Golf Advisor's Top 100 courses thru the first five years of ratings

Golf Advisor officially launched in February of 2014, but we began receiving reviews as early as September, 2012. So with five full years of golfer input under our belt —over 650,000 reviews and counting — we thought we'd look back and see which courses have fared the best during this time frame.

We compiled this all-time Top 100 list in a similar fashion to our yearly Top 50 best-of list, but with a few wrinkles. For starters, we included non-U.S. courses that had enough review data. Also, a big part of our yearly Top 50 is that courses need a certain threshold of reviews in that calendar year to qualify, but for this list, far more were eligible given their all-time review count from trustworthy accounts. To gather a more granular, complete rating from a review, we scored a course with a combination of the overall star rating and subcategory star ratings average (subcategories aren't required in our reviews but an overwhelming majority of our reviewers rate all six subcategories. They also include text and title, which also isn't required).

And as we continue to grow the amount of reviews and number of reviewers, we can apply more and more weight to those golfers who are the most prolific and trustworthy, like our growing list of Local Golf Advisors and our Top 1000 merit-badged golfers. Ratings by reviewers with a small sample of reviews were filtered out.

We know our yearly best-of lists and state lists look a lot different than top magazine lists. Ours have a mix of true "bucket list" courses and overachieving affordable destination courses. Our users, while not given the strict ratings criteria of a more expert, uniform panel, tend to rate their golf experience relative to the price they paid to play. We didn't begin tracking "Course layout" ratings until 2015, and our scores have less emphasis on course design and more so on the total experience from staff to facilities to value to conditions. There is a good chunk of courses on our Top 100 you might not expect to see on other Top 100s, and that's precisely the beauty of a more crowd-sourced list like ours — or should we say, yours?

In 2017, we're on pace to receive a record number of reviews and users, so we're excited to dig into the data at year's end to determine which courses came out on top.

Some other notes as we sorted through this five-year list:

- Not all courses received had enough reviews to be considered for this list. In our first five years, over 6,000 golf courses have received over ten reviews and over 2,000 courses have received over 100. As our user base continues to grow, we're optimistic we'll soon have a list where virtually all publicly-accessible courses receive enough reviews to be considered for our yearly lists.

- Since we began revealing yearly U.S. Top 50 lists, only one course has made the list all three years: Indiana's Royal Hylands Golf Club, which is also one of our top courses for staff friendliness as well as in our best courses under $50.

- You may have noticed that earlier this year we launched our new "Golf Advisor Index" which applies weight to a course's more recent reviews to give the golfer a clearer picture of what the experience is like now. But in the spirit of this all-time rating, reviews carry equal weight year-to-year.

- We've been receiving more and more international reviews in the last year or so, particularly in the U.K. and Mexico. While this Top 100 is light on non-U.S. entries, in another five years, far more courses around the globe should have enough reviews to be considered.

Top 100 golf courses from 2012-2017 on Golf Advisor

TPC Las Vegas


Daniels, West Virginia


Quintana Roo, Mexico


Hilton Head Island, South Carolina


Huntsville, Ontario


Klamath Falls, Oregon


Bremerton, Washington


Southampton, Bermuda


Las Vegas, Nevada


Gulf Shores, Alabama


Poway, California


Baywood Greens boasts a spectacular setting just outside Ocean City.

Baywood Greens


Naples, Florida


Elgin, Illinois


Dickson, Tennessee


McHenry, Maryland


Berlin, Maryland


Elberton, Georgia


Longneck, Delaware


Carrabelle, Florida


Corbyville, Ontario, Canada


Brooksville, Florida


The opening par 4 on the Saguaro Course heads gently downhill over a rippling fairway with 360-degree mountain views.

We-Ko-Pa Saguaro Course


Blythewood, South Carolina


Brutus, Michigan


Scottsdale, Arizona


Sedona, Arizona


Saucier, Mississippi


Onaway, Michigan


Tucson, Arizona


Hawley, Pennsylvania


Quintana Roo, Mexico


Niagara Falls, Ontario, Canada


Ross Course at French Lick


Peoria, Arizona


St. Simons Island, Georgia


Adairsville, Georgia


Ojai, California


Palm Desert, California


Sanford, North Carolina


Maricopa, Arizona


Nashport, Ohio


French Lick, Indiana


Savannah, Georgia


Princeville Makai Golf Club


Anaconda, Montana


Brooksville, Florida


Frankston, Texas


Oxford, Pennsylvania


Princeville, Hawaii


Marengo, Illinois


Lake Buena Vista, Florida


Statham, Georgia


West Lafayette, Indiana


Pawleys Island, South Carolina


A lone golfer walks in the fading light.

Pasatiempo Golf Club


Quintana Roo, Mexico


Newton, Kansas


Santa Cruz, California


Farmingdale, New York


Seaside, California


Verona, Wisconsin


San Antonio, Texas


Knightstown, Indiana


Roscommon, Michigan


Las Vegas, Nevada


Pinehurst No. 2 is the signature must-play in the North Carolina Sandhills.

Pinehurst No. 2


Indian Wells, California


Birmingham, Alabama


Laconia, Indiana


Bellaire, Michigan


Bandon, Oregon


Waterloo, Illinois


Batavia, Ohio


Sonora, Mexico


Pinehurst, North Carolina


Panama City, Florida


Las Vegas Paiute


Wickenburg, Arizona


Orlando, Florida


Tabernash, Colorado


Fort Meade, Florida


Las Vegas, Nevada


Ellwood City, Pennsylvania


Woodstock, Vermont


Bath, Michigan


Sylacauga, Alabama


Arcadia, Michigan


This view from a corporate chalet shows the hour-glass-shaped 17th green on Pebble Beach Golf Links.

Pebble Beach


Pebble Beach, Calif.


Wisconsin Dells, Wisconsin


Lake City, Minnesota


Merry Hill, North Carolina


Howey in the Hills, Florida


Fife, Scotland


Bandon, Oregon


Hilton Head Island, South Carolina


Brooks, California


County Antrim, Northern Ireland


East Lothian, Scotland


The Swilcan Burn guards the first green of the Old Course.

Old Course in St. Andrews


Angola, Indiana


Kamloops, British Columbia, Canada


French Lick, Indiana


Borrego Springs, California


Gordonsville, Virginia


St. Andrews, Scotland


Kiawah Island, South Carolina


Lahaina, Hawaii


Bandon, Oregon

You can see the Old Macdonald Course in the background as you play the 13th hole of the Pacific Dunes Course at Bandon Dunes Golf Resort.


Brandon Tucker is the Sr. Managing Editor for GolfPass and was the founding editor of Golf Advisor in 2014, he was the managing editor for Golf Channel Digital's Courses & Travel. To date, his golf travels have taken him to over two dozen countries and nearly 600 golf courses worldwide. While he's played some of the most prestigious courses in the world, Tucker's favorite way to play the game is on a great muni in under three hours. Follow Brandon on Twitter at @BrandonTucker and on Instagram at @btuck34.
3 Comments

I have no idea why The Hideaway Country Club in Fort Myers, Florida is not on this list. With an average review score of 4.8 with 128 reviews, The Hideaway's reviews far exceeds most courses on this list. https://www.golfadvisor.com/courses/2055-hideaway-country-club-the/

Please stop publishing these lists. If the word continues to get out that that the Bayonet and Blackhorse golf courses are among the nation's best, the people that run those courses might start thinking about raising their prices. Right now, both courses on the old Ford Ord army base near Monterey are the best I have ever played for under $100. If they ever build a resort hotel on the property as has been proposed, those green fees will triple overnight. The same thing happened in Half Moon Bay up the Northern California coast when the Ritz Carlton finished construction on the property. In the meantime, I am counting my lucky stars that I can still play them and have some change in my pocket when I am done.

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Golf Advisor's Top 100 courses thru the first five years of ratings