View looking towards the 17th and 18th holes of the Old Course, St Andrews, with the club house o...

Best Links Golf Courses in the World

122 ranked courses

Links is the oldest form of the game and the narrowest definition in golf: courses laid out on firm, sandy, treeless ground where the turf drains fast enough to stay playable through winter. Classically that ground lies between the sea and the farmland behind it; this site also files the great inland dune courses here, Sand Hills in Nebraska and Sand Valley in Wisconsin among them, because they play the same game on the same kind of sand. A hundred and twenty-two of our ranked courses qualify, and the concentration tells its own story — forty-one are in the United Kingdom and five in Ireland, where the style began, but thirty-three are in the United States, the clearest evidence of how completely it was exported. The Old Course at St Andrews, in play since 1552, is the oldest; 7 Mile Beach in Tasmania, opened in 2025, is the newest. What connects a gap of nearly five centuries is the ground rather than the era: the ball runs, the wind is the main defense, and a low shot is usually the right one. Twenty-seven of the hundred and twenty-two are resort courses and forty-four more are public or semi-private, which makes this one of the more accessible categories for a visitor.

— Top 10 Rankings

Top 10 Links Courses

Updated

  1. The Old Course at St Andrews
    St Andrews, Fife, Scotland, United Kingdom links Par 72
    5.0
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  2. Royal County Down Golf Club
    Newcastle, County Down, United Kingdom links Par 71
    5.0
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  3. Pebble Beach Golf Links
    Pebble Beach, California, United States links Par 72
    5.0
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  4. Royal Dornoch Golf Club — Championship Course
    Dornoch, Sutherland, Highland, Scotland, United Kingdom links Par 70
    5.0
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  5. Royal Portrush Golf Club — Dunluce Links
    Portrush, County Antrim, Northern Ireland, United Kingdom links Par 71
    4.8
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  6. Shinnecock Hills Golf Club
    Southampton, NY, United States links Par 70
    4.8
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  7. Cypress Point Club
    Pebble Beach, California, United States links Par 72
    4.9
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  8. National Golf Links of America
    Southampton, New York, United States links Par 72
    5.0
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  9. Ballybunion Golf Club - Old Course
    Ballybunion, County Kerry, Ireland links Par 71
    5.0
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  10. Muirfield
    Gullane, East Lothian, United Kingdom links Par 71
    4.8
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— More Courses

More Links Courses

About Links Courses

If you have only played parkland golf, a links round is genuinely a different game — expect to putt from thirty yards off the green and to aim well away from where you want the ball to finish.

Ranked courses
122
Course styles
links 122
Access
private 51 · resort 27 · semi-private 27
Opened
1552–2025
Playable without membership
71 of 122

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