Course Rankings

The Best Golf Courses in Every State

July 14, 2023

Golf Digest has been publishing a Best in State ranking every other year since 1977, making this the 24th edition. Deploying our trained panel of more than 1,900 low-handicap golfers to continually assess the courses of this nation is a mission whose main obstacle is daylight.

We have completed our regional rollout of our Best in State rankings, which are all live below. These rankings were based on more than 80,000 evaluations over a 10-year cycle from our panelists, who assess candidate courses based on the following criteria: Shot Options, Challenge, Design Variety, Conditioning, Aesthetics, Character and Fun (though Fun isn't currently used in our formula).

Click on a state on the map below to see which courses made our Best In State list.

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. 

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Explore Golf Digest's recently relaunched Places to Play community, where you can add star ratings and reviews for all the courses you play. We've collected tens of thousands of reviews from our course-ranking panelists to deliver a premium experience, which includes experts' opinions, bonus course photography and videos, plus much more. Check it out here!