The best links courses in the U.S. (or at least ones that look the part)

This is where golf architect Seth Raynor got his start. A civil engineer by training, he surveyed holes for architect C.B. Macdonald, who scientifically designed National Golf Links as a fusion of his favorite features from grand old British golf holes. National Golf Links is a true links containing a marvelous collection of holes. As the 2013 Walker Cup reminded us, Macdonald’s versions are actually superior in strategy to the originals, which is why National’s design is still studied by golf architects today, its holes now replicated elsewhere. Hard to fathom that National Golf Links of America was not ranked among America’s 100 Greatest Golf Courses from 1969 until 1985. Theories involve possible hazy, rough around the edges conditions during the 1970s that dulled the architcture (something that didn’t impact over-the-fence Shinnecock Hills), the course’s relatively short length that didn’t meet the era’s “championship course” standards, or simply that the unique Macdonald shapes and concepts were too quirky for the prevailing tastes of the era. No matter now. National is rightly positioned as one of America’s most original and influential expressions of golf course architecture.

Some of America’s greatest golf courses were designed by first-time novices and non-architects: Merion, Oakmont, Pine Valley and Pebble Beach all fall into this category. Sankaty Head on the eastern edge of Nantucket Island does, too. It was built by a local amateur player named Emerson Armstrong, but judging by the circuitous routing and attractive bunkering (honed in recent years by Jim Urbina) that recalls some of Donald Ross’ best work, you’d be excused for assuming Armstrong had done this dozens of times. The roomy holes unfurl across open fields of fescue, riding the site’s swales and ridges like an English links. True to the inspiration, the greens are open in front to receive running shots played under the exacting Atlantic winds, and the collection of par-3s is about as tough and beautiful as it gets.

This was the second course constructed at Bandon Dunes Resort and the highest ranked among the resort’s five 18s. To best utilize ocean frontage, Tom Doak came up with an unorthodox routing that includes four par 3s on the back nine. Holes seem to emerge from the landscape rather than being superimposed onto it with rolling greens and rumpled fairways framed by rugged sand dunes and marvelously grotesque bunkers. The secret is that Doak moved a lot of earth in some places to make it look like he moved very little, but the result is a course with sensual movements, like a tango that steps toward the coast and back again, dipping in and out of different playing arenas from the secluded sand blowouts to the exposed bluffs and all variations in between.

Running adjacent to the Pacific Ocean, Gearheart began as three holes in 1888, and is believed to be the oldest course west of the Mississippi. Its expansion to 18 holes in 1892, all on firm, sandy terrain, have made it a popular, more affordable alternative to the Bandon courses more than 200 miles to the south.

Old Mike Keiser had a course. Name of Bandon Dunes. Hugged the cliffs of Oregon gorse. It made golfers swoon. So he added one more, then a third next door. Here a lodge, there a hut, even built a pitch & putt. Now it’s America’s top resort. Name of Bandon Dunes. But Old Mike Keiser wanted more. Down at Bandon Dunes. An ode to an architect he adored. Cut from heather and broom. So Old Macdonald came to be. In spite of a bad economy. Here it’s big, there it’s bold. Everywhere it looks real old. A Road Hole here, a Cape Hole there. Bottle Hole, Biarritz, ocean winds that’ll give you fits. Short and Eden fit the scenes. Especially with enormous greens. Old Macdonald is part of the lore. Now at Bandon Dunes.

The challenge at Arcadia Bluffs for architects Dana Fry and Jason Straka was to create a course that guests would want to play as often as they do the original course. But how can golf built on non-descript farmland compete with a course set on dramatic bluffs overlooking Lake Michigan? The answer: Do something entirely different. Channeling another famous but rather indifferent site, the designers turned to Chicago Golf Club and the architecture of C.B. Macdonald and Seth Raynor for inspiration. The South Course is a throwback in time, a jigsaw puzzle of intersecting bunkers, centerline hazards, alternate routes of play and geometric shaping. It interprets the strategic spirit of Raynor and Chicago Golf Club without replicating any specific holes. Where the Bluffs Course is a feast for the eye, the South Course is a treat for the intellect.

Undoubtedly the most dazzling design of architect Seth Raynor, who died in early 1926, before the course had officially opened. His steeply banked bunkers and geometric greens harmonize perfectly with the linear panoramas of the Atlantic Ocean and Long Island Sound. The quality of the holes is also superb, with all Raynor’s usual suspects, including not one but two Redan greens, one on a par 4. The setting on a private island accessible only by ferry adds to the mystique, and three holes (four, five and nine) appear on our ranking of America’s 100 Greatest Holes.

Sheep Ranch began life as a different Sheep Ranch in the early 2000s, a rag-tag, cross-country, 13-hole course with no irrigation built by Tom Doak on a bluff just north of what would later become Old Macdonald. It was a little-used recreation that only insiders knew about. Mike Keiser tapped Bill Coore and Ben Crenshaw to convert it into Bandon Dunes’ fifth regulation 18-hole course and Coore and Crenshaw’s second. Spread across an open, windswept plateau, using many of the same greensites, Coore managed to triangulate the holes in such a way that nine now touch the cliff edge along the Pacific Ocean. Extremely wide fairways, large putting surfaces and sandless bunkers allow the exposed course to be playable in extreme winds. Though it’s slipped behind its Bandon brethren in the rankings, Sheep Ranch nevertheless accomplishes the most difficult of feats for resort courses—distinction among equals.

The Lido at Sand Valley in central Wisconsin opened in May 2023, and is a down-to-the-inch recreation of The Lido that C.B. Macdonald built on Long Island from 1914 to 1917. Heralded as one of the country’s greatest courses, it went extinct in the 1940s when the U.S. government converted the land to a naval base.Rebuilding The Lido has been the fantasy of many historians, but doing so accurately became possible when Peter Flory, a financial consultant and architecture enthusiast, developed a detailed computer simulation of the course based on scrupulous study of old photographs and other material. Sand Valley proprietors Michael and Chris Keiser discovered Flory’s computer model, then asked architect Tom Doak if he could use it to rebuild the course.First the animated contours had to be translated into a physical GPS topographical blueprint, a technological hack accomplished by digital mapping specialist Brian Zager. The GPS map enabled Doak and his associates to reconstruct Lido holes like Plateau, Alps, Cape and Long in exquisite detail, along with originals like the Dog’s Leg sixth and the Home 18th, making only minor adjustments for drainage and adding longer tees for modern play. Though there’s no Atlantic Ocean crashing near the Biarritz eighth green or stiff coastal winds swatting around balls, the ”new” Lido is a stunning representation of Macdonald’s groundbreaking accomplishment and a vivid throwback to a more daring era of architecture. Using the spacious hole corridors to explore different routes into the giant greens is half the fun. Contemplating players navigating holes like the Channel fourth, with an alternative island fairway for daring hitters and a green perched behind a high rampart bunker, using hickory shafts and Haskell balls, is the other half.

Pete Dye transformed a dead flat abandoned army air base along a two-mile stretch of Lake Michigan into an imitation Ballybunion at Whistling Straits, peppering his rugged fairways and windswept greens with 1,012 (at last count) bunkers. There are no rakes at Whistling Straits, in keeping with the notion that this is a transplanted Irish links. It has too much rub-of-the-green for the comfort levels of many tour pros, which is what makes it a stern test for top events, such as three PGA Championships, the 2007 U.S. Senior Open and 2021 Ryder Cup.

This is Herbert Fowler’s most engaging 18-hole design. Routed on an isthmus in the Atlantic on Cape Cod, with each nine looping out and back along the ocean’s edge, the course’s rugged topography was splendidly used to pose challenges in stance, lie and depth perception. It’s now golf’s equivalent of a spine-tingling, neck-twisting roller coaster ride along a waterfront. If you come upon a flat lie at Eastward Ho!, it’s likely a tee box.

The idea of a reversible golf course is as old as the Old Course at St. Andrews, and golf architect Joel Goldstrand built a series of nine-hole reversible courses for small clubs in Minnesota, Iowa and North Dakota back in the 1980s. But give Tom Doak credit for convincing a client to take a chance on an 18-hole reversible layout. “The goal is to have two very different courses over the same piece of ground, so people will want to stay over to play it both ways and compare and contrast the two,” says Doak. For our 2016 Best New competition, Doak wanted the entire 36 holes considered as one entry. We allowed that, and it won. For subsequent rankings, we’ve separated the two into conventional 18-hole candidates. The Black Course is the clockwise routing, slightly shorter and ranked slightly higher than its reverse image Red Course.

From Golf Digest Architecture Editor emeritus Ron Whitten: Dan Proctor and Dave Axland have been quasi-legends in the business of golf course construction for over 30 years now, individually and collectively. They’ve worked on many of Coore & Crenshaw’s prominent designs, including Sand Hills (Nebraska’s premier layout, in the center of the state’s vast sand hills) and Cabot Cliffs (Canada’s premier layout these days). They even rated cameo appearances in Geoff Shackleford’s 1998 novel, The Good Doctor Returns. And they were also a talented course design team in their spare time, routing and building quality low-budget courses in the Coore & Crenshaw style. Their most prominent collaboration is Wild Horse in central Nebraska, a public “little brother” to Sand Hills, in slightly softer but still authentic sand hills, closer to civilization. Like at Sand Hills, Wild Horse is lay-of-the-land architecture routed without benefit of topographic maps, with natural-looking bunkers, native grass roughs and pitch-and-run shots galore

The winner of Golf Digest’s Best New Course of 2014 award, Gamble Sands sits atop a sprawling, treeless plateau of sandy desert overlooking Washington’s Columbia River Valley. The extremely playable layout is oversized in every respect, with enormously wide and slick fescue fairways, gigantic greens, no rough and some of the most panoramic vistas in the Northwest. In using “friendly contours” that divert shots away from bunkers and toward targets, designer David Kidd wants everybody to have fun. He hopes good players will relish opportunities to score low and high handicappers will post their best rounds ever. With three reachable par 4s on the 18, that’s a possibility. Of course, Gamble Sands was Kidd’s precursor to ideas fleshed out at Mammoth Dunes, currently ranked 165th. The difference is that Gamble Sands is more invigorating off the tee presenting different lines and degrees of risk, while Mammoth Dunes is more diverse from 100 yards and in.

Bally’s Golf Links Ferry Point, formerly Trump Ferry Point, is a Jack Nicklaus, John Stanford and Jim Lipe design that sits atop an old NYC trash dump. Ferry Point opened in 2014 and debuted at No. 95 on 2017-2018 100 Greatest Public ranking. It’s currently ranked 35th on our Best in New York list. Reports estimate the cost of the Bronx links to be near $127 million.