We first ran this feature all the way back in 2020. Since then, much has happened in the world of golf, none more so than the rampant demand to play some of the finest and most storied venues across all corners.

So, given the GB&I rankings have each been updated in recent months, with Top100GolfCourses.com changing theirs this week, we thought we’d see what’s happened and how they all stand up against each other. As a recap for those that weren’t with us back in 2020, here’s a refresh on how this is calculated:
We take the rankings from each of the four ranking panels across GB&I (Today’s Golfer, National Club Golfer, Golf Monthly, and Top100GolfCourses.com).
We attribute their ranking from each of those panels.

Where a course is not ranked it receives a notional 115. As there are 129 courses among all four lists, this number feels right given it sits somewhere between 101 and 130 where it may feature in those lists.

By combining all of those 4 scores we are left with a total rank for each course which can be found in the below table.
The table can be filtered according to each ranking, its rank of ranks, as well as the change in Top100GolfCourses.com’s recent ranking adjustment. We have also summarised below the ranking criteria used across each publication.

Different Ranking Criteria:

Top100GolfCourses.com

Certainly the most popular ranking with domain authority on the topic, giving them a huge advantage on SEO ranking, and now since our last attempt at this, under new ownership. Friend of the podcast – Jasper Miners – is the editor and now in charge of managing its global panel of experts across all regions, countries and continents… certainly no easy task.

The panel is run at a country level, before being aggregated into GB&I, with the same principle applying for country or regional assessments. In short, the World panelists look after all courses in the conversation for world ranking status, while GB&I set the order for British and Irish interests. This comes in around the 50 mark in the GB&I rank, so a change of personnel kicks in for the bottom half.

Key things to consider: off-course facilities play no part in the rankings, and – much like John Low – is an outspoken supporter of ‘strategic golf’. Rather than criteria, they use “guidance” as to how panelists should assess courses; acknowledging the impossible task of removing subjectivity from the process. It boasts, “Some inflate the position of a mediocre golf course in a beautiful setting, but we resist the temptation”.

Those points of guidance:

• Golf Course Architecture
• Strategic Challenge
• Variety
• Consistency of Calibre
• Golf Course & Land Management

National Club Golfer

Completely free from commercial influence’ is a key part of NCG’s ranking. The implication, of course, being that others are – however we are in no place to comment on that. Chaired by Dan Murphy, they only judge courses between March & October when we enjoy British summertime, and only look at the course itself, with no weighting attached to off-course facilities. Dan and his panel work through a longlist of courses that should be considered, and perhaps uniquely upweight the scoring of panelists if they have played a course more than once, or more recently than other panelists.

A summary of the areas considered:

• Architecture and Design (40 points)
• Conditioning / Presentation / Greens (20 points)
• Surroundings (10 points)
• Challenge & Playability (10 points)
• Memorability (20 points)

Today’s Golfer

Much like NCG, off-course facilities play no role in this panel run by Chris Bertram, which was refreshed in Feb 2025, and which receives contributions from many well-travelled, passionate, and knowledgeable panelists. Some of those include the likes of Sean Arble, Michael Verity, and David Jones.
The criteria set by Today’s Golfer include:

• Design; the landscape, the green sites, and the routing
• The surroundings
• Memorability
• Playability
• Consistency

Golf Monthly

A popular panel which has been running for decades now, they are proud of a panel that has been in place since 2010. This ranking excludes ‘exclusive clubs’. While the likes of The Wisley, Loch Lomond and Queenwood are not open for daily visitor play, the same could be argued for clubs like Swinley Forest, who are certainly not open doors for all, or many of the courses where a tee time will set you a huge sum of money to play.
Key factors in the scoring below, notably the 20% weighting that facilities and visitor experience play in their assessment. This has a huge bearing on the results and needs to be known when digesting the ranking:

• Quality of test and design (35 marks)
• Conditioning and presentation (30)
• Visual appeal (15)
• Facilities (10)
• Visitor experience (10)