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    The best courses you can play in California

    January 31, 2024

    When looking at the best courses you can play in California, the top course—Pebble Beach—will hardly surprise, but with such a golf-rich state, all 35 courses in this guide are well getting out to. The depth of great golf, both private and public, makes California one of the best golf states in the country.

    When figuring out which courses you should play on your next trip to California, location is an obvious limiting factor, considering the size of The Golden State. Not to worry, though, as there are great options on this list spread across the state. Be sure to use our map feature in this guide to find the best courses near wherever you are headed.

    Scroll on for the complete ranking of the best courses you can play in California, and be sure to click through to each individual course page for bonus photography and reviews from our course panelists. We also encourage you to leave your own ratings on the courses you’ve played … so you can make your case for why a course should be higher or lower on our rankings.

    The best courses you can play in California

    Pebble Beach Golf Links
    Sherman Chu
    Public
    Pebble Beach Golf Links
    Pebble Beach
    Not just the greatest meeting of land and sea in American golf, but the most extensive one, too, with nine holes perched immediately above the crashing Pacific surf—the fourth through 10th plus the 17th and 18th. Pebble’s sixth through eighth are golf’s real Amen Corner, with a few Hail Marys thrown in over an ocean cove on the eighth from atop a 75-foot-high bluff. Pebble hosted a successful U.S. Amateur in 2018 and a sixth U.S. Open in 2019. Recent improvements include the redesign of the once-treacherous 14th green, and reshaping of the par-3 17th green, both planned by Arnold Palmer’s Design Company a few years back—and the current changes to the iconic eighth hole. Pebble Beach hosted the Women's U.S. Open for the first time in 2023.
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    Spyglass Hill Golf Course
    Evan Schiller
    Public
    Spyglass Hill Golf Course
    Pebble Beach
    Given the task of designing a course just up the 17 Mile Drive from Pebble Beach and Cypress Point, Robert Trent Jones responded with a combination of Pine Valley and Augusta National. The five opening holes, in Pine Valley-like sand dunes, are an all-too-brief encounter with the Pacific seacoast. The remaining holes are a stern hike through hills covered with majestic Monterey pines (which, sad to say, may someday disappear to pitch canker, but are being replaced in some areas with cypress trees). Add several water hazards that hearken back to the 16th at Augusta (a hole which Trent Jones designed, by the way) and you have what some panelists consider to be Trent’s finest work. Others say it’s the best course never to have hosted a major event. After all, even Pine Valley and Cypress Point have hosted Walker Cups.
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    Pasatiempo Golf Club
    Evan Schiller
    Public
    Pasatiempo Golf Club
    Santa Cruz
    Pasatiempo is arguably Alister Mackenzie's favorite design. He lived along its sixth fairway during his last years. With its elaborate greens and spectacular bunkering fully restored by Tom Doak and now by Jim Urbina, it’s a prime example of Mackenzie's art. The five par 3s are daunting yet delightful, culminating with the 181-yard over-a-canyon 18th. The back nine is chock full of other great holes: 10, 11, 12 and 16 all play over barrancas. The storied course has hosted two USGA championships: the 1986 U.S. Women's Amateur and the 2004 U.S. Senior Women's Amateur. In 2014, Pasatiempo received a Golf Digest Green Star environmental award for its measures in dealing with drought. Today, water worries are in the past, in part because of a new storage tank that allows the club to capture and store recycled water.
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    Torrey Pines Golf Course: South
    Public
    Torrey Pines Golf Course: South
    La Jolla
    Torrey Pines sits on one of the prettiest golf course sites in America, atop coastal bluffs north of San Diego with eye-dazzling views of the Pacific. Rees Jones’ remodeling of the South Course in the early 2000s not only made the course competitive for the 2008 U.S. Open (won by Tiger Woods in a playoff over Rocco Mediate), it also brought several coastal canyons into play for everyday play, especially on the par-3 third and par-4 14th. An annual PGA Tour stop, Torrey Pines received another boost by Jones prior to hosting its second U.S. Open in 2021, this one won by Jon Rahm.
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    CordeValle Golf Club
    Joey Terrill
    Private
    CordeValle Golf Club
    San Martin
    Located in the little known but abundant golfing area south of San Jose, the gorgeous CordeValle was a private club when it first opened, but is a high-end resort destination these days, with climbing and descending soft hills dotted by gnarled oaks. It hosted both the U.S. Senior Women's Amateur and PGA Tour's Frys.com Open in 2013 and the U.S. Women's Open in 2016, won by Brittany Lang in a playoff against Anna Nordqvist.
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    The Links At Spanish Bay
    Sherman Chu
    Public
    The Links At Spanish Bay
    Pebble Beach
    The Links at Spanish Bay was the first true links course built in America in many decades, but it took years for conveyor belts to deposit sand atop exposed bed rock to return this mined-out sand quarry back to a linkland site. The trio of designers, playfully dubbed "The Holy Trinity," thoughtfully shaped an 18 that looks natural, plays strategically and is sensitive to the coastal wetland environment.
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    PGA West: Stadium Course
    John Henebry
    Public
    PGA West: Stadium Course
    La Quinta
    Originally private, the Stadium Course (the original 18 at PGA West) was among the rota of courses for the old Bob Hope Desert Classic until some pros, objecting to its difficulty, petitioned to remove it. (It’s now back.) It's Pete Dye at his rambunctious best, with a finish mimicking his later design at TPC Sawgrass: a gambling par-5 16th (called San Andreas Fault), a short par-3 17th to an island green and an intimidating par-4 18th with water all the way to the green. Though hideous in its difficulty and aesthetics by 1980s standards (it was can't miss television when it hosted the 1987 Skins Game), it's matured into a noble piece of architecture that represents the tail end of Dye's extreme middle phase.
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    Poppy Hills Golf Course
    Joann Dost
    Public
    Poppy Hills Golf Course
    Pebble Beach
    When originally built, Poppy Hills had unpopular perched greens framed by massive containment mounds. Following a 2013 remodeling by original designer Robert Trent Jones II and partner Bruce Charlton, it's now a graceful, low-profile layout. "We popped the hills at Poppy Hills," says Trent Jr. A new feature are sandy naturalized areas and pine straw off the fairways instead of manicured rough, part of a concerted effort to significantly reduce water consumption. The renovated course was on display at the 2018 U.S. Girls' Junior, won by current LPGA player Yealimi Noh.
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    Rams Hill Golf Club
    Brian Oar/Courtesy of the club
    Public
    Rams Hill Golf Club
    Borrego Springs
    Local residents revived this golf development within Anza Borrego Desert State Park, on the western edge of the Sonoran Desert about an hour from La Quinta, Calif., in the mid 2000s with an entirely new course built by Tom Fazio. Some of Fazio’s spacious holes are molded into the desert earth and others ride the up and down rocky elevations, leading to a finish that includes the short par-4 17th and gambler’s par-5 18th that streaks downhill around a water feature.
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    Trump National Golf Club Los Angeles
    JD Cuban
    Public
    Trump National Golf Club Los Angeles
    Rancho Palos Verdes
    Just 30 minutes south of LAX, the Pete Dye design features Pacific Ocean views on every single hole. Built among the jagged cliffs of Palos Verdes Peninsula, Trump National Los Angeles is reportedly one of the most expensive courses constructed in the United States, as the Trump Golf folks claim it took $250 million to develop this scenic public golf experience.
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    Pelican Hill Golf Club: Ocean North
    Public
    Pelican Hill Golf Club: Ocean North
    Newport Coast
    This Tom Fazio-designed oceanside course provides stunning views of Catalina Island and Newport Beach. Set on slightly higher ground than its sister course (Ocean South), the North Course at Pelican Hill features sloping greens and several carries over canyons off the tee.
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    Torrey Pines Golf Course: North
    Mark Degnan
    Public
    Torrey Pines Golf Course: North
    La Jolla
    Redesigned by Tom Weiskopf in 2018, Torrey Pines' North course became friendlier for the average golfer. The number of bunkers were reduced from 60 to 42 and made easier to play out of. And the average green size was increased from 4,500 square feet to 6,000. Lastly, Weiskopf added one of his signatures: a short, drivable par 4 (the seventh)—making the companion course to the championship South course a little more fun. This may sound like a dumbing down of the architecture but it isn't. Within the simplification is a wide variety of green configurations and contours, with slopes rising and falling, some set high and others low, and many with more internal contour than is found on most greens on the South course, including the surfaces of the cross-ravine par-3 12th and par-3 15th. The North course also boasts ocean and canyon views on par with the South, particularly the par-4 16th rising along the Pacific Ocean cliffs and brining the player in the most direct contact with the stunning panorama. Perhaps because we feel there's a better couse hidden somewhere beneath the current South course, playing the North doesn't feel like a step down, just a step across to the other side of one the best public golf sites in the U.S.
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    Rustic Canyon Golf Course
    Public
    Rustic Canyon Golf Course
    Moorpark
    Rustic Canyon earned the honor of Golf Digest's Most Affordable Public Course in 2002, and it has continued to generate attention as one of Southern California's best public options since. With wide, generous fairways routed through a seasonal stream bed in the foothills north of Los Angeles, this Gil Hanse, Jim Wagner and Geoff Shackelford design is a natural, minimalistic and strategic gem that should be on any list of the best in California.
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    Stanford Golf Course
    Courtesy of the club
    Private
    Stanford Golf Course
    Stanford
    Home to the top-ranked Cardinal men’s and women’s golf teams, the Stanford Course is a par-70 George C. Thomas and Billy Bell Jr. design that dates to the early 1930s. Tiger Woods, Tom Watson, Michelle Wie, and many more famed Stanford alums developed their games at this sprawling layout that was ranked on our America's 100 Greatest list in the 1970s. Grand oak trees line the fairways and elevated tee boxes provide beautiful views of the surrounding mountain scenery, especially on the 18th tee, where you can see San Francisco in the distance. There is strong layout variety at Stanford, with holes moving in each direction and a mix of wide-open tee shots and others that are quite narrow. Though it's a pleasant walk with few houses on the course, it can be strenous given the elevation changes and distance between some holes.
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    Grizzly Ranch Golf Club
    Public
    Grizzly Ranch Golf Club
    Portola
    Located in the Sierra Nevada foothills 50 miles northwest of Reno, Grizzly Ranch is getaway, escapist golf and a refreshing trek through nature. When given such serenity and untouched natural beauty, it’s important not to overcook the design. The late architect Bob Cupp didn’t. He layered the holes onto a basin of forest floor with minimal buildup, directing them easily up and down the tilted property and positioning the greensites in ways that mingle thoughtfully with creeks and dry washes.
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    Maderas Golf Club
    Public
    Maderas Golf Club
    Poway
    Just minutes from downtown San Diego, this Johnny Miller and Robert Muir Graves design snakes through rolling foothills with an abundance of elevation changes. Maderas not only features a challenging, target-oriented layout, but it also stars over forty acres of native wildflowers.
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    Pelican Hill Golf Club: Ocean South
    Public
    Pelican Hill Golf Club: Ocean South
    Newport Coast
    The first of the two Tom Fazio designs at Pelican Hill, The Ocean South course opened in 1991 and boasts striking Pacific Ocean vistas. Wide fairways, large undulating greens and fantastic conditions make for an enjoyable round on this coastal track.
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    The Course At Wente Vineyards
    Public
    The Course At Wente Vineyards
    Livermore
    Tucked away in the native woodlands of Livermore Valley just 50 minutes east of San Francisco lies this beautiful Greg Norman design. Providing several striking panoramas of active vineyards, the Course at Wente Vineyards hosted the then-Nationwide Tour’s Livermore Valley Wine Country Championship from 2006 to 2008.
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    TPC Harding Park
    Dom Furore
    Public
    TPC Harding Park
    San Francisco
    Across the street from the Olympic Club is San Francisco's most famous muny, designed by the same architect, Willie Watson. Framed by eucalyptus, cypress and monterey pines, TPC Harding Park hosted a PGA Tour event in the 1950s and 1960s. And it hosted the 2020 PGA Championship, won by Collin Morikawa, after a significant renovation a couple years prior. The course also hosted the 2009 Presidents Cup, as well as the 1937 and 1956 U.S. Amateur Public Links.
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    Tahoe Mountain Club: Old Greenwood
    Courtesy of the club
    Public
    Tahoe Mountain Club: Old Greenwood
    Truckee
    Old Greenwood is one of two 18-hole courses at Tahoe Mountain Club, and since 2020 the Jack Nicklaus signature design has hosted the PGA Tour’s modified stableford event, the Barracuda Championship. Winding through pine forests, meadows, and hilly terrain, Old Greenwood is both a challenging and aesthetically pleasing course.
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    Aviara Golf Club
    Public
    Aviara Golf Club
    Carlsbad
    Aviara, part of an upscale Hyatt resort, has held the LPGA's JTBC Classic (formerly the Kia Classic) for the past nine years. The only Arnold Palmer design in the area, this resort course meanders through rolling hillsides and is landscaped with native Southern California wildflowers.
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    Oak Quarry Golf Club
    Public
    Oak Quarry Golf Club
    Riverside
    Built on the site of a 100-yard-old marble quarry, Oak Quarry presents some terrific golf amidst magnificent views. Hidden just off an exit ramp on the way from L.A. to Palm Springs, this course is a thrill ride with bouncy, big-shouldered fairways framed by white-granite cliffs that amaze almost as much as they antagonize. —Mike Stachura
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    PGA West: Nicklaus Tournament
    Rob Perry Photography
    Public
    PGA West: Nicklaus Tournament
    La Quinta
    This Jack Nicklaus-designed course annually hosts the first PGA Tour event in the continental U.S. each calendar year, along with PGA West’s Stadium Course and La Quinta Country Club. Surrounded by picturesque desert mountains, the championship venue is equipped with two island greens and challenging cavernous bunkers.
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    DarkHorse Golf Club
    Public
    DarkHorse Golf Club
    Auburn
    Nestled in the Sierra Nevada foothills, this Keith Foster-designed course has been praised by many for the variety in its layout. Several valleys offer noteworthy elevation changes and many holes play alongside natural penalty areas.
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    Sandpiper Golf Club
    Public
    Sandpiper Golf Club
    Santa Barbara
    Lining the breathtaking Santa Barbara cliffside, Sandpiper provides spectacular Pacific Ocean and beach views on most of its holes. This William F. Bell design has hosted several professional events, including the final stage of the PGA Tour’s Q-School and the LPGA Tour’s Santa Barbara Women’s Open. Sandpiper also has a unique history: The property was a site for ARCO crude oil production from 1938 to 1954.
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    Silverado Resort: North
    Courtesy of the resort
    Private
    Silverado Resort: North
    Napa
    Home to the PGA Tour’s annual Fortinet Championship, the North Course at Silverado Resort features narrow, tree-lined fairways and deep bunkers that force accurate approaches. This championship course is located in the heart of Napa Valley wine country and was designed by PGA Tour Hall-of-Famer Johnny Miller.
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    Bayonet & Black Horse: Bayonet
    Public
    Bayonet & Black Horse: Bayonet
    Seaside
    This pair of 18-hole championship courses is riddled with history: The Bayonet and the Blackhorse are built on Fort Ord, a retired U.S. Army training facility. General Robert B. McClure famously built the Bayonet to perfectly fit his chronic fade as a left-handed golfer—the course is known for its “Combat Corner,” a series of sharp doglegs on the back nine. The Blackhorse was added in 1964, 10 years after the Bayonet, and features panoramic views of Monterey Bay.
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    La Purisima Golf Course
    Public
    La Purisima Golf Course
    Lompoc
    Designed by Robert Muir Graves, this old-school style oak-tree lined course is tucked away 30 miles north of Santa Barbara. With rolling fairways and frequent windy conditions, La Purisima is an aesthetically beautiful and enjoyable track that will challenge golfers of all levels.
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    Corica Park: South
    RobertKaufman
    Public
    Corica Park: South
    Alameda, CA
    Reconstructed by architect Rees Jones in 2018, the South Course at Corica Park is a classic sandbelt track with natural fescue and large, flat bunkers lining vast fairways. The minimalist design and expansive yet contoured putting surfaces allow the ball to be played by both the air and the ground at this Bay Area gem.
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    PGA West: Pete Dye Mountain
    John Henebry
    Public
    PGA West: Pete Dye Mountain
    La Quinta
    When Pete Dye was building the Mountain Course at La Quinta in 1980, he knew that even if the layout wasn't ideal working through resort corridors, the holes would make up for it with the views, shelved against the base of the Santa Rosa Mountains, their stony facades towering above. Holes like four, five, six, 14 and 15 play so tight to the mountains that the walls of rock are in play and care must be taken not to hit them. The design is premium 1980s Dye, desert version, with long stips of sand paralleling fairways and plateau putting surfaces set above moat bunkers. The downhill par-3 16th, playing from a platform tee in the foothills over a field of boulders to a drop-shot green surrounded in sand and rock, is one of the most memorable in California but nearly every holes requires high, precision approach shots into the elevated greens. The Mountain Course is part of the vast PGA West conglomorate of courses that now numbers nine. The headliner is the Stadium Course, the evil West Coast twin of TPC Sawgrass and home course of the PGA Tour's The American Express as well as several must-see TV Skins Games in the late 1980s. The Stadium Course should be on anyone's list who visits the Palm Springs/La Quinta area if for no other reason than to experience what was intended to be the hardest golf course in the country, as interpreted in the mid-80s by Dye and the Landmark Land Company developers (this was the mandate given to Dye at the time). Spoiler: it remains frightening in roughly the same proportion as most 80s slasher films still do. But if you could only play one course at PGA West and it was the Mountain Course and not the Stadium or any of the others, you'd still leave feeling you got a taste of the best resort golf the Coachella Valley offers.
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    Desert Willow Golf Resort: Firecliff
    Public
    Desert Willow Golf Resort: Firecliff
    Palm Desert
    One of the most underrated courses in the desert is the Firecliff course at Desert Willow. Dr. Michael Hurdzan and Dana Fry designed 36 holes (including the Mountain course) on this flat desert floor in the Coachella Valley and moved enough earth to create some interesting holes that frame the surrounding mountains. Playability for all handicap ranges is strong, but even for the better players, the Firecliff course is a intriguing and fair test of golf.
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    Bayonet & Black Horse: Black Horse
    Public
    Bayonet & Black Horse: Black Horse
    Seaside, CA
    This pair of 18-hole championship courses is riddled with history: The Bayonet and the Blackhorse are built on Fort Ord, a retired U.S. Army training facility. General Robert B. McClure famously built the Bayonet to perfectly fit his chronic fade as a left-handed golfer—the course is known for its “Combat Corner,” a series of sharp doglegs on the back nine. The Blackhorse was added in 1964, 10 years after the Bayonet, and features panoramic views of Monterey Bay.
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    Soule Park Golf Course
    Courtesy of the club
    Public
    Soule Park Golf Course
    Ojai
    Some of the best architecture you can play for the price ($40!). Gil Hanse renovated this William F. Bell (architect of Torrey Pines, among others), giving public golfers a chance to play a course with invigorating, strategic options. The greens are interesting—and depending on where the pin is on the day—force the player to focus on shot placement from tee to green.
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    The Golf Club At Copper Valley
    John Palmer/Courtesy of the club
    Public
    The Golf Club At Copper Valley
    Copperopolis
    Formerly known as Saddle Creek Golf Resort, Copper Valley is a Carter Morrish design hidden within the serene Sierra Nevada foothills. The course weaves throughout the undulating natural landscape, making for an off the beaten path, but pleasant round of golf.
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    Pacific Grove Golf Links
    Andy Johnson/The Fried Egg
    Public
    Pacific Grove Golf Links
    Pacific Grove
    Of course, Pebble Beach is on most golfers' bucket lists. For locals, though, it's tough to beat the $40-60 normal rate at Pacific Grove, aka The Poor Man's Pebble. Pebble's designers, Jack Neville and Chandler Egan, did the layout for Pacific Grove, too—and the back nine has a Pebble feel in terms of your sense of enjoying the intimate setting on the Monterey Peninsula. Just like everyone should experience Pebble Beach once in their life, you should play Pacific Grove, too.
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