Courses

Best golf courses near Falmouth, MA

Below, you’ll find a list of courses near Falmouth, MA. There are 34 courses within a 15-mile radius of Falmouth, 19 of which are public courses and 15 are private courses. There are 25 18-hole courses and 8 nine-hole layouts.

The above has been curated through Golf Digest’s Places to Play course database, where we have collected star ratings and reviews from our 1,900 course-ranking panelists. Join our community by signing up for Golf Digest+ and rate the courses you’ve visited recently.

The Kittansett Club
Private
The Kittansett Club
Marion, MA
4.6
189 Panelists
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 Hood, was actually the work of well-known course architect William Flynn, who also designed Shinnecock 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.
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Vineyard Golf Club
Private
Vineyard Golf Club
Edgartown, MA
4.5
27 Panelists
Vineyard Golf Club in Edgarton is ranked as one of the best golf courses in Massachusetts. Discover our experts reviews and tee time information
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Willowbend: Bend/Old
Private
Willowbend: Bend/Old
Mashpee, MA
4.1
12 Panelists
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The Club At New Seabury: Ocean
Private
The Club At New Seabury: Ocean
Mashpee, MA
4.1
18 Panelists
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Oyster Harbors Club
Private
Oyster Harbors Club
Osterville, MA
3.8
55 Panelists
Oyster Harbors Club in Osterville is ranked as one of the best golf courses in Massachusetts. Discover our experts reviews and tee time information
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The Cape Club: Cape
Public
The Cape Club: Cape
North Falmouth, MA
3
18 Panelists
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.
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The Brookside Club
Public
The Brookside Club
Bourne, MA
The Brookside Club’s motto is “a public golf course with a private club feeling,” and they deliver on that with a captivating Dr. Michael Hurdzan design that capitalizes on the tumbling terrain. Located just minutes on to Cape Cod, Brookside is not overly challenging, but many fairways are significantly canted, creating some tricky uneven lies. Brookside is a great option for those visiting Cape Cod, as well as trips to Providence, R.I., and Boston.
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Marion Golf Club: Marion
Public
Marion Golf Club: Marion
Marion, MA
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.
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Wianno Club: Wianno
Private
Wianno Club: Wianno
Osterville, MA
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The Bay Club
Private
The Bay Club
Mattapoisett, MA
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