The shocking truth about golf course rankings that will change how you plan your next golf trip
Picture this: You're debating golf course rankings with your mates, passionately defending why Pebble Beach deserves its spot in the top 10. Meanwhile, someone who has played hundreds of the world's very best courses, including all in the World Top 100, is quietly shaking their head.
Top 100 Golf Courses just released their most controversial World Rankings ever, and the behind-the-scenes conversation between CEO David Davis and editor Jasper Miners reveals why only 80 people on Earth are truly qualified to judge the world's best courses, how tournament golf usually ruins golf courses architecture, and why expensive doesn't mean better.
Buckle up—this is going to shake up everything you think you know about golf.
Let's start with an uncomfortable reality check. According to Davis, approximately 80 people worldwide have compiled a list of the world's top 100 golf courses. Not 800. Not 8,000. Eighty.
When Top 100 assembled their world ranking panel, they achieved something unprecedented: "At least 15 that have played every single one" of the courses being considered. Every. Single. Course.
"If you haven't played 80 to a hundred of them, you don't know what you're talking about," Davis says. "You think you might, but you don't."
For example, when you've only sampled five courses from a top 100 list, you're essentially judging a wine competition after tasting five random sips. You might have strong opinions, but you lack the context to make meaningful comparisons.
Consider this: even with accessible lists like England's top 100, "when do you get to sit down with a group of 10, 15 guys that have played them all?" Almost never. Yet that's exactly what Top 100 assembled for their world rankings.
The difference in perspective is profound. As Miners explains, "There's only a hundred spots in the world top 100, and if you play a really good golf course and then automatically it's in the world top 100, chances are you need a little bit more seasoning to understand what is the difference of greatness between really good, excellent, superb, and then perfection."
This exclusive club of truly experienced golfers sees patterns and makes distinctions not yet seen to the rest of us. Which brings us to their first shocking revelation...
Here's where it gets really interesting. The biggest factor in this year's rankings wasn't new courses entering—it was systematically stripping away something most golfers worship: tournament prestige.
"If I had to pick one thing that had the single biggest impact in our world rankings this time, it would be tournament golf at Sacred Cow courses," Davis reveals. "Because once that's stripped away, what are you left with?"
Think about it: courses built for championships need "larger corridors between holes" for crowds and infrastructure. They require "larger walks from tees to greens" which makes routing "less efficient." The golf experience becomes secondary to television and spectacle requirements.
Miners explains the fundamental conflict: "Building a golf course that can be played exclusively by members, for the members, by the members—that's a completely different project than trying to build a golf course that's gonna have half a million people on it that's gonna be televised around the world."
This insight reframes everything. Those dramatic tournament memories we cherish? They often come at the direct expense of the architectural integrity that should define great golf.
Which leads to another widespread misconception...
If tournament prestige misleads us, course conditioning absolutely bamboozles us. The panel systematically dismantled one of golf's most persistent myths: that perfect maintenance equals great golf.
"I will often ask somebody if they say, 'You know what? That was the best-maintained course I've ever played,' and so therefore it's gotta be really high ranked," Davis explains. The problem? Maintenance quality has everything to do with budget and timing, and almost nothing to do with architectural merit.
"Do you have 50 greenkeepers there? Do you have 25? Do you have four like we have over here (in the UK)?" The resource disparity creates false comparisons where courses are judged on spending rather than design.
Davis shares a perfect example: a golfer trashing Chantilly in France, claiming it "shouldn't be in the French top hundred" because of poor conditioning. The reviewer missed one crucial detail: "France was under severe water restrictions. They can't use water."
The course architecture was brilliant, but temporary conditions clouded judgment. This happens constantly—golfers dismiss world-class design because they visited during drought conditions or praise mediocre layouts that happen to have unlimited maintenance budgets.
The lesson? "It's not a world top 100 agronomy ranking. It's golf course" ranking. If you're judging architecture based on greenkeeping budgets, you're missing the point entirely.
But the conditioning trap is just one way our perceptions get distorted. The exclusivity paradox might be even worse...
The relationship between price and perceived quality in golf creates systematic bias that completely distorts course evaluation. The Top 100 panel encountered this head-on and fought to counteract it.
Consider this perfect example from Scotland: Dunbar Golf Club was "charging a hundred pounds and getting 4,000 visitors a year." A tour operator told them they were "too cheap" because "no one wants to come play it." So they doubled the price to £200. Result? "Next year they had 9,500 visitors."
Same course, same experience, double the demand simply because of higher pricing. As one course owner bluntly told Miners: "I asked him why is golf so expensive? And he said, 'Because you lot keep on paying.'"
This psychology infects course evaluation everywhere. Miners notes that St. Andrews Beach faces skepticism precisely "because you can show up and pay 50 pounds and play it." Meanwhile, "if it was ultra exclusive and you could only get on if you had a mate who paid a few hundred thousand to be a member... it would automatically be in (the World Top 100)."
The contrast is stark. Turnberry charges "£1500 at peak season," and despite this astronomical cost, "there will be people that will fill that tee sheet." The price creates an assumption of quality that may not reflect the actual golf experience.
The ranking methodology specifically sought to "strip exclusivity" as a factor, revealing that some of the world's best golf can be found at courses charging "a hundred bucks or less"—representing access to "the top 0.01% in the world."
But pricing bias is just one form of systematic distortion. Geographic bias might be the most pervasive of all...
Most "world" golf rankings aren't actually global—they're American perspectives disguised as international lists. The Top 100 panel made a conscious decision to fix this through what Davis calls "geographic affirmative action."
"I personally think most of the rankings out there, at least the ones coming out of the US, are quite US-centric," Davis explains. "The perspective is very US-centric in those rankings as well."
The new distribution reflects a true global perspective: "Roughly 40 courses from the US, 30 from the UK and Ireland... roughly 10 from Oceania, so Australia, New Zealand, six from Asia."
This geographic rebalancing revealed courses that American-dominated lists consistently overlook—places where landscape and design philosophy create golf experiences impossible to replicate elsewhere.
When you combine this geographic correction with the stripping away of tournament prestige and pricing bias, some shocking changes emerge...
The systematic removal of bias led to seismic shifts for some of golf's most famous venues. The results expose the gap between reputation and reality in ways that will shock casual golfers.
Even more shocking to many will be Pebble Beach's drop. Miners captured what many golfers experience but don't want to admit: "If you've gone and played Pebble Beach, it's almost the elephant in the room where people are saying, 'Yeah, it's still an amazing golf course... but when you go, you're like, I don't know, is it top 20 in the world?'"
The panel's conclusion? Probably not. Pebble remains an "amazing golf course" and "a great experience," but when evaluated purely on architectural merit rather than Monterey Peninsula mystique, it doesn't merit its traditional top-20 ranking.
These weren't isolated decisions. Miners' notes that "courses that have moved more than 20 spaces" include multiple "sacred cows" that have historically traded on tournament prestige rather than pure golf quality.
But while famous courses fell, the new methodology revealed extraordinary opportunities...
While prestigious courses tumbled, the rankings exposed remarkable value opportunities that challenge everything we think we know about accessing world-class golf.
The geographic rebalancing revealed even more opportunities. For American golfers looking "overseas, there are so many world top hundreds that you can play and you can access. You just gotta jump on a plane." The contrast with American top 100 courses is stark—"every single one of those golf courses is probably very exclusive and private."
Meanwhile, international options offer direct access to elite golf experiences. Many of the "30 from GB&I" can be played by simply showing up and paying green fees.
The rankings also identified rising courses from Asia, classics making comebacks, and hidden gems that provide opportunities to experience world-class golf before exclusivity and pricing catch up to recognition.
This dynamic approach reflects another revolutionary change...
Beyond controversial rankings, Top 100 implemented a fundamental shift in how golf course evaluation works—moving from static annual lists to responsive, dynamic assessment.
"We're moving to a system that we call always up to date," Davis explains. "We have the ability to make changes fairly rapidly."
This allows real-time response to golf developments. "If a new course launches and we get enough people there... and we say, 'Wow, that's amazing,' we will definitely consider that."
The approach handles renovations intelligently. Yale provides the perfect example: currently closed for renovation, it's "on the contender list—we all think that as soon as it reopens, it'll go straight back in."
The panel maintains active monitoring with "individuals on the ground looking at these things, visiting these various places. Not just playing the golf courses but actively during construction."
This responsiveness extends to ongoing improvements. They maintain "30 contender courses from every continent of the world" with panellists actively evaluating potential additions throughout each season.
The insights from this ranking revolution represent more than list changes—they expose fundamental flaws in how we pursue and evaluate golf experiences.
The exclusive perspective of approximately 80 truly comprehensive golfers reveals how limited viewpoints skew understanding. When only a microscopic fraction has proper context, most passionate opinions lack the foundation for meaningful comparison.
Stripping away tournament prestige shows how spectacle corrupts architecture. The "kiss of death" of championship golf prioritises television drama over pure experience, inflating reputations of courses that compromise design for crowds.
The maintenance trap demonstrates how superficial factors distort judgment. Perfect conditioning might reflect big budgets rather than brilliant architecture—judge the symphony, not the concert hall.
The exclusivity paradox proves that pricing psychology manipulates perception. The best golf experiences often come without premium price tags, hidden because accessibility suggests mediocrity to status-obsessed golfers.
The geographic revolution reveals how parochial perspectives limit appreciation of global excellence. Different landscapes and philosophies produce equally valid expressions of golf greatness.
For your next golf trip, this suggests a complete reorientation. Instead of chasing expensive or exclusive courses, seek hidden gems delivering pure golf experiences. Instead of avoiding modest pricing or public access, recognise that world-class golf comes in unexpected packages.
Most importantly, approach evaluation with humility about experience limits. Those 80 comprehensive golfers aren't gatekeepers—they're guides pointing toward experiences that transcend superficial markers.
The new rankings will create controversy precisely because they challenge comfortable assumptions. But they offer something more valuable: a roadmap to golf prioritising architecture, challenge, and beauty over reputation and price.
When the social media storm settles, golfers who understand these principles will access extraordinary experiences at reasonable costs, while others continue chasing prestige that might not deliver the golf they're actually seeking.
The question isn't whether you agree with specific rankings—it's whether you're ready to discover what great golf actually feels like.
