Best golf courses near Carlsbad, CA

North of San Diego in the coastal community of Carlsbad, La Costa hosted 37 PGA Tour events through the mid-2000s. The North Course (previously known as the Champions Course) was renovated in 2011 by Steve Pate and Damian Pascuzzo, but it got a much larger redo in 2023 by Gil Hanse and Jim Wagner so that Omni La Costa could host the NCAA Division I Golf Championships. Hanse/Wagner added many of their signature features, including native areas, barranca and falloff areas around the greens. With six sets of tees, there are plenty of options for the public to take on an exciting new design.

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.

Originally built as a nine-hole par-36 track in 1952, Goat Hill was reimagined in the early 1990s as an 18-hole short course and was loved by locals. In the early 2000s, Goat Hill struggled under mismanagement and was revived in 2014 by local residents John Ashworth, David Emerick and Geoff Cunningham. Since then, it’s quickly becoming known as a go-to spot in Southern California for fun, challenging golf, recreation and socializing. It’s a par-65, 4,454-yard layout that features 9 par 4s, eight par 3s and one par 5. Most of these holes roll up and down hills and offer beautiful water views.

This upscale residential course wanders a lovely site in the dry, stony foothills of north San Diego County. The design is a contrast of sculpted architecture with smooth-edged, cape-and-bay style bunkering, reflection ponds and flowing fairway lines set against the property’s rugged ridges and canyons, with long views toward the Pacific off the highest points. The first nine circles through the development’s more compact residences, while the second nine flares out into open country under the purview of large luxury estates. The club’s namesake bridges connect several holes that leap over valleys and the Escondido Creek ravine.

The Southern California-based golf course designer and writer Max Behr, who worked primarily in the 1920s and ‘30s, is a favorite among architecture scholars for his dense philosophical essays about strategy and psychology. He wasn’t as prolific at building courses as regional contemporaries like William Watson and William Bell, but those he did design, like Rancho Santa Fe north of San Diego, were packed with nuance and simple strategic intrigue. Scottish designer David McLay Kidd doesn’t typically take on historical renovations (he prefers to put his own new ideas in the ground), but he was taken by the efficient arrangement of holes that run up and down a narrow valley and the essence of what remained of Behr’s ideas, and committed himself to drawing them out. The result following the work in 2021 is a distillation of classical era angles and options that focused on bunker replacement, select tree removal and recreating large putting surfaces that spill into short-grass surrounds leaving players a multitude of recovery shots.

The pinnacle of luxury and relaxation can be found in the San Diego foothills at the Fairmont Grand Del Mar and its golf course the Grand Golf Club. With European and Mediterranean-style rooms, suites and villas set on over 400 acres of the Los Peñasquitos Canyon Preserve and natural area, the resort is a blissful natural getaway. The Fairmont is home to a recently renovated five-star spa as well as six unique dining experiences highlighted by Addison, the first Michelin three-star restaurant in San Diego. Partnered with the resort is the members-only Tom Fazio-designed Grand Golf Club opened in 1999 and features subtly undulating fairways guarded tightly by canyon walls and thick trees. Perfectly maintained green complexes give way to stunning views into the Los Peñasquitos reserve creating idyllic picturesque moments. The Grand Club is highlighted by its dramatic and intimidating par 3s at the sixth and 17th holes, as well as the standout par-4 finishing hole played over a waterfall with the 50,000 square foot clubhouse in the backdrop.

From Golf Digest Architecture Editor emeritus Ron Whitten: When I first toured Encinitas Ranch Golf Course, on a coastal plateau some 30 minutes up the California coastline from San Diego, it was still under construction. I was joined by golf architect Cary Bickler and his wife, Judy, for the tour. It had rained, so we worked our way carefully around muddy fairways and just-planted greens. Judy brought sandwiches, and we picked a spot on a hillside above what is now the fourth green for lunch. As we ate, we viewed the shimmering Pacific Ocean to the west, and Cary told me how he'd learned to surf as a kid up in Venice Beach alongside a couple of guys named Wilson. They went on to form The Beach Boys. He also spoke of his longstanding tie with the Encinitas property. He'd known about the site for 30 years. After graduating in 1968 from San Diego State, where he'd played on the golf team, Cary went to work on a construction crew for golf architect Larry Hughes and moved to a house across the street from this very property. Back then it was called the Paul Ecke Flower Ranch, and it was covered with flowers. Cary lived there until 1983. Many an evening he'd view its fields of poinsettias and Bird of Paradise from his porch and envision fairways running alongside them. In 1994, he got a chance to make his dream a reality. The city of Encinitas, in partnership with a private home builder, announced it would create a public course and adjacent residential development from the old flower farm. After several rounds of interviews, Cary got the job. We finished our lunch and tour of the course, highlighted by inspection of climatic 16th and 17th holes (now holes 7 and 8), which weave along red sandstone bluffs overlooking the La Costa resort (now Omni La Costa Resort and Spa) about a mile down the slopes to the north. Half a year later, I returned and played the completed course with Cary. It was still immature but enjoyable. Several years later, I returned for another round. The first thing that struck me was that the rows of vibrant flowers that had bracketed the par-3 second near the entry drive were gone. It had been Cary's reminder of the old Ecke Ranch. But out on the course, there are still clusters of flowering bushes serving as accents. With its broad swaths of manicured turf dotted with windswept trees, the entire course has the look and feel of a very good Billy Bell course (Bell Sr. and Jr. being the premier public course designers in Southern California for half a century), and I mean that as a compliment. The shaping is more pronounced than on a Bell design. I remember Cary telling me that he wanted it to appear that all the mounds and bunkers were shaped by the wind, and they do, especially when the sun begins to set. Overall, Encinitas Ranch has an appealing landscape that promises playability and delivers a decent score. Perhaps its most distinctive feature involves its graceful fairway bunkers. All are set in mounds and are raised slightly above the level of the fairways. I remember asking Cary if that was for drainage. Yes, he said, plus the fact that he didn't want average golfers' drives rolling off a fairway and into his bunkers. If a golfer flies a shot into one of his bunkers, that's okay. Encinitas Ranch is not a perfect course. It definitely favors a cart and is not an easy walk. Plus, there's its controversial seventh hole. Having thoroughly examined it three times now, I'm still not sure whether I like that short par 4 or not. It plays uphill and somewhat blind off the tee (reminiscent of the tee shot on the eighth at Pebble Beach) then downhill over the corner of a red sandstone canyon to a green positioned on a bluff sitting high over the surrounding cities. The correct play is to treat it as two par 3s, which I guess is the reason why they once had a regular flagstick as a target flag at the top of the hill less than 200 yards off the tee. Still, too many of us try to carry the hill crest with a driver and end up with a lost ball down in the canyon on the left. That doesn't make it bad architecture, just quirky. And prone to slowing up play.