7 interesting findings from our Top 100 Courses readers’ survey

Our expert course raters get their say in assessing the most sublime golf courses on American soil every two years, like they just did for our 2024-25 Top 100 Courses in the U.S. and Top 100 Courses You Can Play rankings. But our readers — you! — have opinions and experiences, too. Here we’ll break out a few factoids and tee-time fantasies that emerged from GOLF’s 2024 Top 100 Courses Readers’ Survey.

When taking the pulse of our audience in regards to our list of the top golf courses in the country, we knew we were going to get some interesting thoughts.

And we did.

Here are 7 fun findings from our recent Top 100 Courses Survey.

Who is your No. 1?

Not everyone agrees on what makes a great golf course, so it’s not surprising that our audience has different opinions on which course they perceive to be the best in the country.

Pine Valley has long been numero uno, according to our panelists, so it’s not a shock that the plurality of our readers (34 percent) see the exclusive New Jersey club as the best course in the country. Augusta National, which is ranked 6th on our U.S. list and gets broadcast all over the world every April, drew the second-most first-place votes in this category, with 28 percent of the vote.

Pebble Beach, the No. 1 course in our Top 100 You Can Play list, was a distant third at 13 percent, and Cypress Point, our ranking’s No. 2 course in the country, has 12 percent.

Who can get on?

A majority of our survey takers (57 percent) do not know someone who has played Pine Valley while slightly fewer (47 percent) said they did not know someone who had played Augusta National. However, more than twice as many respondents (10 percent) said they had played Pine Valley themselves compared to Augusta (4 percent).

How much are you really willing to spend?

Thirty-six percent of our survey takers said they wouldn’t pay more than $100 to play a Top 100 course, more than double the next two most popular answers: no more than $200 and no more than $500 (15 percent).

For that 36 percent, finding a tee time might prove challenging as just one course on our Top 100 list can be had for less than $100 at a peak time, and that’s without a cart.

Do architects matter?

Do you care if the course you play is a Ross or a Tillinghast? It seems most of you do!

The majority of survey takers (55 percent) say designers matter when choosing a course to play, with 11 percent calling it “very” important and another 44 percent calling it “somewhat” important.

Clear favorites

Our readers also have clear preferences for their favorite course designers.

When it comes to classic “Golden Age” architects, Donald Ross is the fave among our readers, garnering a whopping 37 percent of the vote, despite not having a design ranked in the top 10 of our Top 100 list. Dr. Alister MacKenzie, the designer behind both Cypress Point and Augusta National, among many others, was the next most popular at 21 percent.

When it comes to more contemporary architects, the team of Bill Coore and Ben Crenshaw, designers of the only modern course in our top 10, Sand Hills, is a clear favorite, with 26 percent of the vote. Pete Dye, known for TPC Sawgrass and Kiawah Island, was second out of the eight choices, with 18 percent of the vote.

The ocean calls

It’s no surprise, with many of the top courses in the country buffering or near the ocean (with the noted exceptions of Pine Valley and Augusta National), links/coastal golf is the overwhelming favorite among our readers, with 56 percent saying it’s their preferred style of golf.

The surprise is that parkland golf, which includes Pine Valley, Augusta, Oakmont and many more, comes in second with 22 percent of the vote, while mountain golf captured just 13 percent of our readers.

Is golf’s most exciting hole really that exciting?

It’s quite often you’ll hear a golf TV announcer describe a drivable par-4 as “the most exciting hole in golf.”

Our readers, at least from the standpoint of playing those holes themselves, don’t seem to agree.

In our survey, 40 percent of our readers, in a choice between a reachable par-5, short par-3 and drivable par-4, said short par-5s most excite them. Another 34 percent said short par-3s thrill them the most while just 26 percent said drivable par-4s.