The best golf courses in North Carolina
North Carolina has always been one of the country’s richest and deepest golf states—much of that thanks to Donald Ross, who took up his residence in Pinehurst for over four decades and contributed 12 courses that appear on our new list of the Best Courses in North Carolina.
The great classic courses in the Tar Heel State are balanced nicely by another prolific architect who’s one of the best of his era, Tom Fazio, who also has his primary office in the state. Fazio has 11 original designs on this latest list. If Ross is synonymous with North Carolina, Fazio should be, too.
Below you'll find our 2025-'26 ranking of the Best Golf Courses in North Carolina.
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Scroll on for the complete list of the best courses in North Carolina. Be sure to click through to each individual course page for bonus photography and reviews from our course panelists. We also encourage you to leave your own ratings … so you can make your case for (or against) any course that you've played.
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J. Ryan Montgomery
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J. Ryan Montgomery
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J. Ryan Montgomery
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J. Ryan Montgomery
Previous rank: NR
Governors Club: Lakes & Foothills is ranked as one of the best golf courses in North Carolina. Discover our experts' reviews and tee time information.
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Photo by Russell Kirk/Duke University GC
Previous rank: NR
Home to the Duke Blue Devils, a top NCAA Division I program, the Duke Golf Club features significant elevation changes and forced carries over narrow winding creeks. The track also has a fascinating history—it was designed by Robert Trent Jones Sr. in 1957, and it was soon honored as the host of the 1962 men’s NCAA Championship. Rees Jones, the eldest son of the esteemed designer, played for Yale University in the championship that year. He went on to renovate the course himself in 1994.
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Dave Sansom Photography
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Dave Sansom Photography
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Dave Sansom Photography
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Dave Sansom Photography
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Dave Sansom Photography
Previous rank: NR
Hope Valley Country Club is one of the best golf courses in North Carolina. Discover our experts' reviews and course information.
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Previous rank: NR
In the era of social media, it’s rare to find a true hidden gem these days. Sequoyah National might be the last of a dying breed. Located 45 minutes west of Asheville, this Robert Trent Jones II design is built on dramatic terrain with incredible, panoramic views of the Great Smoky Mountains. Though measuring at 6,600 yards, the elevation changes provide a strong ball-striking test. A recent bunker renovation and conversion to zoysia fairways has this 2009 design in as good of shape as ever. Just minutes away from the Harrah’s Cherokee Casino Resort, Sequoyah National is a great destination for a buddies escape.
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Joann Dost
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Joann Dost
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Joann Dost
Previous rank: 36
Greensboro Country Club Farm Course in Greensboro is one of the best courses in North Carolina. Discover our experts’ reviews and where Greensboro Country Club Farm Course sits in our rankings.
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McConnell Golf
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McConnell Golf
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McConnell Golf
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McConnell Golf
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McConnell Golf
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McConnell Golf
Previous rank: 33
Formerly a part of Sedgefield Country Club, The Cardinal by Pete Dye is now semi-private. Set along a countryside stream in Greensboro, this par-70 Pete Dye design boasts crowned greens that repel even slightly offline approach shots. As you walk up to the par-3 12th, a plaque, quoting Dye, reads, “The hardest par 3 I ever designed.”
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Courtesy of The Trump Organization
Previous rank: 35
Trump National Charlotte possesses plenty of aesthetic tee shots and approaches with great views of Lake Norman. Greg Norman, the architect, did a great job of balancing a fun course while maintaining a very distinct and playable course layout, meandering through the inlets of Lake Norman, incorporating both water hazards and elevation challenges.
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Patrick O'Brien
Previous rank: 32
The Cliffs at Walnut Cove is a Jack Nicklaus design in a valley of the Blue Ridge Mountains and the Pisgah National Forest. The course sits over 2,000 feet above elevation with wider playing corridors to be playable for all levels of players, but a number of bunkers that challenge the better players within landing zones. The Cliffs at Walnut Cove, which opened in 2005, will get its first taste of the limelight with a new event on the PGA Tour in 2026 as the kick off event of the fall.
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Courtesy of the club
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Courtesy of the club
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Courtesy of the club
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Courtesy of the club
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John Warner
Previous rank: 37
Bright's Creek in Mill Spring is one of the best courses in North Carolina. Discover our experts’ reviews and where Brights Creek sits in our rankings.
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Jake Mugge
Previous rank: NR
Myers Park Country Club is one of the best golf courses in North Carolina. Discover our experts' reviews and tee time information.
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Previous rank: 39
Situated on the north side of Durham in the Research Triangle, Treyburn is a private Tom Fazio design that plays over rolling terrain that creates constant elevation change throughout the round. Numerous creeks play an integral role in the strategy at Treyburn, as they often cross near the fronts of greens, leaving players to decide whether to attack in regulation or lay back, especially if they’re out of position off the tee. Some tee shots are tight, including at the demanding par-4 18th, considered one of the more difficult finishers in the area. The narrow tree-lined tee shot plays up to the top of a hill that falls to the left, leaving players an approach to a green closely guarded by a creek running across the front and left side of the putting surface.
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Cape Fear Country Club. Photo courtesy of Chandler Brock Hatch.
Previous rank: 34
Cape Fear Country Club in Wilmington is one of the best courses in North Carolina. Discover our experts’ reviews and where Cape Fear Country Club sits in our rankings.
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Brian Oar
Previous rank: NR
Architects are usually only as good as their sites, or at least their budgets—Tom Fazio would certainly agree with that, which is why he only agrees to projects that give him the resources to push the land around until it’s the way he wants it. Strantz, who began his career working for Fazio, was just getting to that level of prestige when he passed away, but Tot Hill Farm, opened in 2000, was a relatively low-budget design on a central North Carolina property that was too rugged and rocky to yield a Tobacco Road-level course. Strantz used what he had to shape some of his wildest greens, working around the site’s obstacles the best he could. The course is a staggered mix of daring, often outrageous holes (the par-3 13th) dotted with moments of sublime brilliance like the par-5 eighth and the par-4 17th. Golf Digest named the third hole, a downhill par 3 with a green wrapped around a rock outcropping, the best third hole built in the U.S. since 2000. Over the last few seasons, new ownership has invested in ongoing course improvements, including tree removal and new turf, and as of 2024, the course has never been better. What used to be a “lesser” Strantz design due to conditioning challenges is now one of the country’s best showcases of his eccentric, some say genius, architecture.
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Paxton Rembis
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Paxton Rembis
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Paxton Rembis
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Paxton Rembis
Previous rank: 29
The Tom Fazio-designed Old North State Club is located just over an hour outside of Charlotte, where dense forested hills meet pristine lakeside shores. The tumbling fairways and steep lakeside terrain offer panoramic views of the Uwharrie Point natural area while also creating dramatic approaches and intimidating tee shots. Putting surfaces are known to be firm and tricky, as greens are defended by a series of undulated collection areas and deep bunkers. The highlight of the round at Old North State Club is the challenging and breathtaking three-hole closing stretch built alongside the lake, with an approach to an island green on the par-4 16th, a tee shot over water on the par-3 17th and a forced carry into the fairway over Badin Lake on the par-5 18th.
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Courtesy of the club
Previous rank: 25
Arnold Palmer and his designers, Ed Seay and Harrison Minchew, designed an extraordinary mountainous layout as high as 5,400 feet of elevation within the Balsam Mountain Preserve, a 4,400-acre community about 45 minutes from Asheville and an hour from the Tennessee border. Forced carries over ravines and streams on most holes make this a difficult course to navigate for some, but our panelists give the routing top scores for aesthetics, with the tremendous views of the Great Smoky Mountains.
Previous rank: 16
Linville Golf Club was originally founded in 1892 and is one of the oldest clubs in North Carolina. Originally designed by Donald Ross in 1924, the course traverses over steep Blue Ridge Mountain terrain, featuring an out-and-back design where players ascend over steep terrain before heading back down, all the while being flanked by clear, flowing creeks that often dissect fairways. Known for its challenging and demanding green complexes, the standout hole at Linville is the par-4 third with a fairway split three times by a running creek, and an elevated green with a raised center, repelling all but perfectly struck iron shots.
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Todd Bush
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Previous rank: 18
Situated at the base of the Blue Ridge Mountains is the Elk River Club, home to Jack Nicklaus’s first golf course design in North Carolina. The course, which debuted in 1984, follows the natural slopes and undulations of the landscape as players traverse 1,200 feet of elevation change alongside the Elk River amidst the tranquil North Carolina pine forest. Wide driving areas reveal stunning views of the surrounding mountains, while difficult putting surfaces showcase large slopes and fast conditions, meaning accurate approaches aid in enjoying this stunning golf course.
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Wayne Freedman
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Wayne Freedman
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Wayne Freedman
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Wayne Freedman
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Wayne Freedman
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Wayne Freedman
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Wayne Freedman
Previous rank: 30
The Tom Fazio-designed South course at Forest Creek Golf Club debuted in 1996 and was followed shortly after by the North Course in 2001. Located just outside of Pinehurst, the South course is routed over gentle sloping terrain with open driving areas bordered by dense thickets of pine trees and protected by forced carries and intimidating bunkering. Greens at the South course are demanding and require accurate approach shots into firm and sloping putting surfaces. The standout holes at the South course are a collection of difficult par 3s, highlighted by the 195-yard 17th played over a hazard to an amphitheater-style green.
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Courtesy of the club
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Dave Sansom/courtesy of the club
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Dave Sansom/courtesy of the club
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Courtesy of the club
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Courtesy of the club
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Courtesy of the club
Previous rank: 22
Situated just south of Hendersonville and 45 minutes from Asheville, Tom Fazio devised an 18-hole routing that accentuates the surrounding Blue Ridge Mountains and rolling terrain with as much as 350 feet of elevation change amid deep ravines, mountain streams and heavily forested hills. Each fairway is carved into natural valleys as Fazio's team worked to create playing corridors that allow members and their guests to navigate the hilly terrain. The course opened in 1991 on over 500 acres of land and has been ranked inside Golf Digest's Best in State for North Carolina ever since.
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Eakin Howard
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Eakin Howard
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Micciche Photography
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Eakin Howard
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Eakin Howard
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Eakin Howard
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Icon Sportswire
Previous rank: 28
Opened in 1926, Sedgefield Country Club is a Donald Ross design that has been the longtime host of the PGA Tour’s Wyndham Championship. The course co-hosted the inaugural Greater Greensboro Open (today’s Wyndham) in 1938, won by Sam Snead. The tournament has been played at several courses over the years, and Sedgefield has hosted it since 2008. In 2007, the course underwent a $3 million restoration project aimed at transforming the layout back to Ross’ original intent. In typical Ross style, the greens are quite busy, with prominent slopes demanding the player stay below the hole.
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Wayne Freedman
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Wayne Freedman
Previous rank: 26
Cut from a nature preserve about a mile north of the resort, Pinehurst #8 is one of Tom Fazio's most versatile designs, as each hole plays differently from the previous. The front nine is mostly tree-lined, the back more open, with both touching ponds, marsh and Pine Valley-like sandy wastelands. For putting surfaces, Fazio built crowned greens with greenside swales, intended as a salute to Donald Ross and Pinehurst #2. #8 is also the most secluded of the resort's nine courses, with no homes or development touching it (Tom Doak's Pinehurst #10, opened in 2024, is equally secluded on the resort's new Sandmines site). Fazio returned to #8 in late 2022 to touch up elements of the course that needed burnishing, and the course plays as fast and firm as its older brethren.
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Previous rank: 27
Debuting in 1948, Raleigh Country Club is one of the few courses that can claim to be the final work of legendary architect Donald Ross. The course is famous for Ross’ utilization of severe slopes and undulation, creating a dramatic yet challenging experience. In 2020, the club commissioned Kyle Franz, the same man tasked with renovating Ross classics like Mid Pines, Pine Needles, and even assisted with Pinehurst #2, to head a nearly $6 million renovation project focused on a new irrigation system, expanded bentgrass green complexes and pumping up the yardage to almost 7,400 yards. New native grass borders on fairways and bunkers further add not only to the aesthetics, but also to the difficult nature of Raleigh Country Club.
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Courtesy of the club
Previous rank: 31
In 2001, Rees Jones designed a golfers’ paradise at Old Chatham Golf Club just outside of Raleigh. The course meanders over subtle terrain surrounded by seemingly endless thickets of North Carolina pines as well as extensive waste areas, creating challenging and tight driving windows. Small and firm putting surfaces are guarded by a variety of hazards, from penal collection areas to deep bunkers. In 2022, Jones completed a renovation improving fairways, reducing bunker size and redesigning the par-3 16th hole, which is now played over a hazard and offers a collection area to bail out of the demanding tee shot. If in the Raleigh area, this is a course not to be missed.
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John P. Kane
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Courtesy of the club
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Ryan Barnett/Courtesy of Southern Pines
Previous rank: 17
Southern Pines used to be a course that only locals and architectural bookworms played. Designed in the early 1900s by Donald Ross, the affordable public course occupied a wonderful, bucolic piece of land and seemed to have buried treasure underneath. After a change in ownership, Kyle Franz completed a major 2021 renovation that added plenty of razzle-dazzle to the design in the form of new greens and painting the layout with the kind of scruffy sandscapes indigenous to the Pinehurst region (and to Pine Needles and Mid Pines, where he’s previously wielded his art). The work has elevated this formerly modest public course to the level of its more prestigious neighbors.
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Courtesy of Mid-Pines GC/kevinmurraygolfphotography.com
Previous rank: 24
What began as a private retreat called Knollwood, funded by Roaring Twenties millionaires like James Barber, Horace Rackham and Henry Ford, is now a charming public Donald Ross design, revitalized by young first-time designer Kyle Franz in the style of Pinehurst #2, where Franz had worked on the restoration. Mid Pines is pure elegance and beauty. The routing is spellbinding, with holes that stretch out into corners at the property’s high points, then fall back down to intersect at junctions across the calmer interior. Franz’s 2013 work expanding greens and restoring the perimeter sandscapes has greatly enhanced one of Pinehurst’s most refined golf presentations.
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Courtesy of the club
Previous rank: 20
The George Cobb-designed Linville Ridge Golf Course is set among the spectacular Blue Ridge Mountains and sits almost 5,000 feet above sea level. The almost 60-year-old golf course underwent extensive renovation in 2008, commissioning Bobby Weed to add a more natural and rugged feel to the layout. The course features fairways and greens that follow the land's natural contours with borders of dense vegetation and exposed rock walls giving the players an aura of seclusion and tranquility. While the course surroundings can relax the mind, fast sloped greens and dramatic holes like the par-3 16th playing 110-feet downhill quickly refocus any golfer's attention.
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Kevin Murray
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Matt Hahn
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Russell Kirk
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Braedon Fox
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Kevin Murray
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Russell Kirk
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Kevin Murray
Previous rank: 23
The Dogwood course at the Country Club of North Carolina sits in a heavily forested region of the North Carolina sandhills, not too far from Pinehurst Resort. The course was originally designed by Ellis Maples in 1963 and has since been restored and renovated by the teams of Arthur Hills and Steve Forrest in 1999, and by Kris Spence in 2016. The recent renovation saw the course change to zoysia fairways and Bermudagrass putting surfaces, along with expanded green complexes and new bunkering. The new perfectly maintained golf course meanders through pine tree-lined fairways and over subtle undulations. The back nine at the Dogwood course follows the shores of Watson Lake and culminates with the intimidating 204-yard par-3 16th with a forced carry over the lake itself.
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Dave Sansom
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Dave Sansom
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Dave Sansom
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Dave Sansom
Previous rank: 21
Located in the Cashiers region of North Carolina is the George Cobb-designed golf course at High Hampton Resort. The course originally opened in 1956 and has since undergone a three-year Tom Fazio-led renovation culminating in 2021. The end result is a spectacular golf course with six entirely new holes, as well as winding fairways that rise and fall over steep undulations and play to immaculate bentgrass putting surfaces. Open driving areas are protected by strategic bunkering and tall fescue, while putting surfaces have plenty of slope and difficult breaks. The round culminates with the par-4 15th and 18th, offering stunning panoramic views of the exposed rock faces of Chimney Top and Rock Mountain.
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Wayne Freedman
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Wayne Freedman
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Wayne Freedman
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Wayne Freedman
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Wayne Freedman
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Wayne Freedman
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Wayne Freedman
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Wayne Freedman
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Wayne Freedman
Previous rank: 14
Tom Fazio did the first 18 at Pinehurst’s ultra-private Forest Creek Golf Club, the South Course, in 1996, carving it from a rolling pine forest, with most tee shots playing downhill and most greens amenable to low, running shots. When he returned nearly a decade later to add the North Course, he and his team decided on a different approach, a more organic, lay-of-the-land 18. So the North has more uphill holes and semi-blind tee shots. The sandy base of the pine forest is exposed in many holes, incorporated not just to frame holes but also as carry hazards on certain shots. Formal bunkers are edged with clumps of bushy wiregrass or dwarf pampas. The only water hazard is encountered late in the round—a long lake around which the 15th, 16th and 17th play. This course wasn’t inspired by sand-scarred neighboring courses like Pinehurst #2, Mid Pines and Dormie Club.
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Courtesy of Dormie Network
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Courtesy of Dormie Network
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Courtesy of Dormie Network
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Courtesy of Dormie Network
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Courtesy of Dormie Network
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Courtesy of Dormie Network
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Courtesy of Dormie Network
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Matt Hahn/Courtesy of Dormie Network
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Courtesy of Dormie Network
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Courtesy of Dormie Network
Previous rank: 19
The Dormie Club is a minimalist Coore and Crenshaw design just north of Pinehurst that follows the popular design theme of the Sandhills region: little traditional rough, sandy waste areas lining the fairways and greens busy with humps and hollows. The course is a second-shot layout, with forgiving fairways allowing players to get off the tee without too much trouble. The greens, however, have plenty of movement, placing importance on proper shot placement on approaches. The Dormie Club has invested a lot of money in its trademark property with some of the most impressive cottages and lodging options in the Dormie Network found here.
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Dom Furore
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Chris Keane
Previous rank: 15
Pine Needles used to lurk quietly in the Pinehurst background before the USGA chose to put it in their regular women’s championship rotation. It got another big boost in 2017 after Kyle Franz reworked portions of the course, putting the Pinehurst touch on the borders, cross hazards and bunkers. Though it lacks the intimacy and connectivity of its sister course, Mid Pines, with the holes wandering far afield due to a being part of a 1920s residential development, it’s grown into a big, championship worthy course (most recently hosting the 2019 Senior Women’s Open and 2022 U.S. Women’s Open) with arguably the best set of greens after No. 2.
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Laurence Lambrecht/Courtesy of the club
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Laurence Lambrecht/Courtesy of the club
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Laurence Lambrecht/Courtesy of the club
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Laurence Lambrecht/Courtesy of the club
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Laurence Lambrecht/Courtesy of the club
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Wayne Freedman
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Wayne Freedman
Previous rank: 13
In 1926, Leonard Tufts, the president of Pinehurst Resort, and some business leaders from nearby Winston-Salem, including Hugh Chatham, founded Roaring Gap Club as a private getaway in the mountains for the summer when the Sandhills region became too hot. They hired Donald Ross to design this mountaintop design, which sits 3,200 feet above sea level in a small, picturesque hamlet of the Blue Ridge Mountains. The 6,400-yard design is loaded with old-fashioned character and charm. Standout features include the “Do-drop” volcano par-3 sixth hole, and bunkerless par 5s defended by bold, undulating terrain, merging fairways, skyline views and the Graystone Inn, the original counterpart to The Carolina in Pinehurst, which serves as the clubhouse today. Following a recent Kris Spence restoration, the par-72 layout boasts some of the most authentic Ross greens that exist today.
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Brian Oar
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Brian Oar
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Billy Richards
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Billy Richards
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Kevin Patrick Murray
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Brian Oar
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Brian Oar
Previous rank: 12
Tobacco Road took every idea that Strantz had been developing to that point (1999) and put it all in one place, specifically an old mining site of sand and pine 25 miles north of Pinehurst. The property is the secret star—yes, there are Strantzian trademarks like boomerang-shaped par 5s, greens and fairways notched blindly behind dunes, dramatic risk/reward shots played over deep chasms and putting surfaces stretched into stringy silly putty shapes. But without the elevation changes, depressions and contrasting textures of the rugged sand barrens, this would be True Blue 2.0. It’s much more than that: A master class in decision-making and composition that sits among the top 50 on Golf Digest's ranking of America’s 100 Greatest Public Courses, a placement that’s at least 20 spots too low, at least in the mind of these editors. (A reminder: Our rankings are the results of our panelists' evaluations with no say from our editorial staff.)
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Chris Keane
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Courtesy of Chris Keane
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Courtesy of Chris Keane
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Courtesy of Chris Keane
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Courtesy of Chris Keane
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Courtesy of Chris Keane
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Chris Keane
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Tom Eppes
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Previous rank: 10
There was never a dispute about the Donald Ross pedigree of Charlotte Country Club. Ross expanded its original nine-hole course in 1915, remodeled it while adding grass greens in 1925 and further tinkered with it in the 1940s. But in the 1960s, Robert Trent Jones rearranged holes to create a practice range and redesigned the others. Still, it wasn't until 2007 that the club felt it should restore its Ross design. But Ross-expert Ron Prichard convinced them it wasn’t smart to simply replicate holes from a 70-year-old aerial photograph, because golf technology has changed. Prichard rebuilt all greens and bunkers in the style of Ross, but improvised the green contours based on what he’s observed at other Ross layouts. He also installed SubAir cooling systems beneath the greens, one example of how times have certainly changed since Ross’ day.
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Previous rank: 11
Situated in the dense forested mountains outside of Asheville is the timeless 1922 Donald Ross-designed golf course at Biltmore Forest Country Club. The course is known for its exceptional yet difficult conditions, highlighted by undulating and tree-lined zoysia fairways with extensive bunkering and ticklish bentgrass greens. In recent years, architect Brian Silva has undertaken major renovations aimed at returning the Ross’ original bunkering and characteristics. This is evident at the challenging par-4 10th and 12th that now require pinpoint accuracy if one hopes to avoid the penal cross-bunkers dotted throughout the fairways.
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Courtesy of the club
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Courtesy of the club
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Courtesy of Laurence Lambrecht
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Courtesy of Laurence Lambrecht
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Courtesy of Brian Gomsak
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Courtesy of Laurence Lambrecht
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Courtesy of Laurence Lambrecht
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Wayne Freedman
Previous rank: 8
Back when Grandfather Golf & Country Club made the 100 Greatest in 2001, we wrote, “This is a Grandfather we haven’t seen often enough ... a reminder of the architectural talent of the late Ellis Maples ... With roughs of rocks and rhododendron amid ever-present hemlocks, and sweeping greens guarded by bold bunkers, Grandfather feels like home. Maybe this time he’ll stay.” He didn’t, dropping off in 2011. But Grandfather made it back on in 2015, only to slip to the Second 100 Greatest in 2017, despite some remodeling by Bobby Weed in 2016. Will it ever climb the summit again? Who knows, but it helps that there is probably no more attractive mountain course anywhere in the rankings. Never count this Grandfather out.
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Stephen Denton
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Courtesy of Pinehurst Resort
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Pinehurst Resort
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Previous rank: 9
Like a football team searching for the right coach, the resort could never settle on the right identity for the #4 course despite a series of major alterations by different architects. It was first laid out by Pinehurst doyen Richard Tufts in 1952, then remodeled by Tufts and son Peter a decade later. Rees Jones reinvented it in the '80s, and Tom Fazio took it apart and put it back together as a stylized botanical garden in the late '90s. It finally found its match when it hired Gil Hanse and Jim Wagner to carry out a full-scale blow-up and rebuild in 2018 that infused it with the sweeping sand-and-pine character we identify with Pinehurst, while initiating a style of shaping in the greens and bunkers that’s confident and distinctly its own.
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Jeff Marsh
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Matt Gibson/Pinehurst Resort
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Jeff Marsh
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Jeff Marsh
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Jeff Marsh
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Matt Gibson/Pinehurst Resort
Previous rank: NR
Sand is the defining character of Pinehurst, and Pinehurst #10 goes right to the source: a former sand mining site south of the resort, on a site known as the Sandmines, portions of which used to be a golf course called The Pit that closed in 2010. Several holes of this Tom Doak design, opened in 2024, plunge through the old quarries, including the turbulent eighth where players will want to pop Dramamine before tackling fairway swells that would pitch and toss a fishing vessel. Pinehurst Resort is also characterized by the tight cluster of its primary courses and synchronous relationship with the surrounding village, but #10 is a world apart. The grandeur of the isolated holes roller coasting through the quiet sand barrens creates tension between the sublimity of the environment and the heroism of the architecture, demonstrated most intensely in the uninhibited green shapes, many of which are bowl-shaped and heavily segmented.
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Courtesy of PGA of America
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Courtesy of PGA of America
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The green at the narrow 15th is typically Quail Hollow’s hardest to reach in regulation.
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Courtesy of Gary Kellner/PGA of America
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Courtesy of Gary Kellner/PGA of America
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The uphill 12th with water left and right is listed as a par 5 but will take scores of 4s and even 3s to win.
Previous rank: 7
Few golf course projects had more national attention in recent years than Quail Hollow, mainly because its front nine was redesigned just a year before it hosted the 2017 PGA Championship. The par-4 first and par-3 second holes were completely torn up, replaced by a new long dogleg-right par-4 opening hole. Several acres of pines to the left of the fifth tee were removed to make room for a new par-3 fourth. (With its knobby green fronted by three traps, it proved to be the most frustrating hole for pros in the 2017 PGA.) More pines were removed to the left of the par-4 11th, replaced by bunkers, and even more trees chopped down on a hill left of the par-4 18th to make room for money-making hospitality boxes. There’s no question that this latest remodeling, rushed though it was, improved the course. Quail Hollow hosted the 2022 Presidents Cup (the order of the holes were rearranged to ensure the majority of matches would reach the vaunted Green Mile, 16-18) and the 2025 PGA Championship.
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Courtesy of Eagle Point GC
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Courtesy of Eagle Point GC
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Courtesy of Eagle Point GC
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Photo by Eagle Point G.C.
Previous rank: 6
From Golf Digest Architecture Editor emeritus Ron Whitten:
I played Eagle Point Golf Club, a Tom Fazio design, soon after it became ranked on Golf Digest's 100 Greatest but before it hosted the 2017 Wells Fargo Championship as a one-time substitute for Quail Hollow Club, which hosted the PGA Championship that summer. I walked it with caddies, Director of Golf Billy Anderson and one of the club's founders (and later president) Bobby Long (who was also green chairman at Seminole and a member of Augusta National.)
Just before we teed off, golf architect Andrew Green came over and introduced himself. We'd never met. He was designing a short-game facility for the club. Though it may seem strange that Fazio's firm wasn’t retained to do that, it helps to know that Andrew’s brother, Sam, was Eagle Point’s course superintendent at the time.
Eagle Point is a beautifully rolling, pine-lined Augusta National clone with huge immaculate greens (bentgrass back then, Champion G12 Bermudagrass now) and gorgeously shaped bunkers, which like at many Tom Fazio designs, seemed to have fully interchangeable parts. I didn’t dislike the look, but I didn’t go head over heels over it, either. Mainly because I’ve seen it all before. The ninth had a wind-blown Wild Dunes vibe to it, the 10th had the long-range view of a Galloway National hole, and the par-5 18th seemed patterned after the seventh at Quail Hollow.
When we got to the 13th hole, I remarked to Bobby Long that I liked how Fazio’s people had dug this huge irrigation lake, piled up all the soil into a massive hillside and planted mature pines all over it to make it look like it’s been there forever.
“Oh, no, you’re wrong,” Long said. “That hill has been there forever.” Billy then corrected him. “Mr. Long, this was a pasture. They did create that.”
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Courtesy of Jon Cavalier
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Previous rank: 5
Unlike nearby Wade Hampton Golf Club, the Tom Fazio design that was routed through natural valleys to forego the need for dynamite, Mountaintop was blasted from solid rock. Some holes were forged through slopes of the Blue Ridge Mountains, like the par-4 sixth, edged by a 30-foot-high wall of granite on the right. Conservative estimates are that all that rock removal raised the cost of construction of this continuous-18 layout to $1 million per hole. The opening tee shot drops 100 feet, and six holes also play over a deep gorge formed by Hurricane Creek. Mountaintop proves there is no property too rugged for Tom Fazio.
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Courtesy of Diamond Creek GC
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Courtesy of Diamond Creek GC
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Courtesy of Diamond Creek GC
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Courtesy of Diamond Creek GC
Previous rank: 4
While architecture purists scoff at the notion of waterfalls on golf courses, there is something magnificent about a cascading water feature done right. Few are as effective as the one behind the par-3 17th green at Diamond Creek. Tom Fazio positioned the green nearly at the base of a sheer granite quarry wall, down which a slender stream of water drops more than 100 feet. Amazingly, the club entrance’s drive is also at the base of the quarry wall, hidden from view on the 17th as effectively as Fazio hides his cart paths.
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SPRINGBOARD Old Town Club in Winston-Salem, N.C., makes the biggest move in the ranking, surging from No. 92 to No. 54.
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Previous rank: 3
Created by architect Perry Maxwell on the heels of his work at Prairie Dunes and Southern Hills, Old Town Club was surprisingly unique, and included perhaps Maxwell’s only surviving double green. When Bill Coore and Ben Crenshaw were hired to address the bunkering at Old Town, they opted not to reproduce the original bunkers (some of which were enormous) but rather emulate their gnarly shapes, edges and vegetation in places where bunkers naturally fit. Lots of trees had already been removed, but the architects convinced the club to get rid of even more. Now, a single swath of fairway connects the seventh, eighth, ninth, 17th and 18th holes. Very unique. The course has jumped a remarkable 59 places in the rankings since it debuted in 2019.
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The 13th hole at Pinehurst No. 2.
Courtesy of the resort
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Previous rank: 1
In 2010, a team led by Bill Coore and Ben Crenshaw killed and ripped out all the Bermudagrass rough on Pinehurst #2 that had been foolishly planted in the 1970s. Between fairways and tree lines, they established vast bands of native hardpan sand dotted with clumps of wiregrass and scattered pine needles. They reduced the irrigation to mere single rows in fairways to prevent grass from ever returning to the new sandy wastelands. Playing firm and fast, it was wildly successful as the site of the 2014 Men’s and Women’s U.S. Opens, played on consecutive weeks, and produced an even more exciting Open in 2024 when Bryson DeChambeau beat Rory McIlroy on the final hole. It's the rare course that a wide variety of resort players can enjoy and play quickly one day, and be a test for tour pros the next by essentially just quickening the greens. A new favorite of the USGA with a headquarters in town, Pinehurst #2 will host Opens again in 2029, 2035, 2041 and 2047.
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Previous rank: 2
Built during the period when Tom Fazio was still working with the existing landscape rather than bulldozing it, Wade Hampton is an exercise in restraint. The fairways flow through a natural valley between flanking mountain peaks. Some holes are guarded by gurgling brooks, but Fazio piped several streams underground to make the course more playable and walkable. Selected as Golf Digest’s Best New Private Course of 1987, it has never been out of the top 40 since it joined America’s 100 Greatest.
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