Representative heathland golf landscape, not a photograph of Pine Valley Golf Club

Best Heathland Golf Courses in the World

33 ranked courses

Heathland is one of the smaller style categories and arguably the most admired: thirty-three courses built on inland sand, through heather, gorse and pine, on ground that drains like links but sits nowhere near the sea. Pine Valley leads it and sits second in our global order, with Royal Melbourne's West Course seventh and Kingston Heath inside the world top twenty-five, and Victoria and Peninsula Kingswood beside them on the Melbourne sandbelt. Twelve of the thirty-three are in England — Sunningdale, Swinley Forest, The Berkshire, St George's Hill, Walton Heath, Hankley Common, Woking and West Sussex on the sandy country south and southwest of London, with Woodhall Spa, Ganton, Alwoodley and Notts Golf Club at Hollinwell further north. Northern Europe holds most of the rest: Kristianstad, Sand, Skövde and Vallda in Sweden, Lübker in Denmark, Kongsvinger in Norway, Oddur in Iceland, De Pan and Eindhovensche in the Netherlands, Royal Antwerp and Royal Limburg in Belgium, Hamburger Falkenstein in Germany, Penati in Slovakia and Morfontaine north of Paris, with Peel on the Isle of Man and Carya in Belek, Turkey. The classic English and continental clubs date from 1888 to 1931; the Scandinavian additions are mostly modern. Access is mixed: twenty are private, eight semi-private, Kristianstad is public, and Sand, Lübker, Penati and Carya are resorts.

— Top 10 Rankings

Top 10 Heathland Courses

Updated

  1. Pine Valley Golf Club
    Pine Valley, New Jersey, United States heathland Par 70
    5.0
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  2. Royal Melbourne Golf Club — West Course
    Black Rock, Victoria, Australia heathland Par 72
    4.8
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  3. Kingston Heath Golf Club
    Cheltenham, Victoria, Australia heathland Par 72
    4.7
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  4. Sunningdale Golf Club — Old Course
    Sunningdale, Berkshire, United Kingdom heathland Par 70
    5.0
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  5. Golf de Morfontaine
    Mortefontaine, Oise, France heathland Par 70
    5.0
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  6. Swinley Forest Golf Club
    Ascot, Berkshire, United Kingdom heathland
    4.5
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  7. Utrechtse Golf Club De Pan
    Bosch en Duin, Utrecht, Netherlands heathland Par 72
    4.5
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  8. Ganton Golf Club
    Ganton, North Yorkshire, United Kingdom heathland Par 71
    4.5
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  9. St George's Hill Golf Club
    Weybridge, Surrey, United Kingdom heathland
    4.4
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  10. Victoria Golf Club
    Cheltenham, Victoria, Australia heathland Par 72
    4.3
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— More Courses

More Heathland Courses

About Heathland Courses

If you are trying to understand why architects talk about strategic golf, this is the category to study — heathland courses are where the ideas were worked out.

Ranked courses
33
Course styles
heathland 33
Access
private 20 · semi-private 8 · resort 4
Opened
1888–2018
Playable without membership
13 of 33

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