Best golf courses near Falmouth, MA

Wayne Stiles, who in the 1920s worked with partner John Van Kleek on projects throughout the East, expanded Woods Hole’s original 9-hole course to 18 in 1919. It’s set over a gorgeous property on the southern tip of Cape Cod with a small aperture on the north end touching Quissett Harbor and Buzzard’s Bay where the green of the par-3 17th is set. Twelve holes play through a separate section of meadow, running through fields of fescue as the land dips and rises invoking top Massachusetts designs like The Country Club and Essex County Club. In 2023 designer Kyle Franz completed a long-range renovation plan that greatly enhanced the visuals across the course through the addition of new and newly expanded bunkers, slightly enlarged greens and new short grass runoffs. Though not long at just over 6,000 yards, the layout continues to demands accurate driving and controlled approaches into a set of small, tilted greens that spill into Franz’s gorgeous hand-crafted hazards.

Only recently, with the discovery of some original blueprints, has it been conclusively established that the ocean-side, links-like Kittansett, long thought to be the product of an amateur architect, Frederic C. Hood, was actually the work of well-known course architect William Flynn, who also designed Shinnecock Hills and Cherry Hills. Credit that revelation to authors Wayne S. Morrison and Thomas E. Paul, who reveal that and much more in their massive 2,260-page biography of Flynn entitled The Nature Faker: William S. Flynn, Golf Architect. Credit Gil Hanse with restoring the bunkers without the aid of those Flynn plans. Instead, he used old aerial photographs. Kittansett has been ranked on Golf Digest's list of America's 100 Greatest Courses since 1971.

Vineyard Golf Club in Edgarton is ranked as one of the best golf courses in Massachusetts. Discover our experts' reviews and tee time information

Sacconnesset Golf Club: Cape Cod in Falmouth is ranked as one of the best golf courses in Massachusetts. Discover our experts' reviews and tee time information

Oyster Harbors Club in Osterville is ranked as one of the best golf courses in Massachusetts. Discover our experts' reviews and tee time information

From Golf Digest Architecture Editor emeritus Ron Whitten: Ballymeade Country Club on Cape Cod was an amateur design, laid out and built in 1989 by owner Steve Harrison after both his original architect, Pete Dye, and his second choice, Brian Silva, dropped out of the project. The result was a low-budget layout with narrow, tree-lined fairways and a considerable number of blind spots—the kind of course that definitely rewarded local knowledge. Five years after it opened, Jim Fazio (older brother of Tom Fazio) was hired to redesign the course, with veteran pro golfer Chi Chi Rodriguez paid as a “design consultant” for whatever marketing value that provided. Fazio was able to address bunkers and greens but could do little about its billy-goat topography. For the next 20 years. Ballymeade suffered a lot of bad press. One writer called it “infamously quirky and difficult.” Another described it as “much maligned.” In 2015, Troon Golf took over its management, and Ron Despain, Troon’s in-house vice president of golf course development, tackled an extensive remodeling. Under his direction, 200,000 cubic yards of earth was moved, cutting hills and raising and lowering fairways to remove blind spots off tees and into greens. Trees were cleared out to widen landing areas and expose corridors. A penal pond on the fourth hole was filled in. All greens and bunkers were rebuilt, with the eighth green relocated to eliminate a blind approach shot, shortening it to a par 4. The change also allowed the ninth to be extended from a par 4 to a par 5, far fairer given the kettle pond that’s always guarded the green. To brand the transformation, the course, which was opened to public play in 2016, was renamed The Cape Club. This may or may not explain why the private Golf Club of Cape Cod, right across the road, soon changed its name to Sacconnessett Golf Club.

From Golf Digest Architecture Editor emeritus Ron Whitten: I've long contended that if you really want to study authentic architecture of the early giants of golf course design, you should seek out the nine-hole courses they did. Nine-hole clubs don't usually have much money to spend upgrading their courses. A lot of them still have their original irrigation systems, their original greens and maybe even the original sand in the bunkers. A perfect example is Marion Golf Club. It's just down the road from The Kittansett Club, one of America's 100 Greatest. In fact, you pass right by it on the way to Kittansett, if indeed you have an invitation to play that classic seaside venue. If you don't have such an invitation, stop at Marion. It was the very first design of George C. Thomas Jr., who went on to create some of the best courses in California (and the United States), including Los Angeles Country Club, Riviera and Bel-Air. But you'd never know it from Marion, which is dry, stark and funky with flat fairways, circular greens and squarish bunkers. It's a step well back in time. Thomas built this nine-hole course in 1906, when the game was still played with wooden-shafted clubs with the ball teed up on a wet pile of sand. He staked out the nine holes in an old farm field, where decades before, rocks had been dug up, hauled to the side and piled in long parallel fence rows. Rock walls were fair game as hazards in that era, so Thomas ran fairways right over and through walls and positioned nearly half of his greens beside or beyond them. He covered some walls with as much dirt as he could find, to make them more playable for unlucky duffers who'd land next to them. Today, it's still steeplechase golf. A local rule does allow a free drop away from any rock encountered on the hole you're playing. The rock walls are what gives Marion Golf Course its unique character. There's a five-foot-high wall of turf and rock stretching across the front of the green on the 175-yard third, with just a narrow walkway opening providing even a glimpse of the flag and putting surface. On the 180-yard eighth, a similar wall has a wider opening, the void looking big enough to accommodate an old, abandoned roadbed, but still narrow enough to ricochet the occasional low screamer. My favorite is the dinky 115-yard ninth, hard by the parking lot and modest clubhouse. A high, wide, flashed face of a sand bunker obscures view of the green from the tee. Only when you approach the green do you realize that the back edge of the bunker is yet another rock wall. The sand is literally swept nearly to its top. Once past it, you realize the wall is the only thing keeping the sand from spilling onto the sunken green. It is an archaic, whimsical, marvelous hazard, one that even Pete Dye would not have had the nerve to build. Which says something about the litigious nature of today's society, I suppose. Not for nothing does Marion's scorecard announce on its cover, "Play at Own Risk!" Marion is not Merion. It is far from a great test of golf. It's only 2,695 yards maximum, playing to a par 34, with just one par 5 (the fourth, only 460-yards long, but with out-of-bounds all along the right) and only one par 4 over 365 yards. The turf is a mish-mash of grass and weeds. Some fairways are spongy. The greens putt slow. And I highly recommend it.

The Cocos Islands Golf Club: Cocos Islands GC, West Island course in Cocos Island, West Island is one of the best golf courses in Cocos Island (Keeling). Discover our experts' reviews here.