Tomorrow marks the official release of Australian Golf Digest’s biennial Top 100 Golf Courses ranking, which is a day when we used to jokingly say in our office was a good time to flee to Mallorca, Christopher Skase-style.
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The unveiling of the ranking – the 2026-2027 edition is the 20th list and therefore its 40th anniversary – is always an eagerly talked-about moment in local golf circles but also one when we need to face the music. Already there’s been some online chatter, as subscribers began receiving the May issue of the magazine late last week. I’ve already put one pundit in his place for suggesting one higher-ranked course received its position thanks to the supposed “freebies” on offer. (Ironically, our panellists paid a fairly hefty green fee to play at the course in question.)
They’re lazy, knee-jerk takes made without full information, but not unexpected in a world where that’s sadly part and parcel of everyday life. As is often said, appraising golf courses is like critiquing art – one golfer’s Picasso is another’s kindergarten-level finger painting.
Much like the twits we correct on Twitter, though, we strive for accuracy and clarity while recognising that’s a two-way street. Which is why we are more than happy to explain our methodology.
The process for ranking Australia’s Top 100 Golf Courses has evolved over the years but it’s also been refined. With a much larger panel of judges generating a much larger bank of overall course-evaluation data, we feel it’s as bulletproof a system as it’s ever been.
Not that any ranking is truly bulletproof; however, if the 2022 and 2024 lists are any indication, we get less pushback now than ever before, meaning we can cancel the flights to Mallorca.
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Part of that is the depth of course-evaluation data – more of it than ever before. Our panel of 271 judges lodged 7,899 separate evaluations across 824 different courses. Of those evaluations, nearly 4,000 were provided for courses that didn’t make the Top 100. Our panel is tasked with the instruction to avoid focusing too heavily on the elite courses alone and instead to view every course as a potential contender for either the main ranking or the “Next 100” list (which will be updated in the June issue). As such, in the period from March 2024 to February this year they inspected courses as remote as Dungog and Denmark, Padthaway and Pemberton, Millmerran and Magnetic Island.
Want to know how your course fared across the spectrum of our seven judging criteria? Or perhaps how your course scored this time compared to 2024? Ask your club’s general manager or head pro to email me at [email protected] for more details. We’re more than happy to pass them on.
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Still, this was a ranking window with a difference.
Yes, the much-anticipated debut of 7 Mile Beach’s first course will attract attention, as will a new (at least compared to last time) No.1. However, what makes this ranking different is the return of five courses that were deliberately omitted last time due to the scope of renovation work taking place. The re-inclusion of Huntingdale, Royal Sydney, Commonwealth, Mount Lawley and (at long last) Links Kennedy Bay added gravitas to the 2026 list, even if it did cost many courses in the second half of the list half-a-dozen or so ranking spots.
Major overhauls have become a growing trend in golf-course architecture in Australia, so it comes as no surprise that omissions then returns are a rising feature of our biennial lists. Greeting five courses back in one hit might turn out to be a little unusual, or it might be perfectly normal. Time will tell.
Time will also tell if more courses can penetrate the uber-competitive top 5 and top 10 on our list.
One thing we do know is, whatever outcomes transpire from our ranking process in 2028, 2030 and beyond, it will happen with transparency. That, and a lot of scoring data.
For those readers unable to access the links in this article, that’s because they are from the current issue. Links won’t become visible to all until the June issue goes on-sale in late May. Or, to read them now, you can access a digital subscription here.
