The GOLF Course Guide presents the most comprehensive assessment of where to play golf in Australia – with separate lists showing how our judges ranked the candidates in each of three key criteria: Design, Conditions and Aesthetics. Courses must be available for green fee players most of the year. The list includes all Public Courses; all Resort Courses (with accommodation on site - at some courses an onsite stay may be required in order to access the course), and many Private Members Clubs where green fee players are welcomed.

Overall Rankings - see below - Ranking period October 2024 to September 2025

Design Rankings - click here
Conditions Rankings - click here
Aesthetics Rankings - click here

Top 100 2025* from the 2026 GOLF Course Guide

(* Courses judged Oct 2024 to Sept 2025)

CAPE WICKHAM links on King Island, Tasmania has reclaimed the crown it had held since opening until narrowly dropping into second place last year. Darius Oliver and Mike DeVries’ world class links beneath the Cape Wickham Lighthouse presents a true links playing experience on immaculate fescue surfaces, with stunning ocean views on almost every hole and several greens sited right at the water’s edge. Consistently judged top design and top aesthetics, this year’s minor improvement in conditioning (up from 5^th to 3^rd) saw the King Island stunner back in top place.

Condition of playing surfaces is important for a Public Access (Green Fee) course, so we award 40% weighting to this criterion (with 40% for Design and 20% for Aesthetics – see details at end of this section). With extreme weather conditions across much of the East Coast this year some courses may have still been recovering when our judges visited. We have attempted to assess conditions outside of periods of worst damage where possible.

BARNBOUGLE DUNES, Tom Doak’s masterpiece near Bridport on Tasmania’s North Coast holds second place overall, with its neighbour LOST FARM designed by Bill Coore in third place – for many a slightly milder test with incredibly wide fairways providing plenty of scope to blast away with driver and leave oneself a rather awkward second shot. These two courses retained #1 and #2 spots for Conditioning - their seamless fescue playing surfaces (as for Cape Whickham) simply a delight for ball striking and putting alike.

THE DUNES on the Mornington Peninsula gained one place to #4, largely due to our judges’ assessment of improved conditioning (from 10^th to 6^th). This Tony Cashmore design commissioned by Duncan Andrews really started the renaissance of quality links style golf for public players in Australia 30+ years ago, and we are pleased to see the ongoing efforts to present the course in mint condition and keep up with the newer Tasmanian rivals.

OCEAN DUNES (below), the ‘other’ course on King Island gained one place to #5 overall, highly commended at #3 for both Design and Aesthetics but still a tad behind its rivals at #18 for Conditioning. Certainly, with designer Graeme Grant’s influence and knowledge as a course superintendent, there is scope for improvement in this category.

BARWON HEADS #6, ST ANDREWS BEACH #7, two more links style layouts then JOONDALUP unchanged at #8 again the highest ranking inland course where we select the QUARRY/DUNES combination as being the best, closely followed by BONVILLE Resort at #9, up one place and still our ‘most beautiful mainland course’(#6 for Aesthetics).

THE CUT (below) at Dawesville south of Perth on the Western Australian “Golf Coast” improved 4 places to come in at #10 overall, courtesy of improved scores for both design and conditions. Yet another seaside course with a linksy feel that can be brutal to play in the wind.

Both THE CUT and BONVILLE (below) are judged highly as fun designs by our panel, who are instructed to place more emphasis on enjoyable golf challenges for all abilities than on pure design difficulty for elite players. This would be another area where our Public Access criteria differ from other ranking lists.

Not much else changed significantly until #26 ROSEBUD – NORTH up 9 places from last year, mainly due to a jump in Conditioning from 24 to 17. This is the original layout of the 36 hole facility on Melbourne’s Mornington Peninsula, sometimes overshadowed by neighbours THE DUNES, ST ANDREWS BEACH and MOONAH LINKS. Rosebud North has improved its ranking for each of the past five years, so they must be doing something right.

A revamped and re-opened PELICAN WATERS jumped 20 spots to #29 with significantly better scores in each of our categories. Smaller improvements were recorded for #30 THE VINTAGE, #31 BLACK BULL and #32 MOUNT COMPASS but #33 MURRAY DOWNS moved up 10 places.

Quality courses that were highly ranked last year – SANCTUARY COVE PINES and PALMS, and NEWCASTLE have restricted public access and so were not eligible this year. In the case of NEWCASTLE, renovations are in place and their access policy will be reviewed for next year. CRANBOURNE will close early 2026 as members move to HUNTINGDALE (private club members only) so was likewise not considered.

These deletions and a few other departures meant that our list welcomes five new names.

RACV HEALESVILLE (below) has pleasingly offered public access, and we’ve ranked it #49.

Others are #92 HORIZONS, a course that last featured in 2022, #93 NELSON BAY, #97 SANDHURST NORTH which narrowly missed last year, and #98 CRESWICK (RACV GOLDFIELDS)

The next 25 courses that narrowly missed our Top 100 are (in alphabetical order):

Two highly anticipated new designs were not considered this year:

THE CLIFFS KANGAROO ISLAND by Darius Oliver, slated for early 2026 and SEVEN MILE BEACH in Hobart, conceived by local golfer Matthew Goggin, where some of our panel have already marvelled at up to 12 completed holes of the SOUTH COURSE designed by Mike DeVries and Michael Clayton which should be ready in December 2025. Another 18 are in the pipeline, to be designed by King Collins Dormer.

HOW THE LISTS WERE COMPILED

The GOLF Course Guide established a numerical course ranking system in 1998 and was the first Australian publication to do that.

The Guide’s criteria are;

Course Design (40% weighting): How each hole presents an enjoyable, interesting challenge to golfers of all abilities from scratch markers to high handicappers and shorter hitters. The variety of different holes that make up the course, and the variety of shots that they require to test every facet of your game. How well the course exploits the ‘best’ set and sequence of holes the land offers, and how well the routing takes the golfer on a journey of discovery. The strategic design of each hole - where hazards come into play, reward for risk takers of an easier subsequent shot, with a more difficult shot or possibly an additional stroke for those who choose to play safely.
Courses that offer higher handicappers a manageable test (from appropriate tees) will find themselves ranked better in this Guide, and courses that are really only playable by low markers will be ranked lower. Courses with two separate 18s considered as two courses; where 27 holes available, the “best” 18 selected.

Course Conditions (40% weighting): Year round playing conditions (from best to worst season) and course maintenance of greens (greatest weighting), fairways, tees, roughs and hazards.

Course Aesthetics (20% weighting): The obvious beauty of the setting and also that very subjective quality of ambience and tranquillity that allows the golfer to lose himself in his environment.

Judges scores are mathematically adjusted to account for any particular harshness or leniency and spurious results are eliminated.
Panellists were asked to score only courses they had played. Colleagues who play certain courses frequently were consulted to more accurately assess year round conditions. The judging period was from October 2021 to September 2022.

Where we really deliver on our objective to ‘guide’ readers to courses they will enjoy is by publishing three distinct lists – rankings by Design, Conditions and Aesthetics – allowing readers effectively to select their own criteria and weightings. For some golfers, the thrill of playing golf in a stunning environment can far outweigh lacklustre design strategy, and even mediocre fairway conditions. For these players, our allocation of only 20% weighting will seem inadequate, and they should seek out courses from our Best Aesthetics list, rather than the overall rankings.

THE JUDGES

We recognise the subjective nature of our rankings and suggest their use as a guide only. If you’d like to have your say about any of our lists go to www.ausgolf.com.au/course-rankingsThe Judges

We recognise the subjective nature of our rankings and suggest their use as a guide only. If you’d like to have your say about any of our lists go to www.ausgolf.com.au/course-rankings