Representative coastal golf landscape - no verified photograph of Cabot Cliffs is available

Best Coastal and Clifftop Golf Courses

118 ranked courses

Coastal is the category for courses built on the ocean edge without being true links: clifftop, headland and shoreline layouts where the sea is the defining feature but the ground underneath is not the sandy linksland of Scotland and Ireland. A hundred and eighteen courses qualify, and they are the most scattered group in the rankings — fifty-eight countries contribute, although the United States alone accounts for fifteen of the hundred and eighteen, with South Africa, Mexico and Puerto Rico next on five each, the Dominican Republic, Spain, Costa Rica and Bermuda on four each, Canada, Mauritius, Sweden, Iceland and Bulgaria on three each, and New Zealand, Brazil, Fiji, New Caledonia, Tunisia, Honduras, Greece, Hong Kong, the Bahamas, Jamaica, Curaçao and St Kitts and Nevis on two each. Cabot Cliffs in Nova Scotia leads them, with Cape Kidnappers above Hawke's Bay and Casa de Campo's Teeth of the Dog in the Caribbean close behind. Of the courses with a recorded opening date, Victoria Golf Club on the Oak Bay shore of Vancouver Island, from 1893, is the oldest, followed by Maidstone on the East Hampton shore from 1894 and Durban Country Club from 1922; most of the others are modern, because the machinery to build on a clifftop is. Sixty-eight of the hundred and eighteen are resort courses, which is not a coincidence: this kind of site is usually remote, expensive to build on, and viable only when attached to somewhere to stay.

— Top 10 Rankings

Top 10 Coastal Courses

Updated

  1. Cabot Cliffs
    Inverness, Nova Scotia, Canada coastal Par 72
    5.0
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  2. Cape Kidnappers Golf Course
    Te Awanga, Hawke's Bay, New Zealand coastal Par 71
    4.6
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  3. Casa de Campo — Teeth of the Dog
    La Romana, La Romana, Dominican Republic coastal Par 72
    4.5
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  4. Fishers Island Club
    Fishers Island, New York, United States coastal
    4.8
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  5. Kauri Cliffs
    Matauri Bay, Northland, New Zealand coastal Par 72
    4.5
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  6. Friar's Head
    Riverhead, New York, United States coastal Par 71
    4.7
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  7. New South Wales Golf Club
    La Perouse, New South Wales, Australia coastal Par 72
    4.4
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  8. Old Head Golf Links
    Kinsale, County Cork, Ireland coastal Par 72
    5.0
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  9. Shanqin Bay Golf Club
    Wanning, Hainan, China coastal Par 71
    4.3
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  10. Ardfin
    Isle of Jura, Inner Hebrides, United Kingdom coastal Par 72
    4.6
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— More Courses

More Coastal Courses

About Coastal Courses

Expect wind, expect the photographs to be better than the scorecard, and expect to lose a ball to the ocean — these are courses where the view is part of the difficulty.

Ranked courses
118
Course styles
coastal 118
Access
resort 68 · private 26 · semi-private 14
Opened
1893–2025
Playable without membership
92 of 118

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