• We'd like to take this opportunity to wish you a Happy Holidays and a very Merry Christmas from all at Golf Monthly. Thank you for sharing your 2025 with us!

The best 3 courses you've EVER played?

Equal firsts for differing reasons would be RCD & Old Course.

Cant pick an out and out 3rd....equals for differing reasons,Carnoustie,Dornoch,Plzen,PGA Catalunya,Muirfield,Saunton.
 
The Belfry is one of my most disliked courses. Shockingly dull.

[/QUOTE]

The only reason i put it up because it was in suberb nick when i played it and it was probably the wettest day ive played golf in. The only thing i didnt like about it was the massive greens causing me to three putt a lot.
 
1. Nefyn&District old- north wales absoloutley superb track, fantastic links.
2. Pine cliffs - portugal Its only a 9 holer but its a great track with some very tough holes.
3. Moor Allerton- 27 holes very hilly well looked after, probably the toughest greens ive played.
 
Loch Lomond (best course condition ever, not likely to ever play again)
St Andrews (gets the heart beating on the first tee)
Royal Dornoch (for the scenary and remoteness)

Silloth and Woodhall just missed out but on a different day could make the top 3.
 
Reef Hotel, Anse aux Pins Mahe Seychelles - only 'cos it was the first course I ever played, and is, well, pretty exclusive!

Ballybunion - Hard with a capital H

Royal Birkdale - Memorable course; not a memorable round tho'
 
Contraversial here.

Apart from history what does the Old Course offer that makes people put it into their top three???

Apart from the loop up the top I thought it was very ordinary, wide open and a disapointment. Even the 17th wasnt what I expected. The greens are fantastic and very tough to read and the bunkering is superb, but sadly nowhere near my top three despite wishing it to have been the best course I have ever played!
 
Contraversial here.

Apart from history what does the Old Course offer that makes people put it into their top three???
Click to expand...

Hate to agree, but I've played it and it wouldn't even figure in my top 10!!
Yes, I was very nervous on the 1st tee...by far and away the most nervous I have ever been on a golf course. But once the initial nerves had subsided and I was playing the course??? It was nothing special.
 
The Old is for me the most interesting course anyone will ever play,each time I play there I learn something new about the course(and I have set foot on it umpteen times).Anyone who dissis it after only one round is a fool or doesn't care a great deal for golf imo.....read this taken from an article...my feelings exactly..

Anyone who raves about the Old Course after just one or two rounds there is either a liar or a fool,’ says David Fay, Executive Director of the USGA. Fay relates that it was not until he served as a referee in the 1990 Open Championship there and spent four days walking the course and watching the game’s best tack their way round it that he began to appreciate the most famous course in golf.

More than any other course, St. Andrews warrants (and of course has received) study. While the land is basically flat, it is a continuous ribbon of crumpled linksland that hides much of itself from view. Many rounds are required until the player knows what is out there on every tee and, therefore, where to go and where not to go. It is only with this knowledge that the player appreciates the tremendous amount of strategy involved in playing the Old Course.

After a few holes, the overall strategy becomes apparent: Drive left (where there’s all the room in the world) and face an awkward approach or drive right (typically between gorse or out of bounds on the right and bunkers on the left) and have a simpler approach. At St. Andrews, hitting the fairways and greens does not count for a lot — one could hit every fairway and green in regulation and still not score better than 80.

It is important to play many rounds to encounter the full variety of hole locations. With such large, undulating greens, the hole location can significantly effect the exactness of play that is required. With the 2nd hole, for example, if the hole is left the player can attack the hole only from the right side of the fairway as the big left-to-right undulations that guard the left side of the green will thwart any approach shots from the left side. With a back-right hole location, the entire hole becomes relatively benign and forgiving.

However, the main need for many rounds over the Old Course is to encounter it in every type of wind and weather. Then the player will appreciate that every bunker can be in play, given a certain wind. With a number of the traditional out-and-back links courses, there is a particular wind that best shows off the course. For example, at Royal Aberdeen the preferred wind would be behind the player going out and against him coming home so that the less interesting and less dramatic back nine has the wind to keep the player’s attention.

At St. Andrews, however, each wind brings out different, but not necessarily better, characteristics and challenges in each hole. With the 14th, for example, the hole plays extremely long into the wind and requires the player to think his way through all three shots to negotiate the hole’s many defenses. With the wind helping, however, many of the bunkers do not come into play, but the shallow, raised green is most difficult to find with an approach shot of any length as the ball will make a mad rush for over the green. No other course adapts itself so well to all winds.

MacKenzie noted in his book The Spirit of St. Andrews that ‘No one would pretend that the Old Course at St. Andrews is perfect.’ How true. However, the run home from the 11th tee possesses more of the ‘bests’ in the game than any stretch in golf.

One often overlooked aspect of the Old Course is that it can be a very, very hard golf course. In calm, soft conditions the course can be attacked with its double fairways and huge greens. In windy, firm conditions, the golfer can be ripped apart. However, unlike so many of the monstrously difficult courses built in the 1980s, the golfer remains keen for another opportunity to test himself on her.

The flexibility in course set-up is unmatched. It allows Ernie Els to be fully challenged one day, and a father and his family to have a highly enjoyable round the next. This fact ensures St. Andrews lasting appeal for generations of golfers to come and makes it the model against which all courses are judged.
 
As I said Dodger, the greens and bunkers are awesome, amongst the best I have played but as a course I stand by my assessment and opinion that its nowhere near my top 3 courses.

Its the Port Bannatyne of the Open rota!
 
Another in agreement about The Belfry....... didnt rate it one bit.
I'd rather play my own course than go back.

Not sure I can pick a "Best 3', but San Lorenzo in Portugal would be up there....
and I'll be playing The Datai Course in a couple of weeks.......which may well feature I hope........ :cool:

datai_golf_langkawi_6.jpg.jpg
 
As someone who was a member at St Andrews Golf Club when a junior i am with the Craw on this one. There are many members of both the New and St Andrews Golf clubs who don't rate the old as the best course in St Andrews. I always liked the New and the old layout of the Eden course. It lost a few good holes when they built the driving range and the new holes at the far end of the course are dreadful.

As for my 3 best difficult to pick, think it would be

Turnberry
Muirfield

Rosemount/Spey Valley/ Kingsbarnes/Landsdowne

Just can't choose a third!!
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top