The panellists to see it during the past two years gave the course consistently solid scores across all criteria. Back-to-back rises entrench Elanora firmly inside the top half of the ranking. The course loses a touch of ground for Design Variety but regains it through high scores for Shot Values and Aesthetics.
A nine-spot leap is due reward for a layout with understated good features and these days the security of being part of Australia’s only 72-hole golf club. Three straight solid, mid-range rankings for the younger of the two courses at the north-western Sydney resort. As other new additions jump around the list, the Bungool course at Riverside mini golf course Oaks instead slotted directly into a comfortable home. After a large leap last time, Brisbane slips a fraction on the back of much greater variation in Shot Values scores – likely attributable to the different judging panel. Where our panellists were unanimous, however, was the layout’s Resistance to Scoring, Memorability and Aesthetics.

While eternally in the enormous shadow cast by its sister, the East remains revered by architecture aficionados – both for the six holes it provides towards the Composite layout and the remaining 12. A slip outside the top 10 for the recent Women’s Australian Open venue after returning to the top tier in 2018. Without an apparent weakness across our judging criteria, it was simply a numbers game for Royal Adelaide, edged out of the top 10 by a slim margin in what is an increasingly competitive contest. ia has now held either eighth, ninth, 10th or 11th place in every edition of our ranking since 2000.
This 5 night package combines quality accommodation with 5 games of golf on the best courses in the region. Crafted into the spectacular ocean side landscape, this unique course boasts 18 superbly designed holes. Experience a traditional Scottish links course with small pot bunkers and rolling fairways situated amid natural sand dunes and beautiful views of the Indian Ocean. Each hole presents several tee options depending on wind conditions and the player's ability. Just 8 minutes from Perth City, the Wembley Golf Complex, offers two great courses and a brand new state of the art driving range situated amongst a beautiful bushland setting. 36 tree lined holes on undulating terrain challenge all golfers and each of the 18 hole courses has different characteristics and attractions.Find out more.
Whether unique, quirky, novel, or ancient, we introduce you to eight Australian golf courses that you must play. For some travellers, golf clubs are the first item to be packed when taking a break. The accessibility and wide variety of Australian courses ensures that playing golf when on holidays is a popular pastime. From Port Stephens to Port Hedland, Australia teems with beautiful golf courses. Even though returning to the leading 10 layouts in the land appears difficult given the quality of the opposition, the Moonah course continues to extract high scores and high praise from our panel. A club that is a favourite of many judges has grand redesign plans in front of it that will remove the weakest, roadside holes, bring into play brand new ones and reinvigorate the entire layout.

Bonville Golf Resort – 11 kilometres south of Coffs Harbour – was designed with the intention of imitating Augusta National’s feeling of isolation and privacy on every hole – but they added kangaroos to this one. It was listed for 16 years running as mainland Australia’s most beautiful golf course . You should see the view hitting to the 18th green, with the grand clubhouse behind. They’ve widened the fairways and removed some trees, but this is still a tricky course from the tee. In 2005, the golfing world thought farmer Richard Sattler was insane creating what was to soon become Australia’s best public golf course on 6000 hectares of farmland in the middle of nowhere.
It’s an indication of the exceptional depth in our country’s 1,500 or so courses. As you will see from our six ‘snapshot’ layouts, many are past Top 100 denizens – and might return there again. But if you were to use this list as the starting point for planning a golf getaway or two, you wouldn’t be disappointed by the calibre of golf courses to be experienced. The quality on this list represents an embarrassment of riches for Australian golf. With about 1,500 golf courses in the country, sitting inside the top 200 still places a course in the upper echelon. Meanwhile, the numeric difference between courses grows increasingly tighter as you venture down the list.

Another course with no obvious shortcomings when viewed through the prism of our ranking criteria. The Pines course as Sanctuary Cove has now registered three consecutive rankings in the 40s after three straight in the 50s and three more in a row in the 30s before that. It’s another course our panel calls ‘tough but fair’ but the lift on this occasion can be traced to higher scores for Conditioning than last time.
Sun City’s robust Shot Values scores indicate the course’s enormous rankings potential if ever completed. A debut for the Greg Norman design in Victoria’s Yarra Valley after sitting on the ‘ones to watch’ list in 2018. The South course, which takes in holes 1-18 of the club’s 27 full-length holes, features mild undulations in places, challenging green complexes and familiar and striking Norman bunkering. Not since 2002 and 2004 has the Sunshine Coast layout held a position in the Top 100 for back-to-back rankings.
Australia's most accomplished male golfer, the five-times British Open champion Peter Thomson, learnt to play at the modest Royal Park public course on the leafy northern fringes of Melbourne's city precinct. If travelling with international guests who like golf, this is the course to take them to. Play a round at Anglesea Golf Club and expect to share the fairways with a huge population of kangaroos. We’re not just talking about the occasional ‘roo hopping past every so often – the course is literally packed with dozens upon dozens of these native animals.