known as Castle Stuart, in Scotland (Jason Lusk/Golfweek)
Headed east? You’ll be told not to miss the courses to the west. Looking north? Don’t miss those gems to the south. Whichever point of the compass you choose and whatever address you plug into Google Maps, there will be dozens of opportunity costs – all those suggestions are correct, even if they create a totally unmanageable itinerary for a traveling golfer on a weeklong holiday.
Weeks after my recent trip, when playing with a group of Golfweek’s Best course raters in California, I barely could finish a sentence about where I played before the questions poured in: Did you play this one, and what about that one? We all process the world through the lenses of our own experiences, and that’s especially true when judging the courses somebody else is, or is not, playing.
The 18th green of the Old Course at St. Andrews sits close enough to the street and town that the afternoon shadows of old buildings stretch across the putting surface. (Jason Lusk/Golfweek)
Such was the quandary when I started planning this trip to Scotland. I was lucky, because I knew where I would begin. American course designer Tom Doak is building a new course at Castle Stuart near Inverness, which is being rebranded as Cabot Highlands after its recent acquisition by Canadian company Cabot. I would begin there to hear Doak discuss his plans as well as to sample the original course at the resort.
But from there? I had options. Too many options. The names of famous Scottish links courses roll on and on, and it would take months to see even half of what I had in mind. I had only 12 days on the ground, so I enlisted the help of course booking provider Golfbreaks and the local experts at VisitScotland.com to help set up a trip that would venture high into the Highlands before swinging back down the coast, east to Aberdeen and eventually into St. Andrews.
Scotland, of course, is where the game as we know it was invented, and the best of it is all about links golf in particular. Firm, fast and sometimes almost entirely natural – I coveted the links experience. Of the 550 or so total golf courses in Scotland, fewer than 90 might be classified as true links, depending on one’s given definition – there is great debate among academics and clubhouse drunks about what constitutes a proper links. On this trip I was lucky enough to experience 11 examples. Each was distinctive, and don’t dare think of links golf as some uniform game, because it is the definitive opposite of that. The conditions might be similar, but each layout shines on its own, each bouncy shot promising something unexpected.
Street view in St. Andrews (Jason Lusk/Golfweek)
I played courses that are famed worldwide, and several that are less known outside Scotland. I played in sunshine and rain, wind and calm. I played well, and I played poorly. The only constants were the courses, the terrain and coastlines flashing through my exhausted head each night in whatever accommodations I had scheduled. The trip included planes, trains, buses, shuttles and a blue Skoda SUV – “Keep left, keep left, keep left,” I had to remind myself at the start of each drive on skinny, winding roads, because I couldn’t bear the thought of missing my next round of golf due to something so mundane as a car crash.
There were a lot of miles, a lot of different beds, a lot of nerves in the car. So many good courses, too many bad swings. And it was all perfect.
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The traditional links courses find spots of honor on this ranking of the best classic courses in Great Britain and Ireland.
Welcome to Golfweek’s Best 2023 rankings of the Top 50 classic courses in Great Britain and Ireland – built before 1960 – as determined by Golfweek’s Best raters.
The 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 rating for each course. Then each layout is ranked against others in Great Britain and Ireland to produce the final rankings.
Our travel writer has played 79 golf courses so far in 2022. Here’s what stood out.
I have one of the best jobs in the world, but don’t tell my boss that I acknowledged such. Truth is, plenty of people would line up to do this travel job for free. Play golf around the world and write about it – just about a perfect gig.
There are some downsides. The 3 a.m. wakeup calls, the flight delays, the time away from family, the late nights staring at the keyboard, not to mention all the bogeys. But these are niggles, easily dismissed.
I played 79 golf courses so far in 2022, and I am likely to add at least one or two more before the calendar flips. There were affordable munis, high-end private clubs and plenty of top-dollar resorts. I see the full spectrum of golf in my travels, from dirt fairways to perfect putting surfaces. They all were among the 250-plus stories I filed in 2022, and I remember just about every shot from each round – my wife calls this ability to recall and fret about shots I struck months ago a major character flaw.
With the year wrapping up soon, it’s time to take a look back at several of my favorite experiences of 2022. I played from California to Scotland, and some days, courses and golf holes just stood out.
We know that most golf fans will spend the next week and more dreaming of hitting the Scottish links, so we here at Golfweek are doing everything within our power to make that dream a bit more real.
Last week we gave you some of the best U.K. golf vacations out there, but this week our focus narrows to Scotland and the 10 best courses that the home of golf has to offer.
These rankings come directly from the hundreds of Golfweek’s Best Raters for 2021 who continually evaluated courses and rated them based on our 10 criteria. They also filed a single, overall rating on each course. Those overall ratings on each course are averaged to produce a final rating for each course.
For more of Golfweek’s Best course lists, check out the most recent selection of course rankings:
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Want to play St. Andrews, Carnoustie, and Royal Troon all on the same trip? Yeah…we thought so.
The 2022 British Open is just weeks away and the entire golf world is gearing up to go back home to The Old Course at St. Andrews.
We will all be glued to the coverage of the 150th Open Championship later this month, and most golf fans will daydream about playing St. Andrews and that fantasy golf vacation they’ve been putting off for years.
It’s time to turn those daydreams into reality. Along with our friends from Golfbreaks, Golfweek has compiled five spectacular U.K. golf vacations including trips to England, Northern Ireland and Scotland to play some of the oldest and most famous courses in the world.
We occasionally recommend interesting products, services, and gaming opportunities. If you make a purchase by clicking one of the links, we may earn an affiliate fee. Golfweek operates independently, though, and this doesn’t influence our coverage
From links layouts to parkland courses, these are the best courses built before 1960 in Great Britain and Ireland.
Welcome to Golfweek’s Best rankings of the Top 50 Classic Courses in Great Britain and Ireland – built before 1960 – as determined by Golfweek’s Best Raters for 2021 (pictured atop this story: Royal Dornoch in Scotland).
The 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 rating for each course. Then each course is ranked against other courses in Great Britain and Ireland to produce the final rankings.
From Royal County Down to Royal Melbourne, the top International Modern Courses built outside the U.S. before 1960.
Welcome to the initial Golfweek’s Best Classic International Courses list with the highest-rated courses outside the United States that were built before 1960. (Pictured atop this story: The Old Course at St. Andrews, with photo by Steve Flynn/USA TODAY Sports)
This is the first year for this International Classic list, and it is comprised of thousands of individual ratings of courses around the world. We also recently published the Modern Courses version, shining a spotlight on the best international courses built in or after 1960.
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The 800-plus members of our ratings panel continually evaluate courses and rate them based on 10 criteria. They also file a single, overall rating on each course. Those overall ratings on each course are averaged to produce a final rating for each course, which is then ranked against other courses to produce the final lists.
Each course is listed with its average rating next to the name, the location, the year it opened and the designers. After the designers are several designations that note what type of facility it is.
Key
r: resort course
d: daily fee
p: private course
t: tour course
m: municipal
re: real estate
* Many international private courses allow limited outside play. Contact the courses indicated for more information on their guest policies.
