| Golf Digest has published America’s 100 Greatest Golf Courses since 1966, making it the oldest and most respected ranking in the game. We are proud to say the new 2023-2024 edition is the most scientific ever—with our 1,800 panelists submitting more than 85,000 evaluations.
In any ranking grounded in statistical calculations, the balance between continuity and change is essential. In our biennial ranking, architecture of our country’s greatest courses is rewarded, and tracking which venues have made the biggest moves reveals which course-design trends might be worth following.
Though huge ebbs and flows are rare in our rankings due to us collecting data over a rolling 10-year period, this year we used a curve to weigh recent ratings more heavily to more accurately reflect a course’s current architecture—and the result was some bigger moves than usual.
The biggest move in our latest ranking is Old Town Club, a Perry Maxwell design in Winston Salem, N.C., which rockets 38 spots to No. 54. Equally interesting to some will be the courses that took a tumble during this latest cycle. Most notably, one of the nation’s most highly regarded courses has fallen out of the top 10 for the first time in the history of our rankings, dating back to the 1960s.
Check out our entire collection of the biggest movers (up and down) in our new rankings, and be sure to scroll through our 2023-2024 America’s 100 Greatest and Second 100 Greatest lists, complete with expert analysis, bonus photography, drone footage and reviews from our course panelists. |
