Count down the top 30 courses of the past three decades, as judged by Golfweek’s panel of raters.
It’s been a crazy string of decades in golf design, with construction going gangbusters through the 1990s and early 2000s before grinding nearly to a complete halt after the financial crisis of 2007 and ’08. Things have picked up a bit in recent years, especially when considering high-end destinations scattered in far-flung locales around the U.S.
Through it all, these are the best 30 courses opened in the past 30 years in the U.S., as voted by Golfweek’s Best panel of raters.
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.
This ranking is compiled from data included in the 2021 Golfweek’s Best Modern Courses list, and it focuses on the golf courses themselves, not on resorts or private clubs as a whole or other amenities. Each golf course included is listed with its average rating from 1 to 10, its location, architect(s), the year it opened and its status as a private club (p), a resort (r), a daily-fee operation (d) or a real estate development (re).
The top 200 resort courses in the U.S. stretch from Pebble Beach and Bandon Dunes to Whistling Straits and Pinehurst.
Welcome to Golfweek’s Best 2022 list of top resort 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 golf courses themselves, not the resorts 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.
In September, Golfweek Raters went to Sand Valley Resort in Central Wisconsin.
Sand Valley currently has two 18 hole courses (Mammoth Dunes & Sand Valley) and a short course (The Sandbox).
Mammoth Dunes, designed by David Kidd is #2 on Golfweek’s Best Golf Courses You Can Play in Wisconsin.
Sand Valley, designed by Bill Coore and Ben Crenshaw is #3 on Golfweek’s Best Courses You Can Play in Wisconsin.
The Sandbox, designed by Bill Coore and Ben Crenshaw is a 17-hole short course that’s a fun start or finish to any day.
Thorn, a caddie at Sand Valley, chats about the final hole.
All in all, a trip to Sand Valley Resort should be on your bucket list
In September, Golfweek Raters went to Sand Valley Resort in Central Wisconsin.
Sand Valley currently has two 18 hole courses (Mammoth Dunes & Sand Valley) and a short course (The Sandbox).
Mammoth Dunes, designed by David Kidd is #2 on Golfweek’s Best Golf Courses You Can Play in Wisconsin.
Sand Valley, designed by Bill Coore and Ben Crenshaw is #3 on Golfweek’s Best Courses You Can Play in Wisconsin.
The Sandbox, designed by Bill Coore and Ben Crenshaw is a 17-hole short course that’s a fun start or finish to any day.
Thorn, a caddie at Sand Valley, chats about the final hole.
All in all, a trip to Sand Valley Resort should be on your bucket list
Wisconsin offers some of the best public-access golf in the U.S., with elite courses that match up well with more well-known destinations.
Wisconsin has cheese, beer, snow and the Packers – everyone knows those. Perhaps surprising to those who don’t follow the sport closely, it also has more than a handful of the greatest golf courses in the United States.
Most people think of year-round sunny spots for good golf. Florida. California. Arizona. But by one significant metric for judging elite public-access golf, as compiled by Golfweek’s Best national panel of raters, the Badger State tops all those solar-drenched hot spots.
Golfweek ranks courses by compiling the average ratings – on a points basis of 1 to 10 – of its more than 750 raters to create several industry-leading lists of courses, including the popular Best Courses You Can Play list for courses that allow non-member tee times. These generally are defined as courses accessible to resort guests or regular daily-fee players.
By averaging the scores of the top five public-access courses in each state, Golfweek has compiled a list of the top states for ultra-elite golf. Wisconsin ranks second in the U.S., behind what might be another surprise for some: Oregon. But while Oregon tops the list based mostly on the strength of Bandon Dunes Golf Resort’s four ranked courses, Wisconsin offers a much broader swath of great golf.
Wisconsin’s courses average a whopping 7.56 on the 2020 Golfweek’s Best Courses You Can Play list, behind Oregon’s 8.00. That puts Wisconsin ahead of California (7.55), Florida (7.34) and North Carolina (7.17). The median score among the 50 states is 6.28. For those with regional rivalries, Michigan is ranked No. 7 on the list with a 6.94 average for its top five courses, Minnesota is No. 16 at 6.47 and Illinois is No. 28 at 6.21. Take that, Bears fans.
Not surprising to golf aficionados is that Whistling Straits tops the state’s list of best public-access courses. The Straits course in Mosel, along the bluffs above Lake Michigan, has hosted three PGA Championships and will be the site of the 2021 Ryder Cup, the typically biennial matches between the top men tour pros from the U.S. and Europe that was pushed back from 2020 because of the coronavirus pandemic. The Pete Dye-designed supergiant founded by Herb Kohler has become the face of Wisconsin golf on television since it opened in 1997.
Mammoth Dunes at Sand Valley in Wisconsin (Courtesy of Sand Valley/Evan Schiller)
But the Straits is hardly alone in excellence. In the past 15 years three other stalwarts have gained a large chunk of the national spotlight. Sand Valley, No. 2 in the state on Golfweek’s Best Courses You Can Play, opened to great acclaim in 2016 with a Ben Crenshaw/Bill Coore routing that focused on classical design among massive sand dunes. Sand Valley’s Mammoth Dunes by David McLay Kidd followed in 2018 and has moved to No. 3 in the state. Lawsonia Links, at No. 4 the only top-ranked public-access course in the state built before 1960, still draws a crowd, and No. 5 Erin Hills opened in 2006 and hosted the 2017 U.S. Open.
It’s been quite the public-golf boom for a state with a relatively short golf season.
Badger state, be proud.
Erin Hills in Wisconsin (Courtesy of Erin Hills/Paul Hundley and Travis Waibel)
Golfweek’s Best Courses You Can Play 2020 in Wisconsin
1. Whistling Straits (Straits)
Mosel, (No. 7 on Golfweek’s Best Modern Courses in the U.S.)
2. Sand Valley (Mammoth Dunes)
Nekoosa (No. 30 Modern)
3. Sand Valley (Sand Valley)
Nekoosa (No. 32 Modern)
4. Lawsonia (Links)
Green Lake (No. 66 Classic)
5. Erin Hills
Hartford (No. 80 Modern)
6. Blackwolf Run (River)
Kohler (No. 93 Modern)
7. Whistling Straits (Irish)
Mosel (No. 167 Modern)
8. Sentry World
Stevens Point (m)
9. Troy Burne
Hudson (m)
10. Blackwolf Run (Meadow Valleys)
Kohler (m)
11. University Ridge
Madison (m)
12. Wild Rock
Wisconsin Dells (m)
13. Geneva National (Gary Player)
Lake Geneva (m)
14. Big Fish
Hayward (m)
15.* The Bog
Saukville (m)
* New or returning to the list; c: Classic, built before 1960. m: Modern, built in 1960 or after
Golfweek’s Best Private Courses 2020 in Wisconsin
1. Milwaukee CC
Milwaukee (No. 45 Classic)
2. Blue Mound
Wauwatosa (c)
3. Oneida
Green Bay (c)
4. *Minocqua CC
Minocqua (m)
5. West Bend CC
West Bend (c)
* New or returning to the list; c: Classic, built before 1960. m: Modern, built in 1960 or after
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 together to produce a final rating for each course. Then each course is ranked against other courses in its state, or nationally, to produce the final rankings.
Walking is a key ingredient for design success, while cart paths alter how an architect lays out a routing, often with negative consequences
Just as walking makes for a better golf experience, a walking-only course yields a better golf design.
Walking a course connects you to the land. You get to feel the movements up and down, side to side. Your point of view is from within the painting. The transition from one hole to the next is direct and compelling, and between shots you can talk with your playing partners. Walking is healthy – physically, mentally and socially.
Designers want to build courses for walkers. We want you to experience the course the same way we explore the site and find the holes. Imagine the experience at a museum: You want to flow naturally from one room to the next. If after each room you had to get in your car and drive down the street to get to the next room, you would see the same art but it wouldn’t make for the same experience.
Let’s examine three ways that carts and cart paths hurt the golf experience.
A winding golf cart at Indian Wells Golf Resort (Jay Calderon/The Desert Sun)
Aesthetics and playability
When a path is inserted into certain terrain, it almost always impacts the aesthetics.
“The visual of a cart path trail was the biggest single negative,” said Mike Keiser, owner of Bandon Dunes Golf Resort in Oregon, on his decision to be a walking-only facility. “You had to see carts and the path, especially around the greens.”
Think of a hole that plays through a valley, one of the most compelling landforms around and one that naturally draws you in. A path breaks up that landscape, not only visually but from a playability standpoint that impacts shots and how things move within the valley. A ball hit slightly offline hits the path and heads to a worse fate.
Green-to-tee connections
One of the most important elements of any course routing is the connection from green to tee.
Green locations are often determined by interesting natural landforms. A designer will find a great natural spot and try to locate a green as close to the natural feature as possible. In many instances, a designer will try to locate multiple greens near one big feature. Alister MacKenzie was a master of such, with ample evidence at Cypress Point and the Valley Club of Montecito.
But when paths are required, it limits how these features can be used and how players can move from one hole to the next.
A more recent example of great connectivity between greens and tee boxes is Bill Coore’s routing at the newly opened Sheep Ranch at Bandon Dunes. Coore has been lauded for coming up with a routing that maximized the compact site. One spot that will garner attention is the 16th hole, a par 3 that plays along the cliff past a large dune to a double green – shared with No. 3 – set on a point above the Pacific Ocean.
About any architect on earth would put a green on that promontory. The original Sheep Ranch course designed by Tom Doak – a 13-hole predecessor to the recently opened 18-hole course – had a green in this spot as well.
Coore’s routing has skilled players walk to the back of the 16 green and play a tee shot over a 100-foot cliff to the 17th fairway. With a walking-only layout this works beautifully. The flow is ideal, and the walk is short.
Adding a path to that promontory would create multiple problems and contaminate the hole and the setting. If you tried to put the path on the outside of the dune, you run into the portion of the green used on No. 3. Walking eliminates those kinds of headaches.
Firm turf and ground-game options
Fescue turf has many wonderful qualities, but perhaps most appealing is its firm surface with lots of ball roll. This makes it the ideal turf for links-style golf played more along the ground.
But one thing fescue does not like is cart traffic – the grass just doesn’t flourish in high-traffic areas. Having carts would essentially eliminate fescue as a turf and the desired firm-and-fast conditions. This has a huge impact on the design of a course.
Chambers Bay in Washington was built as a walking course, and it would be hard to imagine cart paths in such a landscape. (Courtesy of Chambers Bay/Martin Miller)
When designers know the turf will be firm, it places a great emphasis on the ground plane and all of the micro-contours within the playing field. Strategy changes, bunker locations shift, grassing lines change and more. Imagine playing the Old Course at St. Andrews and taking the ground contours out of the equation because you could fly your ball to the hole and stop it on soft turf – it’s a fine example of form following function.
Unfortunately, golf carts have become such a staple of American golf that course designers must factor them into a design.
When designers are asked to consider carts and cart paths, they have a playbook they pull out. Knowing the challenges of carts and paths, good designers go to great lengths to minimize the impact.
The first way designers try to minimize the aesthetic and playability impacts of the paths is to eliminate them all together. If that is not possible, we push for only green-to-tee paths.
When paths are required, we try to hide them. The first way is by location, finding a route you don’t see as you play the hole. When that isn’t possible, we try to hide them through earthworks or landscaping. And sometimes we try to hide them in plain sight by using materials that match the adjacent landscape.
I will never forget a meeting in 2005 on this subject. My colleagues and I made an impassioned plea for the new Chambers Bay course in Washington to be walking only. We explained in great detail how carts would prohibit us from utilizing natural features for the green sites at Nos. 6, 10, 12 and 16. We outlined how the aesthetics and playability would be compromised and that we couldn’t have firm-and-fast fescue if we used carts. We had image boards showing holes with paths and without. When we finished, the management team presented financial projections with and without cart revenues.
Ultimately it was Pierce County Executive John Ladenburg’s call to make. And while I was on the edge of my seat sweating bullets, Ladenburg got up and finished a meeting with the line: “We will call it Chambers Bay, and we will walk it in 2007.”
From my perspective, it was the single most important decision of the entire project. With that one sentence, Ladenburg set Pierce County on a path that would deliver the Pacific Northwest its first-ever U.S. Open.
Hopefully owners, operators and developers will think long and hard before adding paths in the future. Their decision will not only impact the golf experience, but course design as well. Gwk
– Jay Blasi is a course architect who also works with Golfweek’s rater program. This story originally appeared in Issue 4 – 2020 of Golfweek.
Amid the international coronavirus pandemic, more than half the top 25 courses on Golfweek’s Best list of resorts are temporarily closed.
After weeks of trying to keep their courses open during the international coronavirus pandemic, more than half the top 25 courses on Golfweek’s Best list of resort tracks have shuttered their operations temporarily or plan to this week.
Several of these resorts, stretched from the Atlantic to the Pacific, have posted to their websites or sent emails that operations have been halted. At others, the courses remain open while the hotel operations have ceased or been dramatically curtailed, and some are maintaining full operations.
Several of the top 25 are northern courses that have not started their golf seasons yet and as of now are still planning to open when their seasons begin.
The situation is fluid and likely to change for some of these resorts that do remain open. Several of the courses that have closed have posted that they plan to reopen in April or May. Following are details on each.
1. Pebble Beach Golf Links
Pebble Beach, California (pictured atop this story)
MGM has ceased all casino and entertainment options until April 16.
8. Kiawah Golf Resort (Ocean Course)
Kiawah Island, South Carolina
OPEN
The resort has modified its services and dining availability, but the courses are open. The pro shops are closed, with booking and check-in being handled remotely.
