Links Courses

The Old Course is the oldest layout in golf, its shared double greens routing out and back across linksland behind the town. The S...

Muirfield runs as a ring of outward holes circling the inward nine, a clever loop that keeps wind in play from every angle. It has...

Dornoch wraps along the Dornoch Firth and is a pilgrimage for golf architects who praise its natural green sites. Tom Watson calle...

Carnoustie is widely called the sternest links in the Open rotation. The closing stretch with the Barry Burn crossing the 17th and...

Turnberry hosted the 1977 Duel in the Sun between Tom Watson and Jack Nicklaus and the 2009 Open where Stewart Cink beat a 59 year...

Troon owns the shortest hole in championship golf, the 123 yard Postage Stamp, which wrecked card after card in the 2016 Open won ...

Prestwick staged the first 12 Opens, the inaugural won by Willie Park with Old Tom Morris as runner up. The Railway hole and the C...

North Berwick gave the world the par 3 Redan, copied on every continent, and a hole where the green sits against a stone sea wall....

Cruden Bay stacks blind shots, punchbowl greens and skylarking terrain into two unforgettable loops. The fourth green hides 30 fee...

Gailes is a members gem on the Ayrshire coast, a ribbon of holes between the railway and the sea. The club has helped stage Open q...

Royal Aberdeen runs out along the North Sea through a corridor of dunes considered among the finest front nines anywhere. The Walk...

Gullane No 1 climbs Gullane Hill for sweeping views then tumbles home along the ridge. It has hosted Scottish Open and Open qualif...

Kingsbarns was crafted on farmland to feel ancient, and it stages the Alfred Dunhill Links Championship each October. Nearly every...

Castle Stuart opened to instant praise and hosted the Scottish Open for its first years. Its greens sit on shelves above the firth...

Birkdale is a modern championship template of dune lined corridors and grandstands, hosting the Open ten times. Palmer won here in...

Sandwich has hosted the Open 15 times, from John Henry Taylor to Collin Morikawa in 2021. Its huge dunes and the famous Suez Canal...

Lytham is the most urban of English links, an inland ribbon of 166 bunkers and small greens. Bobby Jones won the 1926 Open with hi...

Hoylake is hard and fast, and Bobby Jones won the 1930 Open here on his way to the Grand Slam. Tiger Woods won in 2006 using his d...

Deal is a flat, fierce links where wind does the scoring. Ray and Hagen won its two Opens early in the century. It remains an Open...

Royal County Down threads blind drives through towering dunes under the Mountains of Mourne. Rory McIlroy calls it his favorite li...

Portrush staged the 1951 Open, the only one in Ireland until Shane Lowry won the 2019 return in front of record crowds. The Dunluc...

Tom Watson refined and championed Ballybunion in the early 1980s, opening American eyes to Irish links. The course clambers throug...

Lahinch hides delightful oddities like the Klondyke, a blind par 5 approach over a dune, and the Dell, a hidden par 3 green watche...

Portmarnock is a pure out and back links of massive scale and total fairness, stage of Irish Opens and Amateur Championships. Its ...

Waterville sits between the Atlantic and mountains on the western edge of Europe, a favorite of the greats before Open weeks. The ...

Pat Ruddy built the European Club on rugged Wicklow coast with long par 4s and deep pot bunkers everywhere. It cracked world top 1...

Porthcawl sits on the Bristol Channel with views across to Devon, its turf among the firmest in Britain. It hosted the 2014 Senior...

Pebble Beach runs along the Monterey peninsula with the sixth through tenth holes hanging over the Pacific. It hosted the 2010 and...

Cypress Point moves from dunes to forest to one of the great finishes in golf, the 15th, 16th and 17th over the Pacific. The 218 y...

Shinnecock is the oldest incorporated golf club in the United States, its shingled clubhouse from 1892. The links rolls over South...

Macdonald built the National as an American answer to the home of golf, importing replicas of famous holes from Britain. The Redan...

Whistling Straits was built on a dead Lake Michigan flatland into a dunes fantasy with more than 1,000 bunkers. It staged three PG...

Bandon Dunes proved Americans would fly to remote coast and walk links golf with caddies, no carts anywhere. The 13 par 4 over cli...

Pacific Dunes rides higher cliffs than its older sibling, the fourth and fifth holes among the most photographed in golf. Tom Doak...

The Ocean Course was built on a barrier island with ten holes on the Atlantic, and staged the 1991 Ryder Cup, the War on the Shore...

Seminole is a low slung Ross gem on Jupiter Island, its east wind routing famous among architects. Ben Hogan practiced there every...

Barnbougle Dunes brought links golf back to Australia, a remote farming coast turned into a world top 50 course within a year of o...

Cape Wickham occupies the windiest corner of King Island below a 150 year old lighthouse. Nearly every hole meets the Southern Oce...

NSW GC runs along ocean cliffs at the entrance to Botany Bay, MacKenzie routing later polished by Thomson and Ogilvy. The wind off...

The Fuji Course hangs over Sagami Bay with Mount Fuji in view on clear days. Alison routed wild clifftop par 4s and a Redan along ...

Durban Country Club wedges between the Indian Ocean and the city, tropical vegetation and massive greenside dunes. It hosted the S...

The Links at Fancourt was shaped from flat airfield into a dunes landscape at the foot of the Outeniqua mountains. It hosted the 2...

Tara Iti was carved from pine plantation into tumbling links, immediately ranked the best course in New Zealand. It is private, fe...

Paraparaumu Beach is the classic New Zealand links, true running turf between dunes with the Tasman howling. It hosted 12 New Zeal...

Cabot Links was the first true seaside links in Canada, routed over former coal mine land with the Gulf of St Lawrence on every ho...

Highland Links is the Stanley Thompson mountain links by the sea, the Old Course of Canada to admirers. It climbs over the Clyburn...

Royal St Davids lies on the flat dunes below Harlech Castle, with the mountains of Snowdonia across the bay. Founded in 1894, it i...

Royal West Norfolk at Brancaster opened in 1892 on a strip of dunes between salt marsh and the North Sea. At high tide the access ...

Machrihanish was founded in 1876 near the tip of the Kintyre peninsula, with Old Tom Morris extending the course soon after. Its f...

Chambers Bay was built on a former gravel quarry beside Puget Sound in Washington and opened in 2007, designed by Robert Trent Jon...

Royal Adelaide moved to its current site at Seaton in 1904, and Alister MacKenzie advised on changes during his 1926 visit to Aust...