Scarborough North Cliff Golf Club

Yorkshire has long been one of England's most rewarding golf destinations. From the heathland giants of the north to the moorland courses above Bradford and Halifax, the White Rose County offers a breadth and quality that few English counties can match. The 2026 rankings confirm both the enduring strength at the very top of the table and a series of compelling movements in the middle order that reflect how well several clubs have been developing their courses in recent years. With 45 courses now ranked, panellists have assessed layouts across all four corners of Yorkshire - North, West, South and East - rewarding courses that deliver genuine challenge, architectural integrity and a memorable experience for visiting golfers. 2026 Updated Rankings: Yorkshire's Top 15 The top four positions in the 2026 rankings are unchanged, a testament to the enduring quality of Ganton, Alwoodley, Moortown and Lindrick. Below that settled elite, however, the rankings tell a more interesting story, with Hallamshire making a strong move into the top five and Cleveland Golf Club posting the most impressive climb in the entire list. To view the complete Yorkshire rankings and explore individual course profiles, visit the Yorkshire Rankings page. 2026 Top 15 At A Glance The Unchanged Elite Ganton Golf Club retains its position as Yorkshire No.1 for the fourth successive ranking cycle, and it is difficult to imagine that changing any time soon. This extraordinary inland links near Scarborough has hosted Walker Cup, Curtis Cup and Ryder Cup matches and remains one of the finest inland tests in the British Isles. Its fearsome bunkering is the stuff of legend. Alwoodley Golf Club and Moortown Golf Club hold firm at two and three, both occupying their now-familiar positions in the West Yorkshire heartland north of Leeds. Alwoodley's MacKenzie-designed layout remains among the most beautifully understated heathland courses in England, while Moortown — which hosted the first Ryder Cup on home soil in 1929 — continues to develop with considered restoration. Lindrick Golf Club remains fourth, its place among Yorkshire's elite secured by a combination of Ryder Cup heritage and continued course development The Rising Stars Hallamshire Golf Club is the standout performer in the upper half of the table, climbing two places to fifth. Harry Colt's 1938 redesign of this Sheffield heathland layout produced something quietly special. Cleveland Golf Club is the biggest mover in the entire Top 15. Yorkshire's oldest golf club, founded in 1887 at Redcar on the North Sea coast, Cleveland offers a links experience unlike anything else in the county. Its steady upward trajectory over successive rankings reflects a course that has been consistently well presented and increasingly appreciated by travelling golfers. Halifax is perched on the hillsides above the Calder Valley. Halifax's moorland layout delivers spectacular views and a genuine challenge that the panel has now recognised with a well-deserved rise into the Top 15. Headingley moves up one place to eleventh, a modest but consistent improvement for a club with deep architectural credentials — Alister MacKenzie remodelled the layout after the club moved to its current site in 1906, with Harry Colt later redesigning the bunkers. Best Yorkshire Golf Courses by Region West Yorkshire dominates the Top 15 with eight of the fifteen ranked courses drawn from the county's most populous region. The concentration of quality around Leeds, Bradford and Huddersfield reflects both the density of clubs in this area and the strong heritage of moorland and heathland golf that developed here from the late Victorian era onwards. Alwoodley, Moortown, Sand Moor, Huddersfield, Headingley, Halifax, Ilkley and Woodsome Hall all represent the West Yorkshire tradition at its finest. North Yorkshire contributes five courses — Ganton, Fulford, Cleveland, Pannal and York — spread across a large geographic area that takes in the coast, the Vale of York and the slopes of the North York Moors. This regional spread makes North Yorkshire one of the most rewarding areas in the county for a multi-course trip, with Ganton at the top of the rankings serving as the obvious anchor for any visit. South Yorkshire accounts for two of the Top 15, with Lindrick and Hallamshire representing the Sheffield region. Both courses carry significant historical weight — Lindrick's Ryder Cup pedigree and Hallamshire's Colt heritage — and both sit comfortably in the top five of the overall rankings. What the Updated Rankings Tell Us Stability at the Top Signals Enduring Quality The fact that positions one through four are completely unchanged reinforces the message that Yorkshire's leading courses are in exceptional shape. Ganton, Alwoodley, Moortown and Lindrick are not simply coasting on historical reputations — they are courses that continue to deliver outstanding experiences. When a panel of experienced golfers independently assesses courses and returns the same top four, that unanimity is meaningful. Golden Age Architecture Remains the Benchmark The top ten is defined almost entirely by courses shaped by the great Golden Age designers. MacKenzie's fingerprints are visible at Alwoodley, Moortown, Headingley and Fulford. Colt's influence defines Hallamshire. Braid, MacKenzie and Simpson all contributed to Ganton. The rankings reaffirm that design quality, not reputation or heritage alone, sits at the heart of the panel's thinking. Cleveland's Rise Highlights Coastal Yorkshire Yorkshire's links golf is less celebrated than its moorland and heathland courses, yet Cleveland offers an experience that is genuinely different from anything else in the county. Its ascent invites golfers who might not have considered a trip to Redcar to reconsider. Combined with the wider North Yorkshire coast, a visit to Cleveland could anchor a genuine links-focused itinerary. Halifax Opens Up the Pennine Hills Halifax's rise is encouraging. Moorland golf in the West Riding has always attracted those who know where to look, but Halifax's promotion to the Top 15 now ensures it will appear on the radar of a wider travelling audience. The moorland loops above the Calder Valley deserve greater attention than they have historically received, and this ranking movement should help deliver it. Planning Your Yorkshire Golf Trip Yorkshire offers enough quality across a compact enough geography to reward a dedicated golf trip of three to five days. The obvious anchor is Ganton, which sits near Scarborough and provides a logical base for exploring the North Yorkshire coast and vale. A West Yorkshire itinerary built around Leeds makes excellent sense for golfers wanting to experience the MacKenzie and Colt heritage in concentrated form. Alwoodley, Moortown, Sand Moor and Headingley all sit within a short drive of the city centre, with Pannal just to the south near Harrogate adding a moorland dimension. This cluster of courses represents one of the finest urban golf destinations in England — a point that is often underappreciated by those who have not played the area. For something different, the Pennine routes through West Yorkshire open up Halifax, Huddersfield, Ilkley and Woodsome Hall — four courses that deliver spectacular moorland and parkland golf in some of the most dramatic landscapes in northern England. Golfers with time to explore further afield should not overlook Cleveland at Redcar, which now sits eighth in the county rankings and offers the only genuine links experience among Yorkshire's elite courses. Combined with a visit to Ganton, an east-coast loop through North Yorkshire has real appeal for those chasing variety. South Yorkshire is worth a dedicated visit for Lindrick and Hallamshire alone. Lindrick near Worksop and Hallamshire above Sheffield are different experiences — one a classic heathland course at the county boundary, the other a Colt moorland layout on Sheffield's western edge. Looking Ahead With Halifax and Cleveland both on upward trajectories and Headingley continuing its steady climb, the next Yorkshire ranking cycle has the potential for further movement in the middle order. The question of whether any course can close the gap on Ganton at the top remains rhetorical for the time being. The depth of quality between positions five and fifteen suggests the competition for ranking places is as strong as it has ever been and represents an under-appreciated destination for travelling golfers. To view the complete Yorkshire rankings and explore individual course profiles, visit the Yorkshire Rankings page.

The Second Hundred Golf Courses of England 2016 We preview the challengers for the next Top 100 Golf Courses of England rankings and list the second hundred Having recently published the latest 2016 edition of our Top 100 for England, we thought we’d look into our golfing crystal ball to see if we could predict which English courses might make it into the top hundred next time around. We’ve focused this article on twenty-five challengers, but it’s feasible that any of the hundred courses listed at the end of this feature could make the next English Top 100 in 2018. It’s also viable that numerous other courses could also make the grade. If you think we’ve missed a layout from our current England Top 100 or from our Second Hundred (listed in full at the end of this story), please click the “Respond to this article” link at the top and bottom of the page and share your opinion. Fifteen of the twenty-five challengers have appeared in previous editions of our England Top 100 and these are spread across seventeen counties from Northumberland to Kent. Berwick-upon-Tweed has been listed in four previous editions and this old-fashioned James Braid-designed links at Goswick may well be knocking on the door in 2018 again. In the same county, the Hunting course at Slaley Hall tends to divide opinion but there is no denying its tournament credentials with famous champions winning here, including Retief Goosen and Colin Montgomerie. At the other end of the country, in Kent’s Garden of England, Wildernesse may not be a familiar name, but this tree-lined gem has hosted Open Championship Qualifying and continues to challenge golfers in the modern age. Chart Hills plummeted from grace due to a decline in conditioning but this could easily be remedied and I wouldn’t bet against it bouncing back into the top-flight. Knole Park is the antithesis of Chart Hills, it’s a quirky John Abercromby design from the Golden Age, described by a reviewer as; “a country park that has a golf course on it rather than primarily a golf course and for me that gave the flow of holes a slightly awkward feel.” Bob Cupp’s West course at East Sussex National is the preferred course of many at this 36-hole facility, despite the European Open pedigree of its sibling, the East. The West is the more intimate and the prettier of the two courses where attractive views of the South Downs are freely included. Rockliffe Hall in County Durham opened in 2009 and this multi-million pound course is one of Europe’s longest tracks, measuring a whopping 7,879 yards from the tips. Built with championship golf in mind, Rockliffe is a stern test, not only due to its length, but also due to its strategic and occasionally penal design. Ilkley is the third oldest golf club in Yorkshire and has been listed in three previous editions of the English hundred. Refashioned by Harry Colt and Alister MacKenzie, Ilkley is where Monty learnt his trade and he still holds the course record of 64. Pannal has never appeared in the top list before, but it has been around since 1906 and the doyen of golf writers, Bernard Darwin, described Pannal as follows: “It stands high up on a breezy down, where there are some steep slopes and big valleys, and pretty clumps of gorse, and the wind, I should suspect, always blows keenly. At least it did so when I was there, and I can still feel myself walking against it with bowed head, and then being blown along by it as if I were a feather.” Across the Pennines into Lancashire, St Annes Old Links may be a challenger for just one hole – perhaps the best one-shotter in Lancs. The 9th, with its long green which is hardly visible from the tee is a corker. According to reports, Bobby Jones took detailed measurements of this hole, called “Cannon”, when playing here before the 1926 Open. The English Midlands has some wonderful golf courses and a few are underrated. Enville’s Highgate course in Staffordshire is a heathland cum woodland layout that hosted Open Championship Regional Qualifying from 2007 to 2011. In Nottinghamshire, Coxmoor is sited on an elevated heathland plateau, one of the highest points in the county. This popular club has staged Regional Qualifying for the Open Championship as well as the British Seniors Amateur Open Championship. Two challengers from the county of Oxfordshire are chalk and cheese. The prolific golf course architect Rees Jones designed the course at the Oxfordshire Golf Club and it opened for play in 1993 after significant earth works. Host to the B&H International Open and the Ladies’ English Open, the Oxfordshire is far from classical, unlike Willie Park Junior’s Huntercombe, which sparked a revolution in inland golf design. Walter Travis said it’s “the best laid course that I have ever played over anywhere” and Harold Hilton agreed; “in links architecture his two great creations have been Sunningdale and Huntercombe and of the two I am distinctly inclined to look upon Huntercombe as the greater effort of the two”. Surrey already has more than its fair share of courses in the English Top 100 but the course currently ranked 21st in Surrey has to be a challenger for the main list. It’s another Willie Park layout that Harry Colt redesigned in the 1920s. “A wonderful place is this new Wimbledon course," wrote Bernard Darwin in 1910, "for as soon as we are on it all signs of men, houses and omnibuses, and other symptoms of a busy suburb disappear as if by magic, and a prospect of glorious solitary woods stretches away into the distance in every direction.” Hertfordshire is a lovely golfing county that doesn’t have the vast sandy terrain of Surrey, but has some of the finest parklands in England instead. One such swathe can be found at Brocket Hall in Welwyn Garden City where there are two courses on offer, with the best being the newer Donald Steel-designed Palmerston that has appeared four times in earlier English Top 100 editions. A few miles to the east of Welwyn lies Hanbury Manor near Hertford, a former English Open and Women’s European Open venue that was formerly a Top 100 regular. If you like golf as Nature intended, or if sand bunker play is not a strong part of your game, head further west to the Chiltern Hills where you’ll find Hertfordshire’s oldest golf club, Berkhamsted, which has been listed three times in previous Top 100 charts. Many golfers think that the Buckinghamshire Golf Club should be inside the Top 100. This elegant John Jacobs design is set in more than 200 acres of mature parkland and it’s polished to perfection. Despite its relatively flat topography, it’s a firm favourite, having previously appeared three times in the Top 100. Devon’s Bovey Castle has appeared in four former Top 100 editions and it’s my home course that’s set gorgeously within the Dartmoor National Park. I agree wholeheartedly with Bernard Darwin: “In short, this is the ideal course to have at the end of the garden. There never was one better suited to a cheerful foursome, for there is plenty of scope for strategy in deciding who is to drive against who, and at which of the river holes.” If only the first tee was at the end of my garden. Ross-on-Wye heads our Gloucestershire Best In County rankings despite the club being physically located in Herefordshire. This is due to the club’s affiliation to the Gloucestershire Golf Union. Why? Who knows? Anyhow, the golf course is incredibly narrow with fairways carved through chutes of trees where driving accuracy is far more important than length. Holes run in every conceivable compass direction and it is impossible to tell where you are in this maze-like, mature forest. Over in the east of England, Luffenham Heath has been listed in the Top 100 five times, which is a feat that can be claimed by only a handful of other clubs. More common land than heath land, many great designers including the famous partnership of Harry Colt and CH Alison have touched the course at Luffenham, with James Braid and C K Cotton making further alterations down the years. Peter Alliss and Dave Thomas fashioned the course at King’s Lynn Golf Club in 1975 and it’s set in near ideal golfing country, well drained, heavily wooded and exceptionally pretty. If you’re not keen on doglegs and your driving is a little wayward, you’ll be quickly frustrated, but there’s no denying the course has charm. The county of Suffolk rounds up our whistle stop tour of England’s Top 100 challengers where you’ll find James Braid’s Thorpeness, a course that’s underrated in my opinion. A recent bunker renovation programme was undertaken ahead of the 2012 English Seniors Championship, which Thorpeness co-hosted with Aldeburgh – some golfers reckon the ranking for Aldeburgh should be swapped with Thorpeness. Finally we come to the Martello course at Felixstowe Ferry, originally designed by Tom Dunn in 1880 and later altered by Alister MacKenzie. The course was virtually obliterated when it became part of the war defences in 1939 and was almost washed away in the 1949 flooding. Miraculously, in 1950, the links rose like a phoenix and has remained a favourite ever since. Brian Ward (our Midlands and North of England Correspondent) played the Martello recently; “I very much enjoyed my first visit to Felixstowe Ferry… the certain historical charm makes me want to return as soon as possible.” The full second hundred list is as follows with the challengers highlighted. Comments are welcome – click the “Respond to this article” link at the top and bottom of the page to voice your opinion. Keith Baxter Editor-in-Chief Top 100 Golf Courses

White rose adventure - playing more than 150 courses in Yorkshire Back in the winter of 2003 I was reading a leading golf magazine on a hotel sun bed in Cyprus while contemplating – in the words of Douglas Adams – life, the universe and everything. Four years earlier I won the Club Championship at South Leeds Golf Club off a handicap of five. Since then however I had become disillusioned with the game. A change of career meant I could only play one weekend in every four and when I did, the club competitions were won week in, week out by golfers whose handicaps were – putting it politely – not quite as low as they could have been. The magazine in question featured its biennial ranking of the UK’s top 100 golf courses. Reading the article made me realise that what I loved most about the game wasn’t trying to win meaningless trinkets of silverware and cut glass, rather playing as many courses as possible. Golf is probably unique in that every one of its playing areas are different and there are so many of them that we owe it to ourselves as golfers to try and scratch the surface by travelling about a bit rather than playing the same course all the time. With this in mind, having initially decided to play all the courses in my native West Yorkshire I needed to figure out what actually constitutes a golf course. I settled on 18-hole courses only, excluding those under 5,381 yards, that being standard scratch of not less than 66 based on yardage. This left 58 courses. My reason for doing so is that in West Yorkshire alone there are 26 nine holers, six courses under the above yardage – four of which are less than 5,000 yards – and a six holer. Only one of these 33 additional courses would have threatened the top fifty. I therefore took the difficult decision not to include these. On an unseasonably warm April day in 2004 I began my quest at Baildon. Baildon is a bit of a hidden gem on the moors high above Bradford in Bronte country. The course plays 6,231 yards from the back tees which unusually I was allowed to play from. It had originally been my intention to play all the courses from the tips however given the look of abject horror this request usually elicited, I soon gave up and ended up playing the regular “yellows” in most cases. I do find it particularly irksome that courses are quite happy to advertise their 7,500-yard championship course but having taken your green fee, they send you out from the much shorter yellow tees. By late 2008 I had played and ranked all the West Yorkshire courses. My criteria for ranking courses is similar to that used by Top100GolfCourses.com in that 60% of my mark goes on the design, 20% on condition and playability and 20% on location. My West Yorkshire top ten is as follows: 1. Alwoodley While Alwoodley and Moortown are both great courses designed by my personal favourite architect, Dr Alister MacKenzie, I feel Alwoodley is the better of the two, not only because of its more rural location but because the holes somehow seem to have a better flow. Having said that I’m sure the members’ lounge at Moortown is full of people who will disagree with me. Shipley and Sand Moor are both excellent MacKenzie tracks, the latter having arguably the best set of par threes anywhere in the country. Moor Allerton has three sets of nine and my favourite 18-hole combination comprises of the Blackmoor and High loops, which makes my top ten. It is also notable as being (as far as I’m aware) the only UK course designed by the late Robert Trent Jones Senior. Cookridge is one of the better courses to come out of the late twentieth century golf course boom and was designed by Karl Litten, the man responsible for Dubai’s first two grass courses. The remainder of the ten includes my own current club, Huddersfield, or Fixby as it’s known locally. Not hugely long by modern standards at 6,514 yards from the tips, but very strategic with penal rough. Having completed West Yorkshire in 2008 I was contacted by a fellow “course collector” by the name of Paul Gardner with whom I've played most of my forays around the rest of Yorkshire, a task I’ve recently completed. My top ten for the remaining parts of Yorkshire are as follows: North Yorkshire Ganton is undoubtedly the stand out course in the whole of Yorkshire and though not strictly a links course has beautiful springy links like turf. The bunkers are fiendish as are the greens which I found particularly difficult to read. Fulford was made famous in the 1970s as the host course to the European Tour’s Benson & Hedges Festival. During one tournament, Bernhard Langer played an approach shot by ascending the upper branches of a large oak tree. The course is often wrongly attributed to Alister MacKenzie who designed the original Fulford course. His brother Charles was actually responsible for this 1935 replacement. Oakdale is the only one of Alister’s designs on this particular list, although Middlesbrough and Filey were designed by another golden age legend, James Braid. The excellent course at Cleveland is notable for being the only true links course in Yorkshire although its architect appears to have been lost in the mists of time. South Yorkshire Styrrup Hall is perhaps the most controversial of my rankings. An extremely testing 6,745-yard course opened as recently as 2000 and featuring a signature par 5 measuring 712 yards. Unfortunately I have been unable to ascertain the designer despite calls to the club. Hallamshire and Lindrick would probably be one and two in most people’s South Yorkshire lists albeit in reverse order to mine. For me though Hallamshire is certainly the better of the two with Lindrick suffering from a couple of weak and rather strange holes, and relying heavily on its reputation as a former Ryder Cup venue, one of three in Yorkshire. East Yorkshire I have only mentioned a top three in East Yorkshire as due to the flat nature of the landscape, many of the other courses are rather similar and not particularly noteworthy. Hornsea and Hull are both fine James Braid courses. Of note at Hornsea are the tough closing five holes which, with the exception of the par three 17th, are all in excess of four hundred yards. Hessle moved to its current location in the early 1970s when construction of the Humber Bridge meant a necessary relocation. The current fine course was designed by the short-lived architectural partnership of Dave Thomas and Peter Alliss. Combining the above rankings gives my personal Yorkshire top fifty which is as follows: I am now looking forward to travelling further afield to sample the delights of Derbyshire, Lincolnshire, Greater Manchester and Lancashire. Mark Jessop