50 Best Golf Courses in the U.S.: Where to Tee Up in America

You’ll find some of the best golf courses in the world are peppered across the American landscape. From sea to shining sea, the United States is bedecked with mountain golf courses, lakeside golf courses, and even New York golf courses by the Big Apple. In fact, there are over 16,000 golf courses in the U.S., with new golf courses developed every year, according to the National Golf Foundation. Want to play them all? At a rate of one per day, it’ll take nearly 44 years. Our advice? Visit the best golf courses in every state.

Whether you’re a single-digit handicapper like the PGA’s rising stars or a weekend hacker, there are bucket-list golf courses for everyone. Fair warning, some are more accessible than others and most of us will never set club on hyper-exclusive tracks like Pine Valley, Cypress Point, and Augusta National without golf buddies in very high places. The good news? Roughly 75 percent of America’s golf courses are open to the public—which means there are truly exceptional golf courses you can actually play. 

As part of the 2024 Men’s Journal Travel Awards, we put together the 50 best golf destinations in America—from the best golf courses in Florida to the best golf courses in Michigan—including the best public golf courses. And, because your pursuits are no doubt varied, check out the best ski resorts in the U.S., best vacations in the U.S. and the best hotels. 

Now, pack your best travel accessories, check your golf clubs with your best luggage (no, you can’t fly with your clubs as carry-on luggage) and set off to one of America’s premier golf destinations.

Best Golf Course Overall: Pebble Beach Golf Links (Pebble Beach, CA) Pebble Beach Golf Links is our pick for the best golf course in America.

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Pebble Beach, occupying the edge of California’s Monterey Peninsula, owns the reputation of greatest public course on the planet—though golfers who’ve never been may rightly wonder, Is playing Pebble worth it? The answer is an easy and resounding, Yes! A round manages to transcend the hype. Designed by Jack Neville and Douglas Grant, Pebble opens with a few “inland” holes. By the fourth, players can start to see the shimmering blue sea. Johnny Miller called this bucket-list “the greatest meeting of land and water in the world.” You won’t be able to look away from the stellar views along its oceanside stretch of holes.

Magic unfolds at the sixth, with spectacular views of Stillwater Cove and the Pacific Ocean that will leave your jaw on the green. The seventh is a famous short par-3. Overlooking Carmel Bay, this hole might just be the greatest 100 yards in golf, though the maritime panorama lasts well after the turn. At the 11th, the course twists back toward the trees and some fantastic holes—including a banger par-5 14th. Players return to the sea for the par-3 17th and for the final hole—one of the most unforgettable in the game. Golf is known as a good walk spoiled, but not even 18 double bogeys could ruin a four-hour hike around Pebble.

If he had one round left to play, Jack Nicklaus said Pebble Beach would be his destination. 

Best Public Golf Course: Bethpage Black (Farmingdale, NY) Bethpage Black, one of golf’s toughest testing grounds, will see the Ryder Cup in 2025.

Nicholas Hegel McClelland

“The People’s Country Club” on Long Island is one of the toughest tests of golf open to the public. Both visually stunning and intimidating, Bethpage Black will eat your lunch, given the opportunity. The rough is long and lush. Hit it beyond the fairway and you’ll be lucky to find your ball let alone advance it much. It’s also a tough eight-mile walk, with elevation changes equivalent to a couple dozen flights of stairs.

A.W. Tillinghast designed some of the best private courses in the country, both tracks at Baltusrol, both at Winged Foot and San Francisco Golf Club. But Bethpage Black is one of the rare “Tilly” designs anyone can play. The par-5 fourth hole and par-4 15th are both all-world golf holes. The course, which has hosted two U.S. Opens and a PGA Championship, is set to host the Ryder Cup in 2025.

Best Golf Course in Las Vegas: Shadow Creek (Las Vegas, NV) Shadow Creek is a jaw-dropping course, but it comes at a premium.

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It’s Vegas, baby! MGM Resorts International’s Shadow Creek is less than 30 minutes from the Strip, which means it’s still officially in the desert—and, therefore, those impossibly lush tree-lined fairways, streams, and waterfalls were all exorbitantly man-made. Sculpted with rolling hills, manufactured elevation changes, and something north of 20,000 planted trees, this Tom Fazio-designed showstopper was created with a reported budget of $47 million way back in ancient Vegas history (1989). Turns out building your own desert golf oasis doesn’t come cheap—and neither does playing it. The greens fees here are now pushing $1,250, so hopefully anyone teeing off had a good run at the tables the night before. 

Best Mountain Golf Course: The Broadmoor East (Colorado Springs, CO) The Broadmoor East is devilishly deceptive.

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The Rocky Mountains make a helluva backdrop for golf. Nestled among the trees just southwest of Colorado Springs, The Broadmoor’s East course offers stunning views and good test. The design is a combination of two nines, one by Donald Ross and another constructed 30 years later, in 1948, by Robert Trent Jones. There’s the potential for tree trouble off nearly every tee and the greens are devilishly deceptive—so pack your A-game if you want to score well. Plus players need to work out the math on how much farther the ball flies at altitude since the course sits 6,400 feet above sea level at the base of Cheyenne Mountain in Colorado Springs, CO. If you want to play here, just make sure you’re a hotel guest (or a member).

Two of golf’s all-time greats, Jack Nicklaus and Annika Sorenstam, have lifted trophies at this classic Donald Ross/Robert Trent Jones Sr. design. On top of that, it’s parked 6,400 feet above sea level.

Best Historic Golf Course: Pinehurst No. 2 (Pinehurst, NC) Pinehurst No. 2 has played second fiddle to no other course for over a century. It will be confounding the pros once again at this summer’s U.S. Open.

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The Village of Pinehurst, a nine-course golf mecca in the Carolina Sandhills, is billed as the home of American golf, a designation that’s tough to dispute. When Pinehurst No. 2 hosts the 2024 U.S. Open later this summer, Donald Ross’ turtleback greens will be so difficult to hold, some of the best golfers in the world will find themselves held low or even in tears—the USGA might want to strategically place some tissue boxes on the tees.

On days it’s not tuned up for a major championship, No. 2 is still a brute that can only be taken down with strategically placed shots. Every hole demands focus and requires a keen understanding of where you want to be and the spots you need to avoid.

The course twists and turns through a rough-free cathedral of longleaf pines and a mélange of native hardpan sand. Each hole leads into devilish green complexes; playing them feels like trying to stop a ball on a turtle’s back. Not to be missed: The Cradle, Pinehurst’s nine-hole short course dubbed “the most fun 10 acres in all of golf.”

While Donald Ross eventually designed 400 courses across the U.S. and Canada, his early work on Pinehurst No. 2, which dates from 1907, remains his masterpiece. In 2010, the course was restored to Ross’ original intent by Bill Coore and Ben Crenshaw and is now an anchor site for the U.S. Open, with events planned for 2024, 2029, 2035, 2041, and 2047.

Best Resort Golf Course: Pacific Dunes (Bandon, OR) The 444-yard, par-4 13th hole on Pacific Dunes is a Tom Doak masterpiece.

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There are golf resorts and then there’s Bandon Dunes—the purest links golf experience outside of Scotland and as close as it gets to a stateside golf pilgrimage. It’s the only destination in the world with five Top 100 courses on the same site—no small accomplishment for a place born in 1999—but Pacific Dunes stands primus inter pares. The Tom Doak design traverses steep cliffs above the wild Oregon Coast with vistas that will leave players reeling.

Not only does Pacific Dunes offer some of the best seaside golf on the planet, the architecture breaks the mold for modern American courses. It features inland holes and ocean holes spread between native Oregon shore pines and towering dunes. 

Doak’s par-4 ninth hole plays up a hill and second shots are hit to one of two separate green complexes, depending on where the greenskeeper decides to put the hole for the day. Being at Bandon is a thrill in and of itself, but it gets even better if you pack your knock-down game. It’ll come in handy at Pacific’s 13th hole, one of the best par-4s on the planet; it plays dead into the prevailing wind.

Oh, and the back 9 feature four par-3s and three par-5s, including the long-and-tough 18th. Read our full review of Bandon Dunes Golf Resort.

More of the Best Golf Courses in Every State

Alabama: FarmLinks Golf Club at Pursell Farms

If FarmLinks isn’t the best kept secret in the country, it’s undoubtedly the best kept secret in the South. Grab a chilled apple (talk about Southern charm) beneath the loblolly pines and brace yourself for a world-class routing at this rambling 3,200-acre property an hour southeast of Birmingham, AL.

Your jaw will drop while watching your ball in flight against the distant Appalachian foothills at the fifth hole (aptly named Hang Time), a 210-yard par-3 that nosedives 172 feet to a portrait-perfect putting green. Historical markers on each hole reveal that Spanish explorers and Civil War soldiers marched through the grounds in the days of yore. Somewhere between walking up the 18th fairway and entering Old Tom’s Pub, you’ll realize that one round at FarmLinks just isn’t enough.

Alaska: Moose Run Golf Course

Situated off the Glenn Highway outside of Anchorage, AK, this military-run operation at the foot of the Chugach Mountains just so happens to be the northernmost 36-hole golf facility in the country. Golf season is short in the Last Frontier and options are limited—there are only twentysomething courses in the entire state—but what Alaska lacks in quantity, it more than makes up for with wild and rugged beauty. As you navigate your way over and around the shimmering Ship Creek, don’t be surprised if both moose and bears join your foursome.

Arizona: We-Ko-Pa Golf Club

Scottsdale, AZ is the heartbeat of desert golf, but the Grand Canyon State’s best one-two punch is a casino course combo thirty minutes northeast on Fort McDowell Yavapai Nation land. Most of We-Ko-Pa’s well-deserved love goes to the Saguaro Course, a Coore/Crenshaw blueprint that naturally unspools in the majestic Arizona landscape. Both it and its sister course, Cholla, offer players unbroken views of multiple mountain ranges—the Superstitions, McDowells, and Mazatzals to name a few.

Arkansas: Mystic Creek Golf Club

Any course architect who starts and finishes players on par-5s is immediately added to the Christmas card list. In tiny El Dorado, AR, not far from the Louisiana state line, Mystic Creek Golf Club shines, one through eighteen, across a vast swath of cathedral pines reminiscent of a certain course in Georgia that awards green jackets (even the clubs’ logos are similar). Like Augusta, Mystic Creek’s pure Bermuda grass greens feature lots of slopes, so make sure to warm up on the practice green before your round here.

Connecticut: Keney Park

A lot of munis can be filed under “goat track” due to their less-than-ideal playing conditions. Not Keney Park, a restored 1927 Devereux Emmet/Robert “Jack” Ross gem owned by the city of Hartford, CT. The best part? You’ll never have to pay more than $45 for eighteen holes—and that’s a non-resident weekend rate.

Delaware: Baywood Greens Woodside-Waterside

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A short jaunt from both Lewes and Rehoboth Beaches, this pair of nines of nines at Baywood Greens represents the finest public golf in the First State. The Woodside nine plays through the hardwood forest with water lurking on many holes. The par-five fifth looks like a simple proposition—fly the massive centerline bunker to a large landing area—but getting home in two shots is a tall order as the hole measures 603 yards. The fairway narrows significantly and twists left for the layup, so players need to mind their yardages. As the name suggests, Waterside nine tests golfers with numerous forced carries over liquid H2O, none more dramatic than the long par-four 14th. Golfers have a choice: Take the long route down the right to the well-bunkered dogleg left green or try to land a tee shot on an island fairway for a shorter approach and better angle. 

Florida: Streamsong Red: Bowling Green

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The bar for golf in Florida is high. There are more than 1,250 golf courses in the Sunshine State and many open to the public are truly fantastic—TPC Sawgrass, PGA National, and Bay Hill, to name a few. But Bill Moore and Ben Crenshaw’s Streamsong Red is our favorite in Florida. Part of a golf trilogy at the Streamsong resort, the Red course was constructed on the site of a former phosphate strip mine (as were the Blue and the Black courses). The views are wild. With massive mounds covered in wispy grass and epic waste areas, it doesn’t play like your average course south of the panhandle. Balls take big bounces in the fairway, and many green complexes play like a links course you’d find in Ireland. There are a few forced carries, like on the signature par-3 16th, but overall the course is one of the most fun in America. 

Georgia: Reynolds Lake Oconee (Great Waters)

When you’re dealing with sticky Bermuda rough, the friendly fluff of Zoysia fairways, like those at this recently renovated Nicklaus layout, are a balm to any golfer’s soul. Located ninety minutes east of Atlanta, Great Waters delivers not only one of the finest lakeside stretches in America—its last eight holes skirt Lake Oconee’s idyllic waterside, offering a deluge of cove carrying shot opportunities—but one of..