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.
What if you had the chance to play any course on GOLF’s Top 100 Courses in the U.S. ranking? Would you choose an ultra-exclusive club like Pine Valley or Chicago Golf Club? Maybe you want a course with breathtaking beauty like Fishers Island or Cypress Point. Or perhaps you’d opt to play where the pros play and go with TPC Sawgrass or Bethpage Black.
It’s hard to go wrong when choosing a course on our Top 100 list. Among them are the greatest courses our country has to offer, after all. Even so, everyone has a course that tops their bucket list — I know I do (Fishers Island).
So we asked you; and here’s what you said.
Top bucket-list course
According to our readers, the choice atop the bucket list was clear cut. Augusta National, annual home to the Masters, led the way in our survey with 50 percent of respondents saying the Alister MacKenzie tops their bucket list. The public gets glimpses of the course each April, but playing it has a different allure — as evidenced by its popularity among our readers.
Cypress Point was the second most popular answer at 18 percent, while top-rated Pine Valley was third at 12 percent. Rounding out the top five were Pebble Beach, National Golf Links of America and Shinnecock Hills (tied).
Top bucket-list hole
Augusta National is immensely popular among our readers, and that theme continued in our survey of top bucket-list hole. The most popular answer for top bucket-list hole was Augusta National’s par-3 12th, with 31 percent of readers choosing Golden Bell.
Cypress Point’s picturesque 16th placed runner-up with 15.5 percent of the vote, while Augusta National’s par-5 13th was third at 12.4 percent. TPC Sawgrass’ island-green 17th was fourth while Pebble Beach’s par-3 7th rounded out the top five.
