Best in State
The best golf courses in New York
After California (22), New York is the deepest state in our America's 100 Greatest/Second 100 Greatest ranking with 17 courses making it in 2023-'24. One could argue the quality, at least on the top end, is higher: New York sports 15 courses in the top 100 versus 12 for California.
What really sets the Empire State apart from almost everywhere else are the courses of Long Island, one of the world's most desirable pieces of golf terrain. The combination of sand soils, proximity to the ocean and winds on both coasts, and early golf architecture heritage is unmatched in the United States. It's not just the fearsome fivesome on the east end—Shinnecock Hills, National Golf Links, Friar's Head, Maidstone and Sebonack—each ranked among the state's first nine. Many of the courses mid-island and close to New York City would be top of the marquee almost anywhere else, including Bethpage Black, Garden City, Piping Rock, The Creek and newcomer St. George's.
Variety is the spice of life, but most people would happily play all their remaining golf on Long Island without ever leaving.
Below you'll find our 2023-'24 ranking of the Best Golf Courses in New York.
We urge you to click through to each individual course page for bonus photography, drone footage and reviews from our course panelists. Plus, you can now leave your own ratings on the courses you’ve played … to make your case why your favorite should be ranked higher.
(Parentheses indicate the course's previous ranking.)
Generally considered to be the earliest links in America, heavily remodeled by C.B. Macdonald, then replaced (except for three holes) by William S. Flynn in the early 1930s, it’s so sublime that its architecture hasn’t really been altered for nearly 50 years. Most trees that once framed many holes have been removed, and in 2012, the team of Bill Coore and Ben Crenshaw did make a few changes, mostly green expansions and new mowing patterns, to prepare Shinnecock for the 2018 U.S. Open, won by Brooks Koepka. Shinnecock will again host the U.S. Open in 2026.
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This is where golf architect Seth Raynor got his start. A civil engineer by training, he surveyed holes for architect C.B. Macdonald, who scientifically designed National Golf Links as a fusion of his favorite features from grand old British golf holes. National Golf Links is a true links containing a marvelous collection of holes. As the 2013 Walker Cup reminded us, Macdonald’s versions are actually superior in strategy to the originals, which is why National’s design is still studied by golf architects today, its holes now replicated elsewhere. Hard to fathom that National Golf Links of America was not ranked in the 100 Greatest from 1969 until 1985.
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Probably the consummate design of architect Seth Raynor, who died in early 1926, before the course had officially opened. His steeply-banked bunkers and geometric greens harmonize perfectly with the linear panoramas of the Atlantic Ocean and Long Island Sound. The quality of the holes is also superb, with all Raynor’s usual suspects, including not one but two Redan greens, one on a par 4.
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Gone are all the Norway Spruce that once squeezed every fairway of Winged Foot West. It’s now gloriously open and playable, at least until one reaches the putting surfaces, perhaps the finest set of green contours the versatile architect A.W. Tillinghast ever did, now restored to original parameters by architect Gil Hanse. The greens look like giant mushrooms, curled and slumped around the edges, proving that as a course architect, Tillinghast was not a fun guy. Winged Foot West was tamed by Bryson DeChambeau in winning the 2020 U.S. Open in September, but he was only competitor to finish under-par in his six-shot victory.
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The challenge for architects Bill Coore and Ben Crenshaw at Friar’s Head was to design some holes in breathtaking sand dunes perched 200 feet above Long Island Sound, and other holes on an ordinary potato field to the south. Said Crenshaw, “Our job was to marry the two distinct elements. We didn’t want one nine up in the dunes and the other down on the flat.” The solution was to move the routing back and forth and to artfully reshape the farm fields into gentle linkslike land. They pulled it off so impressively that Friar’s Head has moved steadily up the rankings each survey period until this year, from No. 34 in its 2011 debut to No. 15 in 2023-2024.
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Back in 1979, George Fazio and nephew Tom were roundly criticized by Donald Ross fans for removing a classic Ross par 4 on Oak Hill East and replacing it with two new holes, including the bowl-shaped par-3 sixth, which would later become the scene of four aces in two hours during the second round of the 1989 U.S. Open. They also built a pond on another par 3 and relocated the green on the par-4 18th. The club hired golf architect Andrew Green to remodel those holes to bring them more in line with Donald Ross’ original style. In addition to putting the final touches (at least for now) on a significant tree removal program, Green re-established Ross's original par-4 hole, then the fifth and now playing as the sixth (pictured here). Reconstruction occurred after the 2019 Senior PGA Championship on the East Course and was completed in May 2020. Oak Hill's East Course hosted the 2023 PGA Championship won by Brooks Koepka.
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Sprawling Bethpage Black, designed in the mid-1930s to be “the public Pine Valley,” became the darling of the USGA in the early 2000s, when it played the 2002 and 2009 U.S. Opens. Then it became a darling of the PGA Tour as host of the 2011 and 2016 Barclays. Now the PGA of America has embraced The Black, which hosted the 2019 PGA Championship (winner: Brooks Koepka) and the upcoming 2025 Ryder Cup. Heady stuff for a layout that was once a scruffy state-park haunt where one needed to sleep in the parking lot in order to get a tee time. Now, you need fast fingers on the state park's website once tee times are available—as prime reservations at The Black are known for going in seconds.
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Not since Augusta National had the nation’s greatest golfer teamed with one of the most highly regarded course architects on a design project. But the joint venture by Jack Nicklaus with Tom Doak at Sebonack was complicated by the fact that golfer Nicklaus was also an esteemed course architect in his own right, and the project sat right beside two American icons, Shinnecock Hills and National Golf Links. Some pundits have reduced Sebonack to “Tom’s bunkers, Jack’s greens,” but in truth it’s just the opposite. Doak convinced Nicklaus to go with small greens of sweeping contours and little imperfections the likes of which Jack would never have considered on his own. Meanwhile, Jack insisted that Tom tone down his usual ragged, jagged bunker faces to make them palatable to high-handicap club members. Sebonack hosted the 2013 U.S. Women’s Open to great success.
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Not only one of America’s earliest links courses, Maidstone is also one of the country’s earliest golf residential communities. Legend has it that Bobby Jones felt that Maidstone’s final three holes made it one of the great match-play courses in America. If so, that’s because the 17th has one of the tightest green sites in America, the green sitting just in front of a major street intersection, with roads right and left less than 12 paces off each collar. As befitting a seaside course, Coore and Crenshaw cleared out brush and restored many sand dunes areas and removed turf in some spots of rough to expose the sand beneath, while shaper Jeff Bradley returned the jagged, windswept edges to the bunkers.
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In the mid 2000s, the late George Bahto, who had extensively researched the works of legendary architect C.B. Macdonald, partnered with designer Gil Hanse to remodel Sleepy Hollow Country Club, which consisted of 11 Macdonald-designed holes and seven added in 1927 by A.W. Tillinghast. The pair persuaded the club to allow them to rebuilt the entire 18 in Macdonald’s style, reasoning that Tillinghast was well represented elsewhere in Westchester County (Winged Foot, Quaker Ridge and others) but Macdonald was not. The rebuild was done in stages, completed well after Bahto’s death in 2014. Thanks to Hanse, Sleepy Hollow now features some Macdonald “template holes,” Eden, Knoll, Leven and Road holes that weren’t even part of Macdonald’s original design. Sleepy Hollow will host the 2023 U.S. Mid-Amateur.
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Winged Foot’s two-course complex is the product of A.W. Tillinghast’s fertile imagination. Every characteristic of the more famous West Course also exists on the Winged Foot East (which, incredibly, was used as a parking lot during recent U.S. Opens). A few years back, architect Gil Hanse re-established Tillinghast’s bunkering and reclaimed the original sizes and shapes of the greens, bringing “corner-pocket” hole locations back into play.
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Minimalist in its design (you can still see the faint traces of old roadbeds over which the course was routed) and natural in its upkeep, Garden City Golf Club is one of the great early tournament venues in the United States. Before the 1908 U.S. Amateur, Walter Travis remodeled the course into what it is today, its strategies dictated by many deep pot bunkers. Travis installed them to promote “thinking golf,” but one player soon dubbed Garden City the home of the “God-fearing approach shot.” It’s also a rare 100 Greatest course with a closing par 3.
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Quaker Ridge returned to America’s 100 Greatest in 2013 thanks to a revision by Gil Hanse that included removal of many trees and the rebuilding of bunkers. Hanse also expanded several greens back to Tillinghast dimensions but reduced the size of the par-4 17th green, chopping off a left-hand lobe added by Frank Duane in 1964. Quaker’s strong suit has long been its powerful par 4s and Hanse strengthened them all, including the par-4 sixth, squeezed between a creek and hillside, and the drive-and-pitch 11th, where the green is girdled by a stream.
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Hudson National rests on dramatic bluffs high over the Hudson River valley, a breathtaking location that, back in the 1920s, had been the site of the ill-fated Hessian Hills Country Club. (The fireplace and part of the foundation of its clubhouse still exists near the fourth green.) Fazio paid little attention to the old routing, however, dynamiting more than 130,000 cubic feet of rock to fit his design into the rocky terrain. Greens are blazing fast, the primary rough is wispy fescue and bunkers are deep and numerous. Hudson National is closed for the remainder of 2023 as the Fazio team returns to do a complete remodeling—moving hundreds of bunkers, regrassing and recontouring greens, in addition to some other alterations.
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C.B. Macdonald designed Piping Rock right after he completed National Golf Links, and just as he did there, Macdonald peppered Piping Rock with versions of his favorite design concepts, including a canted Redan green and a Road Hole based on the 17th at St. Andrews. But it was at Piping Rock, not National, where Macdonald first introduced what has become his most imitated hole, the Biarritz. It’s the ninth hole at Piping Rock, with a green 60 yards deep, bisected two-thirds of the way back by a six-foot-deep trench. Designer Bruce Hepner recently enhanced the course by removing trees, reinstating old cross-bunkers, recapturing green sizes and adding tightly mown areas green surrounds to some holes. But he didn’t change the design. Piping Rock had great bones to begin with.
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When it was conceived in the early 1920s, The Creek was considered “The Million Dollar Club” because of the wealth of its exclusive membership. The line that writer Royal Cortissoz wrote upon its 1923 opening remains true today: “The distinctive character of this course lies in its range.” It opens with holes framed by trees, mainly lindens that line the entry drive, then moves onto a bluff that overlooks Long Island Sound. At the turn, holes play adjacent to the shore, offering fresh takes on two of C.B. Macdonald’s most exciting template holes. The 10th, a dogleg along the sea, is his version of the Leven (of Lundin Links in Scotland), while the 11th is not just a Biarritz green, but an island Biarritz green. Other Macdonald favorites are also at The Creek, including the Eden, Redan and Short.
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Real-estate developer Lowell Schulman hired Rees Jones to create his dream golf club on rolling linksland in Bridgehampton, one of the richest zip codes in the country, a few decades after founding Brae Burn Country Club in Westchester County. Jones created a strategic marvel with mounds, moguls and fescue framing the holes that test golfers—along with the seemingly ever-present wind. Jones' creation debuted on Golf Digest's America's 100 Greatest ranking in 1997 at 65th and was ranked on four editions until falling off in 2006. It has now reappeared on our Second 100 Greatest in 2023-'24 for the first time since 2016.
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The Bridge, which opened in 2002 and is one of the newest clubs in the Hamptons, has an initiation fee nearing $1.5 million. Yet it is anything but a hidebound, traditional club. Wearing jeans, cargo shorts or a cap turned backward is not only OK, it's encouraged, if that's how you want to express yourself. The glass-walled, modernistic clubhouse (pictured) looks like a turbine engine spun out of control. The most spectacular views of the Rees Jones course and Peconic Bay are not from the dining room but from the expansive locker rooms, because that's where members hang out most.
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Wykagyl is routed on one of the most dramatic pieces of land in Westchester County. The course rises up and down among rocky hills that deliver a number of momentous shots throughout the round. The course is incredibly deceptive off the tee as what appear to be generous landing areas are unveiled to be narrower than one may think and holding the firm fairways proves to be difficult. Wykagyl's pedigree of designers is a who’s who of great American designers, from A.W Tillinghast and Donald Ross, to Bill Coore and Ben Crenshaw. This leads to a great variety in the design as each architect laid his handiwork on the course.
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Well-known as a venue that hosted a PGA Tour event for decades, Westchester C.C. (West) was originally designed by Walter Travis, who was known for tiny greens and ferocious bunkering. The roster of architects who have tweaked Travis’ design include Perry Maxwell in 1939, Rees Jones in 1982, Ken Dye (no relation to Pete Dye) in 2000 and, most recently, Tom Fazio, who prepared a long-range master plan that, over a three-year period, was implemented by Fazio’s longtime associate, and restoration specialist, Tom Marzolf, a former president of the American Society of Golf Course Architects. It’s a shame this polished Westchester gem in no longer visited by the tour.
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Originally designed by C.B. Macdonald and Seth Raynor in 1924, Deepdale was forced to accommodate the Long Island Expressway in the 1940s, and as a result hired Dick Wilson to build a new routing that still exists today. The Deepdale of today is one of the most challenging and pristine courses in the golf mecca of Long Island. Deepdale is filled with tree-lined, tight sharply doglegging holes that are difficult to navigate. With undulating terrain that bends, tilts and slides, it may seem daunting but it’s never abrupt or radical. Once golfers reach the greens they have another tall task in front of them, as the putting surfaces are massively undulating and incredibly quick. Holding the greens is an incredibly stark challenge and golfers must think about where their ball will end up as anything without high levels of spin will become a passenger to Deepdale’s greens.
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The twenty-seven hole facility at Glen Oaks was originally designed by Joe Finger in 1971, and over the past decade a significant renovation was overseen by director of grounds Craig Currier, the former superintendent at Bethpage who helped transform the Black before the 2002 U.S. Open, and Joel Weiman of McDonald and Sons. Fairways were significant widened, creating the ability for shared fairways on hole Nos. 5 and 11, 8 and 13 and 14 and 18. Despite the widening of the golf course, there is still plenty of challenge available for golfers, several holes have green sites protected by ponds and the ones that don’t have plenty of bunkers that balls can easily find their way into.
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Devereux Emmet’s masterpiece at St. George’s Golf & Country Club is getting its proper due after a restoration by Gil Hanse at the turn of century, reclaiming putting surfaces and fairway width to bring back Emmet’s original intent. At just 6,408 yards St. George’s is hardly a long golf course, but it can be challenging and still incredibly fun and challenging. The course was built in response to C.B Macdonald’s National Golf Links of America. Devereux Emmet and Macdonald were good friends who worked and traveled together in the years prior to NGLA. Emmet was even one of the founding members at National. The two men had a friendly rivalry so Emmet built his own home golf course near his estate and gathered a group of investors to help him do so.
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Westhampton Country Club flies under the radar in the golf-rich mecca of the Hamptons, but in any other area this Seth Raynor design would stand out. With massively undulating greens, many template holes and water vistas, Raynor’s routing is stout—providing plenty of interesting shots despite the relatively flat land thanks to his use of mounds, bunkers, water features and contours.
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Found on an incredibly undulating and varied piece of land, Whippoorwill Club is one of the finest courses in Westchester County. Originally a nine-hole Donald Ross design that sat on the clubhouse side of Whippoorwill Road, Charles Banks was given a piece of land on the other side where holes 4-9 and 12-14 currently reside. The modern course is chock full of interesting design features—from deep bunkers to green complexes that rival many of the other great courses in the area.
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Fenway is a fine A.W Tillinghast design that often gets overlooked because of its famous neighbors, Winged Foot and Quaker Ridge. That being said, Fenway’s unique features with fantastic green complexes and interesting topography allow it to stand out to those who get to experience it. From the massive Sahara bunker on the third hole to the Principal's Nose bunkers on the 10th, Fenway’s thoughtful bunkering stands out. After Gil Hanse was hired to restore the course to Tillinghast’s original handiwork the course has been rejuvenated and will co-host the stroke-play qualifying for the U.S. Mid-Amateur in 2023.
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Dustin Johnson and Matt Kuchar each captured PGA Tour titles at Turning Stone’s Atunyote course when it hosted a tour event from 2006-2010. Turning Stone’s signature layout—one of three 18-hole courses at the resort—was previously ranked for four years on our 100 Greatest Public list, reaching as high as No. 55 in 2013-2014, and returns now after a nine-year absence. The Tom Fazio parkland design plays through woodlands and around pristine ponds that create a tranquil setting.
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Steeped in history dating back to 1898 and two other previous sites, Century Country Club is another great course in a crowded neighborhood of Westchester Country Club (with five other great private clubs in Purchase, N.Y. alone). Walter Travis consulted the club to acquire its current 175 acres, moving from nearby Greenburgh, N.Y., which was sold to Metropolis Country Club—and Harry Colt and C.H. Alison were hired to design the new course. Century is a co-host of U.S. Open sectional qualifying along with neighboring Old Oaks on alternate years with New Jersey's Canoe Brook Country Club.
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Just like Turning Stone’s Atunyote course, the Kaluhyat layout was also previously ranked for four years on our 100 Greatest Public list, climbing as high as No. 71 in 2013-2014. Unlike the relatively flat Atunyote track, the Robert Trent Jones Jr.-designed Kaluhyat course has plenty of elevation changes, including some up to 50 feet. The elevation changes provide many scenic vistas of the surrounding upstate terrain.
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Monroe Golf Club is one of the best golf courses in New York. Discover our experts reviews and where Monroe is listed in our latest rankings.
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The Jack Nicklaus, John Stanford and Jim Lipe design atop an old NYC trash dump opened in 2014 debuted at No. 95 on 2017-2018 100 Greatest Public ranking. It's currently ranked 35th on our Best in New York list. Reports estimate the cost of the Bronx links to be near $127 million.
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Like Turning Stone’s other two 18-hole tracks, the Shenendoah course is a past member of our 100 Greatest Public list, reaching as high as No. 52 in 2005-2006. The Rick Smith design offers plenty of variety, including both tree-lined parkland and open links-style holes.
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Less than 45 minutes north of Albany, Saratoga National is a scenic yet challenging public layout. There are many forced carries over ponds, marshlands and creeks to reach fairways and greens, including at the par-3 15th, where the green is surrounded by water. Creeks run through many fairways, especially on the back nine, requiring sound strategy to either lay up short or knock it over.
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Just down the road from the National Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, The Otesaga’s Leatherstocking course plays along the scenic shores of Lake Otsego. The rolling layout finishes strong with the par-3 17th playing over water and the par-5 18th teeing off from a narrow island peninsula to a fairway bending around the lake.
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