Augusta National, Pebble Beach drop in GOLF’s latest Top 100 Courses in the World ranking

Two of the most famous courses in the world have dropped spots in GOLF’s newest Top 100 Courses in the World ranking.

Augusta National Golf Club, home of the Masters, dropped from 5th to 9th in the most recent ranking (its lowest ranking ever), and Pebble Beach Golf Links fell out of the top 10, from 9th to 11th.

GOLF’s Top 100 Courses in the World ranking was unveiled in the December 2019 issue. The magazine’s group of 80 well-traveled course raters assigned values to a list of more than 430 eligible courses to come up with the final ranking, GOLF’s first since 2017.

While the top three stayed the same since the previous ranking — Pine Valley followed by Cypress Point and the Old Course at St. Andrews — Long Island gems Shinnecock Hills and National Golf Links of America both jumped into the top five. Royal County Down (6th), Royal Melbourne West (7th), Oakmont (8th), Augusta National (9th) and Royal Dornoch (10th) round out the top 10. Scotland’s Royal Dornoch jumped five spots to get into the top 10, which played a hand in knocking Pebble Beach to 11.

Pebble Beach is one of the world’s most well-known resort courses and has hosted six U.S. Opens, the most recent of which came just last year and was won by Gary Woodland. Augusta National has held the Masters since 1934 and is famous for its exclusivity.

The raters acknowledged Augusta National’s drop in the December issue of GOLF, saying “When the trend everywhere is to remove trees, widen playing corridors, increase playing angles and promote strategic and attacking golf, something had to give. We appreciate that Augusta National is in the uniquely difficult position of annually hosting the Masters. Still, the founding vision of Bob Jones and Alister MacKenzie matters, and a sense is starting to develop among panelists that the club is moving too far away from it.”

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