The Greater China golf landscape represents one of Asia's most diverse and rapidly evolving golf markets, combining world-class championship venues with exclusive private clubs and innovative modern designs. The 2026 rankings recognise 50 courses across the region through three separate national rankings: China's Top 30, Hong Kong's Top 5, and Taiwan's Top 15. These rankings reflect the assessments of dedicated regional panellists with extensive playing experience across each market.
The region's golf scene continues to evolve despite distinct challenges in each territory. China's golf industry navigates ongoing government regulations while maintaining world-class facilities. Hong Kong's limited space creates intense competition for ranking positions among its handful of courses, and Taiwan's vibrant private club culture showcases some of Asia's most exclusive golf experiences. Together, these three markets demonstrate the breadth of golf course excellence across the Greater China region.
The combined rankings recognise three courses reaching Asia's Top 100, led by Shanqin Bay Golf Club, maintaining its position as China's premier championship venue at World #35. The rankings span from internationally recognised championship courses to exclusive private clubs that define each market's character. Additional courses across all three territories demonstrate championship-calibre quality while remaining outside the current ranking thresholds, suggesting depth throughout the region's golf infrastructure.
The Elite Pair
The Rising Forces
Notable Movements
Complete Stability
Hong Kong's ranking demonstrates remarkable consistency, with all five courses maintaining their positions from the previous ranking. This stability reflects the territory's limited golf infrastructure and the established quality of its existing venues.
The Unchanged Elite
The Rising Clubs
The New Entry
Notable Movement
Shanqin Bay Golf Club maintains its position as China's premier golf destination and the highest-ranked course in the Greater China region. The Coore & Crenshaw design on Hainan Island has established itself among the world's elite courses since opening, combining natural coastal terrain with sophisticated strategic routing. Its ranking at World #35 represents the pinnacle of what China's golf industry can achieve when design excellence meets exceptional natural terrain.
The capital region's dramatic rise in the rankings tells the story of China's golf evolution. Topwin - Beijing's 35-position leap to #7, Nicklaus Club Beijing's 20-position climb to #10, and Wind Valley's 24-position surge to #11 demonstrate how Beijing has emerged as China's most important golf destination beyond coastal resort markets. Shadow Creek - Beijing's 9-position rise to #12 further reinforces the capital's concentration of championship-quality courses.
Hong Kong's complete ranking stability reflects the territory's unique golf landscape, where limited supply creates minimal opportunity for change. The Jockey Club Kau Sai Chau complex holds two of the five ranked positions, demonstrating the importance of this public facility in providing Hong Kong with accessible championship golf. Clearwater Bay and the Hong Kong Golf Club courses maintain their historical positions, preserving the hierarchy that has defined Hong Kong golf for generations.
Taiwan's ranking movements showcase the vitality of the island's private club scene. North Bay's 4-position climb to #9, combined with strong rises from Tong Hwa, Chia Nan, and Hsin Chu.
The Greater China golf landscape continues to evolve despite each territory's distinct challenges. China's government policies toward golf remain restrictive, limiting new course development while existing facilities navigate complex regulatory environments. Several courses have faced closures or ownership changes in recent years, making the sustained quality of ranked courses particularly impressive. The market appears to be stabilising around a core group of established championship venues rather than pursuing continued expansion.
Taiwan's geographic constraints limit new development, but ongoing course renovations and refinements could drive future ranking movements.
Hong Kong's golf infrastructure remains essentially static, with no realistic prospects for new course development given land scarcity and regulatory hurdles. The territory's golf future likely centres on maintaining and upgrading existing facilities rather than expansion.
Shanqin Bay - the red carpet treatment Fergal visits the Far East and experiences Shanqin Bay on his quest to play the World Top 100 Shanqin Bay is the only golf course in China to be ranked in the Top 100 Golf Courses in the World. To say it’s a unique experience to play here is the greatest understatement in the history of this game… but not for obvious reasons. Firstly, it’s a million dollars to join the club and they have 22 members. Since it opened 3 years ago, the club has had 30 VIP guests that have visited the property. Golf at Shanqin Bay is not like any other club on planet earth. You have to get permission from the Club Chairman in Beijing to visit the property. You’re then met by 20+ individuals, all perfectly lined up in a row, ecstatic beyond words to welcome you. The caddies, the club manager, the membership director, the chef, the superintendent, the club director and a whole host of other employees are literally standing in a line like they’re waiting to glimpse royalty. It’s a long way from how I nonchalantly drive to Portmarnock Golf Club, put my shoes on at the back of the car without anyone batting an eye-lid, and shuffle to the first tee with the tip of my cap. The welcome and hospitality is what the club strives for, as part of what they consider to be completely normal for golfers, namely 7-star customer service. I know in Japan that they have a tradition to stop after 9 holes for a bite to eat, but at Shanqin Bay, they went 2 steps further than that. They have fully catered for eating dwellings after the 4th hole and again after the 12th hole. Apparently the members stop at each house for a full service hour-long meal while playing the course. The staff were constantly aware of where you were, have been trained extremely well and couldn’t have been more professional with how they presented their mythical property. They have learned all of the World Top 100 Golf Courses in Chinese and English, so it was a treat to have my caddy say “Portmarnock Golf Club” in Cantonese to me when she saw my golf bag! The golf course is sensational. They didn’t have indexes on the score card yet, but you quickly learn that you’re on a championship layout crafted out of land that was once used as a fort and still has remnants of army barracks, watch-out points and “great walls” that wind their way around the course. I loved the fact that those features were gently incorporated into the layout, including the inclusion and restoration of the old walls. In fact, if you see the club logo, there is a tunnel that runs from the 18th green under the clubhouse to the pro-shop. That same tunnel was used in war times and the opening of the tunnel now exists as the club logo. The constant change in elevation, tumbling fairways and trademark Coore/Crenshaw bunkering are outstanding. This property was found in 2004 when the owner was flying along in his helicopter around Hainan Island, and after years of negotiation, he finally convinced Coore to break ground. You’re always playing uphill or downhill, avoiding vegetation, playing over lakes or enjoying glorious holes that play towards the Pacific Ocean. It’s remarkable that they were even able to construct a golf course on this property. For a club that I know will hardly ever get used, it ranked very highly in strategic value because you are not always hitting driver off the tee and accuracy is a premium. They have incorporated blind tee shots, blind approach shots, fine-tuned knowledge of the prevailing wind, large contoured greens, false fronts and a topology that hardly required a bull-dozer. I’m proud to say that I’ve played the course and can see that the architects created a routing that is highly commendable, yet seamlessly sacred at the same time. The stand out holes for me on the front side were the par threes (3rd and 8th), the par fours (6th and 7th) and on the back side, the epic stretch from 15 through 17 will stand out as amongst the greatest Coore/Crenshaw holes I’ve ever seen. The elevated tee shot on 16 is the signature photograph on the property to the drivable 308-yard par four green surrounded by devilishly placed bunkers. The tee shot on 17 is breath-taking along the shoreline to one of the most pitched fairways that Shanqin Bay has to offer. Article written by our US Consultant, Fergal O'Leary, who continues his mission to become the youngest person to play the Top 100 Golf Courses of the World. Click to read more about Shanqin Bay
Top 100 Golf Courses of the World 2014 Our latest and most eagerly awaited World Top 100 ranking list is unveiled 12th December 2013 We now have two hundred and eighty-seven golf courses vying for a ranking position within our Top 100 Golf Courses of the World. It’s certainly no easy task, as I explained from atop my soap box last time round, but I’m not going to go over old ground. If you are remotely interested in the challenges we face, click here to read more. So, without further ado, I’ll get on and focus on our new 2014 World Top 100 rankings. Once again there are numerous positional changes, but there are only six new entries, three of which are classic Golden Age layouts, two from the USA, both designed by Alister MacKenzie and one from England, designed by Harry Colt. It therefore gives me great pleasure to welcome Pasatiempo, Valley Club of Montecito and St George’s Hill into the world hundred. Those who know a thing or two about South African golf courses regard Leopard Creek (opened in 1996) as the best Rainbow Nation layout. Host to the Alfred Dunhill Championship since 2005, Leopard Creek is a unique cocktail of golf and safari and we welcome this Gary Player-designed course back onto our top-flight ranking list. We also welcome two brand new courses that break into the hundred for the first time. Trump International Golf Links opened its tees for play in July 2012. European Tour officials spoke of the Scottish venue as worthy of hosting major professional events in the future. One of our reviewers stated “it’s more painting by numbers than a real masterpiece… more Disney than dune land”. However, the majority of our reviewers believe Martin Hawtree’s layout is magnificent and will only get better as it settles in. It’s said that a number of design companies declined the chance to work on our second brand new entry. The developer of Shanqin Bay, located in the south east of Hainan Island, eventually acquired the services of Bill Coore and Ben Crenshaw. Constructed in a manner unlike anything that’s been built before in China, the Shanqin Bay golf course might just become the benchmark for those still to come. Our International Consultant Masa Nishijima played the course earlier this year and also last year and he believes that Shanqin Bay is the best that China has to offer but, being picky, mentioned that there may be too many short par fours on the card. Unsurprisingly, the USA has the most world ranked courses featured on our 2014 chart, many more than any other country. Forty-six American courses (one down from last year) make our list, and there is still no doubt that the quality of US golf facilities is second to none. The number of Asian courses featured is still too few for my liking, but the good news once again is that more Asian courses than ever before made it onto our shortlist. European courses continue to struggle to make the World rankings and we sadly wave goodbye to the fabulous Les Bordes this time round. Canadian courses also find it hard and many will be disappointed to find that Cabot Links narrowly missed out, but we think that next time round it will be included. Unfortunately, we lose two Antipodean courses, one from Australia (Royal Adelaide) and one from New Zealand (Paraparaumu Beach), but there’s a massive rise of forty-eight places for Bill Coore’s Barnbougle Lost Farm, which debuted at 85th last time. We’ve previously said that the Baja California Sur Peninsula is a golfing hotspot and Diamante Dunes continues to hold its own against the Ocean course at Cabo del Sol in Mexico. Once again there are mixed fortunes for British and Irish courses, with some climbers and fallers. But with two new additions to the hundred, the total number of courses listed from this small part of the world now totals an impressive thirty-two. We always welcome feedback, so please feel free to let us know what you think of our latest 2014 World Top 100. We don’t claim to be “definitive” but we do like to think that we’re the most “informed” and considered golf course rankings in the business. If you’ve played any of our featured courses in the World Top 100, we’d love to know what you think, so why not post a course review? Keith Baxter Editor-in-Chief www.top100golfcourses.com Click to see the new World Top 100 Golf Courses in detail. Breakdown of courses by country (previous number in parenthesis): USA 46 (47), Scotland 13 (12), England 11 (10), Australia 6 (7), Ireland 5 (5), New Zealand 2 (3), Japan 3 (3), Canada 2 (2), China 1 (0), France 1 (2), Northern Ireland 2 (2), Spain 2 (2), Mexico 2 (2), Dominican Republic 1 (1), Netherlands 1 (1), Wales 1 (1), South Africa 1 (0) The six courses that made way for the new are: Les Bordes, Wade Hampton, Southern Hills, Bandon Dunes (Bandon Trails), Royal Adelaide and Paraparaumu Beach.
Top 100 Golf Courses of Asia 2020 This is the first revision of the Top 100 rankings for Asia, a chart that we introduced two years ago. We’ve spent the last few months updating individual national listings in that part of the world, producing three regional reports – for East, South and Southeast Asia – during that process. Now that we’ve collated all the data, it’s time to reveal what we believe to be the best hundred golfing layouts within the largest and most populous continent on the planet. In terms of statistics, there are sixteen countries represented in these standings, with courses in Japan (25), South Korea (16) and China (13) comprising more than half the chart. Another third of the entries originate in Vietnam (10), Thailand (7), Indonesia (7), Philippines (5) and Malaysia (4). In quite a turbulent new table, there are twenty new courses and only eight non-movers, with thirty-three courses moving up and thirty-nine dropping down. Once again, we have to thank our panel of journalists who are spread out over a vast area for their valuable input. In particular, we’re grateful to our Asia correspondent Kimi Hoshiyama for his unstinting efforts. He’s now played 91 of the courses featured in these listings so it shouldn’t be too long until he becomes the first person to play the Top 100 in Asia. The top three positions remain exactly as they were when we last carried out this biennial exercise which means the course at Hirono Golf Club is still the No. 1 course in Asia. Designed by C. H. Alison back in the early 1930s, the course recently underwent an extensive restoration by Martin Ebert, using Alison’s plans, club photographs and old aerial photographs from the 1940s and 1960s to recreate the original design intent of Harry Colt’s partner. Hirono Golf Club Our US Consultant Fergal O’Leary has seen the outcome of this upgrade and posted recently about the widespread tree clearance, the introduction of sizeable waste areas on a number of holes, the resurfacing of the greens and the refurbishment of all the bunkers. “The renovations are sublime,” he said, before adding: “It’s absolutely the top dog in Japan and Asia”. The course is also currently #33 in the world, having risen three places when our global rankings were refreshed six months ago. Yangtze Dunes at Lanhai International Country Club in China is the first of our twenty new entries, crashing into the continental Top 100 at #5. The course was first set out by Jack Nicklaus almost a decade ago but a subsequent change in ownership brought about dramatic changes with a radical renovation by Australian firm Ogilvy, Clayton, Cocking and Mead leading to the rebuilding of greens, the introduction of sandy waste areas and blow-out bunkers. Yangtze Dunes at Lanhai International Country Club Our man Fergal was also here last year and he felt Yangtze Dunes was one of the best courses he played in 2019: “it’s completely different to anything you’ll find in Asia, especially given how firm the course is kept… the course has a magnificent sandy base that provided the catalyst for the designers to take the linksy route with their plans, and the results are sensational… this course has a more impressive mix of holes and topography than many of the courses that sadly linger on ranking lists.” Just a little further behind this front running debutant we have a couple of Vietnamese newcomers, Hoiana Shores (at #12) and KN Golf Links Cam Ranh (at #16), both of which reside on the South Central Coast in that country. The former course is a Robert Trent Jones Jr. design that was just unveiled last year and the latter is Greg Norman’s third project to open in Vietnam. Occupying substantial sandy sites overlooking the South China Sea, each of these new tracks plays firm and fast, exhibiting many of the playing characteristics found on links layouts in Great Britain & Ireland, with a tropical twist. Hoiana Shores Golf Club Quite a few courses make significant double-digit moves up the new Asian standings, most notably a trio of 18-hole layouts from South Korea, led by Anyang Country Club (up thirty-two to #23) which Robert Trent Jones Jr. redesigned in the late 1990s. Also making a massive climb up the table, we have the Griffin and Wyvern nines at Wellington Country Club in Incheon (up twenty-three to #47) and Haesley Nine Bridges (up twenty to #69), where David Dale and Kevin Ramsey of Golfplan set out the course a decade ago now. Anyang Country Club Three Indonesian layouts also make outstanding chart progress. The first two are mid-1990s Jack Nicklaus designs at Taman Dayu Golf Club & Resort (up fifteen to #30), billed as “a heavenly escape in the lush green foothills of Mount Welirang,” and the Bumi Serpong Dama – known as “the spirit of the hills” – at the 36-hole Damai Indah Golf complex outside Jakarta (up fourteen to #42). The third track from Indonesia to make a big impact is Royale Jakarta (West & South), a JMP Design production from Bob Moore that rises thirteen places to No. 52. Taman Daya Golf Club & Resort The #1 course in the Philippines, The Country Club in Canlubang, advances eleven rungs up the ladder to No. 46. Designed by Tom Weiskopf, the layout has recently been lengthened, enabling it to host major national events like the Philippine Open which has been held here since 2017. It’s a tough track, described by one reviewer as “by far the hardest course I have ever played from the tips” so that’s fair warning for anybody fortunate enough to get a rare invite here to choose their tees very carefully. The Country Club In the bottom half of the new listings, the largest leap upwards is made by the course at Amata Spring Country Club, soaring twenty-five spots to No.63. Located midway between Bangkok and Pattaya in Thailand, this Schmidt & Curley design was the venue for four editions of the now defunct Royal Trophy, played between 8-man professional teams from Europe and Asia – and who can ever forget television images of this event and the ferryboat carrying golfers to and from the floating green at the par three 17th? Amata Spring Country Club Another couple of new entries are worth comment. Himalayan in Nepal (new at #55) is one of the most remarkable courses in the world, framed by the towering Annapurna Massif and with fairways laid out inside the walls of a deep canyon formed over many thousands of years by the snowmelt waters of the Bijayapur River. Architect Ron Fream first brought this place to the attention of the golfing world many years ago but it’s only now, with Tom Doak picking up on it, that it’s getting the wider recognition it deserves. Tom reckons “you have to see this course sometime in your life” which is high praise indeed for a course built entirely by hand with local manual labour. Himalayan Golf Course Myotha National in Myanmar (new at #86) is a Schmidt-Curley design that’s laid out within a large industrial and residential development an hour’s drive southwest of Mandalay. The course is boldly bunkered, in keeping with the scale of the property, and the greens are also large, featuring strong slopes and backstops. Importantly, it’s conditioned to play firm and fast, which is a playing characteristic that now appears to be finding favour with quite a few of the new courses that have opened for business in Asia over the last year or so. Myotha National Golf Club To view the complete detailed list of the Top 100 Golf Courses of Asia click the link. Jim McCann Editor Top 100 Golf Courses
