The 8 Best Golf Courses We Played This Year

As the summer golf season brings the game back to those parts of the world that fight off winter every year, it’s time for the complete spectrum of golf travelers to venture back out into full-time pursuit of their favorite pastime. With the game still enjoying the tail end of its post-COVID boom, properties around the world keep up to date with new amenities and updated course designs.

We journeyed to many of those courses over the last year, and this overview will provide you with some of the most significant and important new, or updated, destinations around the globe for fresh golf experiences.

Sheboygan, WI

The state of Wisconsin scores surprisingly high among U.S. states when it comes to golf. You might expect a northern state in the Snow Belt that offers playable condition for only about half the year to be overlooked when it comes to tee boxes and fairways, but — unlike other more elitist climes, like California or Arizona, where many of the best courses are private — accessibility saves America’s Dairy Land. Regardless of history and prominence, the state’s best courses are open to the public.

Whistling Straits near Kohler, WI has already hosted multiple Major Tournaments on the PGA Tour and the most recent U.S.-based Ryder Cup (the biggest event in the sport). After welcoming the PGA championship three times, The Straits is annually rated as one of the best courses in the world and one of most challenging public courses in America. There’s the key word: “public.” It’s a bucket-list destination for many players to take on the same course the greatest in the game took on over the years. If you can handle the heavy greens fees, that could be you. 

For this season, Kohler golf’s gem celebrates its 25th birthday with a series of special events. While ground crews make some enhancements after a messy winter, a new statue honoring late patriarch Herb Kohler awaits to greet players visiting the town that bears his name.

Lake Geneva, WI

Staying in Wisconsin for one more stop, a ride down near the Illinois border will take you to the resort town of Lake Geneva and the resort venue of the now long-gone Playboy Club. The Grand Geneva Resort and Spa occupies that space now and offers renovated rooms and facilities across the property for 2024.

The venue’s golf offerings include The Brute (a long and challenging course known for thick rough and challenging bunkers) and the pretty, more accommodating Highlands. For 2024, the facilities are adding some improvements to the Highlands, updating the par three holes and adding some additional protected vegetation.

Carlsbad, CA

Like Whistling Straits, there’s a lot of history at La Costa. The resort north of San Diego just celebrated its 50th anniversary and is home to the Champions and Legends Courses. It hosted the PGA Tour’s Tournament of Champions in the past, welcoming the likes of Tom Watson and Gary Player to its fairways. 

The big news for 2024 is the redesign, reconstruction and opening of the Legends Course. Gil Hanse, one of today’s hottest course designers, completely reinvented Legends, making it significantly more challenging for all levels of players. It will now serve as the home for the next three NCAA Division 1 Men’s and Women’s Golf Championships. 

In addition to the elite golf, a visit to the area also offers a chance to enjoy Carlsbad — one of the most manageable, charming and entertaining cities along the Southern California coast.

Porto Ercole GR, Italy

Argentario sits on a promontory off the western coast of Italy. Enjoying the ideal sun of the Tuscany region, the golf course is now upgraded and refined for 2024 as it will serve as the home of the DP Tour’s Italian Open in 2025. It’s a course that offers a varied collection of terrain, from wetlands to stoney rises, and is such a European gem that it serves as PGA National Italy — the headquarters for that international organizing body’s Italian operations.

Pinehurst, NC

Soon home to 10 golf courses, the Pinehurst Resorts and (specifically) Pinehurst No. 2 played host to more major golf tournaments on more tours than any other property in North America. Often referred to as the USA’s St. Andrews (the game’s ancestral home in Scotland), Pinehurst No. 2 will once again host the U.S. Open this summer.

In keeping with that milestone event on the 2024 PGA Tour, Pinehurst is maintaining elite conditions on No. 2 and making significant upgrades to the surrounding community. The World Golf Hall of Fame is relocating from Florida to Pinehurst, and The Carolina Hotel (one of the prime accommodations in the center of those 10 courses) renovated its lobby and all of its 230 guest rooms. 

Oahu, HI

While the busy Ko Olina course on Hawaii’s busiest island is always in good shape, offering a complete practice area and 18 holes of friendly resort golf, it’s the offerings over at the neighboring Four Seasons that are making news thanks to its new golf wellness options. To focus before a round, golfers are invited to meditate on the beach at sunrise before a tee time or enjoy new spa treatments inspired by the Hawaiian environment, including a Ko Hana Rum Massage.

North Berwick, Scotland

This Scottish course was on the golf world’s radar last year as the automaker Genesis brought the DP World Tour’s (formerly the European Tour) Scottish Open to this links course. With the Genesis GV60 on proud display at a couple spots around the tournament grounds, Rory McIlroy made one of the great golf shots of the 2023 season to win the championship. 

In keeping with its famous status in Scottish golf, The Renaissance Club keeps pace with the times by upgrading its clubhouse and adding three special holes for play overlooking the North Sea.

East Cape, Los Cabos, Mexico

Tucked away on the East Cape of Los Cabos — the much more quiet, peaceful and less populated side of the popular resort region, about an hour’s drive from the constant party that is Cabo San Lucas — the Costa Palmas Golf Club is a serene desert retreat designed by the legendary Robert Trent Jones, Jr. Created to leave the natural landscape intact and to avoid intruding on local farms and desert oases, the course offers an updated layout for 2024. 

After its original opening in 2019, storm damage and flooding forced repairs and, eventually, a re-envisioning of the course’s layout. After restoring and rerouting the front nine, Costa Palmas is at full speed for this golf season.