GOLF Magazine recently unveiled its 2020/2021 Top 100 Courses in the United States, and to showcase the country’s geographic diversity, GOLF has, for the first time, broken the country into four regions and ranked the top 50 in each. Each region is shockingly diverse — and overflowing with exquisite golf.
American golf courses — much like the land they preside over — are a geographic melting pot. In order to better understand the qualities of our land mass, it’s helpful to to create a further subset of it. In other words, it’s helpful to condense further down into regions.
For our ranking of GOLF’s Top 100 Courses in the U.S., we found that to be a useful endeavor as well. The essence of course design is that there is no one “proper” way to create a course, it is largely about using the land to the best of its abilities. On the west coast, the best abilities of the land might incorporate a seaside routing over jagged cliffs and bluffs. Such a design would never work in the midwest, where the rolling prairies and blustering winds are overflowing with links-style routings. In other words, what works at Shinnecock might not at Cypress Point, and so on.
Below, you’ll find GOLF’s rankings of the top 10 courses in each region. To check out the remainder of the top 50 courses in the Northeast, Southeast, Heartland and West, click the associated links.
The Top 10 Courses in the U.S. by region
West
1. Cypress Point — Pebble Beach, Calif. (Alister MacKenzie, 1928)
2. Pebble Beach — Pebble Beach, Calif. (Jack Neville/Douglas Grant, 1919)
3. Los Angeles Country Club (North Course) — Los Angeles, Calif. (George C. Thomas Jr., 1921)
4. Riviera Country Club — Pacific Palisades, Calif. (George C. Thomas Jr./Billy Bell Sr., 1926)
5. Pacific Dunes — Bandon, Ore. (Tom Doak, 2001)
6. San Francisco Golf Club — San Francisco, Calif. (A.W. Tillinghast, 1918)
7. California Club of San Francisco — South San Francisco, Calif. (A.V. Macan, 1926/Alister MacKenzie, 1928/Kyle Phillips, 2007)
8. Ballyneal — Holyoke, Colo. (Tom Doak, 2006)
9. Bandon Trails — Bandon, Ore. (Bill Coore/Ben Crenshaw, 2005)
10. Bandon Dunes — Bandon, Ore. (David McLay Kidd, 1999)
Heartland
1. Sand Hills — Mullen, Neb. (Bill Coore/Ben Crenshaw, 1994)
2. Chicago — Wheaton, Ill. (C.B. Macdonald, 1895/Seth Raynor, 1923)
3. Crystal Downs — Frankfort, Mich (Alister Mackenzie/Perry Maxwell, 1932)
4. Prairie Dunes — Hutchinson, Kan. (Perry Maxwell, 1937/Press Maxwell, 1957)
5. Shoreacres — Lake Bluff, Ill. (Seth Raynor, 1921)
6. Camargo — Cincinnati, Ohio (Seth Raynor, 1926)
7. Southern Hills — Tulsa, Okla. (Perry Maxwell, 1936)
8. Inverness — Toledo, Ohio (Donald Ross, 1919/Andrew Green, 2017)
9. Oakland Hills (South) — Bloomfield Hills, Mich. (Donald Ross, 1917/Robert Trent Jones Sr., 1950)
10. The Golf Club — New Albany, Ohio (Pete Dye, 1967)
Southeast
1. Augusta National — Augusta, Ga. (Bobby Jones/Alister Mackenzie, 1933)
2. Pinehurst (No. 2) — Pinehurst, N.C. (Donald Ross, 1907)
3. Seminole — Juno Beach, Fla. (Donald Ross, 1929)
4. Kiawah Island (Ocean Course) — Kiawah Island, S.C. (Pete Dye, 1991)
5. Ohoopee Match Club — Cobbtown, Ga. (Gil Hanse, 2018)
6 Peachtree — Atlanta, Ga. (Robert Trent Jones Sr./Bobby Jones, 1947)
7. Old Town — Winston-Salem, N.C. (Perry Maxwell, 1939)
8. TPC Sawgrass (Players Stadium) — Ponte Vedra Beach, Fla. (Pete Dye, 1981)
9. Yeamans Hall — Hanahan, S.C. (Seth Raynor, 1925)
10. Wade Hampton — Cashiers, N.C. (Tom Fazio, 1987)
Northeast
1. Pine Valley — Pine Valley, N.J. (George Crump/H.S. Colt, 1918)
2. Shinnecock Hills — Southampton, N.Y. (Howard Toomey/William Flynn, 1931)
3. National Golf Links of America — Southampton, N.Y. (C.B. Madonald, 1911)
4. Oakmont — Oakmont, Pa. (Henry Fownes, 1903)
5. Merion — Ardmore, Pa. (Hugh Wilson, 1912)
6. Fishers Island — Fishers Island, N.Y. (Seth Raynor, 1926)
7. Friar’s Head — Baiting Hollow, N.Y. (Bill Coore/Ben Crenshaw, 2003)
8. Winged Foot (West) — Mamaroneck, N.Y. (A.W. Tillinghast, 1923)
9. The Country Club (Clyde/Squirrel) — Brookline, Mass. (TCC Members/Willie Campbell, 1899)
10. Somerset Hills — Bernardsville, N.J. (A.W. Tillinghast, 1918)
