The world's top ten golf courses
There we were thinking it was all about bunkers, birdies and bogeys, when in fact golf is a game of emerald-swathed mountains, distant islands and dazzling cliff-top views. From New Zealand to California, Canouan and Corsica, we tee off.
1. Cape Kidnappers, New Zealand
This course, on the east coast of New Zealand’s North Island, comes top of our list for its dramatic location. Built on what was a 5,000-acre sheep station, its fairways play out along a series of jagged ridges that jut out like fingers into the Pacific before plunging down to the rocks below. From the time of being struck, misdirected balls will take a full 10 seconds to reach the water. Designed by the American architect Tom Doak, Cape Kidnappers has none of the sandy dunes that characterise true links courses – but the harsh landscape is in keeping with the game. Players must contend with fearsome ravines, contoured fairways and fast, tilted greens. The coastal holes are the best, and the 15th (Pirate’s Plank) is my favourite. Arrowing inexorably down one of the narrow promontories, the final shot to the green feels as if it is bound for the end of the earth.
The Lodge at Cape Kidnappers (00 64 6 875 1900,
www.capekidnappers.com) has hilltop suites from £249 per person, per night. Green fees start at £115 per round.
2. Royal County Down, Northern Ireland
Tom Watson, the former world number one, said the first nine holes of this coastal course are the best he has ever played. Designed by Tom Morris, the links hug the coastline near the small town of Newcastle. Among the course’s many challenges, the seventh (a par three) and the 12th (a sharp dog-leg) stand out. However, the feature hole has to be the fourth – a 217-yard par four. From a dramatically elevated tee, players must clear a sea of gorse to a heavily bunkered green surrounded by trees and tall grasses. Views stretch to the Morne Mountains while, behind you, wind-whipped dunes rise high above the Irish Sea.
Green fees at Royal County Down (028 4372 3314,
www.royalcountydown.org) start at £65 per round. Two nights at the Slieve Donard hotel (028 4372 1066,
www.hastingshotels.com) start at £150 per person, half-board.
3. Pebble Beach, United States
Most of America’s finest courses (think Augusta, Pine Valley and Whistling Straits) are closed to all but a handful of wealthy Ivy League members. Pebble Beach in California is the exception, being open to all who pay the green fee. Jack Nicklaus said that if he had only one more round to play in his life, he would play it here. Designed by Jack Neville and Douglas Grant nearly 90 years ago, the course hugs the Pacific coast and features narrow fairways, sloping greens and panoramic ocean views. The most famous closing two holes in golf were played here (Tom Watson’s chip-in during the 1982 US Open and Jack Nicklaus’s unerringly accurate one iron a decade earlier); however, it is holes five to eight, with their water hazards, that propel this course to the top of anyone’s wish list.
The Lodge at Pebble Beach (001 866 226 5442,
www.pebblebeach.com) offers three nights from £2,198 per couple, including three rounds of golf.
4. Leopard Creek, South Africa
Being a bit wild off the tee takes on a new meaning here, since some of the water hazards are moving ones – from “the Big Five” to more than 200 species of bird, plus baboons, crocodiles, giraffes and warthogs that come to drink in the streams of Leopard Creek, on the edge of the Kruger National Park. The pick of the holes are two par fives: the fourth, more than 600 yards long, sits 100ft above the edge of Crocodile River and is a popular resting point for both elephants and errant drives. The dramatic final hole has an island green that seems to shrink as the crowds gather with their sundowners to watch.
Leopard Creek can only be played by guests of the Malelane Sun Intercontinental Resort . Ascot Golf Tours (00 27 21 701 1201,
www.ascottours.co.za) is offering five nights from £506 per person, excluding flights. The price includes b&b accommodation, car hire, an evening game drive in the Kruger park and three rounds of golf.
5. Green Monkey, Barbados
Not many things can stir people from their Bajan sunlounger, but a round at Sandy Lane’s new course might. Designed by Tom Fazio, it zigzags 7,400 yards across a tabletop landscape – but its first few holes are anti-climactic. It is only after the ninth, a par five plunging 100ft into a quarry, that players realise what all the fuss and finance was about. Dropping down through towering walls of rock, it is 635 yards long – but the signature hole is the 16th. From an elevated tee, you stare down at a green 225 yards away, protected by a giant bunker where your only salvation is a grassy island carved in the shape of... a green monkey.
Supertravel (020 7459 2984,
www.supertravel.co.uk) is offering seven-night packages at Sandy Lane from £1,799 per person, including return flights and four rounds of golf.
6. Turnberry, Scotland
You can debate which is Scotland’s finest course into the wee hours. Kingsbarns or St Andrews? Loch Lomond, Prestwick or Troon? I have gone for Turnberry in Ayrshire – the venue for next year’s Open, with its two championship courses, Ailsa and Kintyre. The former, redesigned by Mackenzie Ross after it was flattened for use as a World War Two airfield, is my pick. The 18th hole may now be named “Duel in the Sun”, after Tom Watson’s epic victory over Jack Nicklaus by a single stroke 31 years ago, but the ninth – on a cliff edge – blows the mind. As golf writer Henry Longhurst observed: “You find yourself lingering on the tee, gazing down on the waves as they break on the rocks and reflecting how good it is to be alive”.
The Westin Turnberry Resort (01655 333991,
www.turnberry.co.uk) is offering two nights, half-board, from £550 per person. The price includes rounds of golf on both the Ailsa and Kintyre courses.
7. Domaine de Sperone, Corsica
Located on the southern point of the island, near Bonifacio, this course (designed by Robert Trent Jones) is a unique mix of nine inland holes and nine played on coastal links and craggy rocks where ravines plunge to the Mediterranean. The 15th offers superb views of the islands of Cavallo and Lavezzi, but the signature hole is the 16th. Considered one of the finest par fives in the world, it requires a daring drive across the cliffs – which brings out the Tiger in even the diffident.
Domaine de Sperone (00 33 4 95 73 17 13,
www.sperone.com) has a week in a four-bedroom villa from £1,879; a round of golf starts at £49.
8. Canouan, The Grenadines
Designed by Jim Fazio, this tropical island course rises dramatically from sea level to the 840ft rim of an extinct volcano. Rich green fairways and hibiscus-lined borders contrast vividly with the cliffs, turquoise waters and talcum-white sands below. Dog-legs and tricky tee-offs make the opening holes difficult, but the back nine are the most dramatic. The 11th (a par four) forces you to drive over a deep ravine on to an angled fairway, but the 13th is more dramatic still. Occupying the highest point on the course, it offers views of Mustique to the north and Mayreau to the south.
Raffles Canouan Island (00 1 784 458 8000,
www.canouan.raffles.com) has five nights in a garden view room from £2,707 for two, including a round of golf, breakfast, two dinners and internal flights.
9. Doonbeg, Ireland
The rolling green hills and windswept headlands of south-west Ireland are perfect for golf courses, hence classics such as Lahinch and Ballybunion. Doonbeg, designed by Greg Norman, is barely six years old – but from the first hole, you feel it has been there for centuries. The fairways follow the natural contours of the terrain, so holes range from a clifftop par three of 100 yards to a 600-yard par five flanking a mile or so of golden sand.
The Lodge at Doonbeg (00 353 65 905560,
www.doonbeggolfclub.com) has two nights in a suite from £599 per person , half-board, including a round of golf, a massage and green fees.
10. Royal Melbourne, Australia
The East and West courses are said to be the finest in the southern hemisphere. Designed 80 years ago by the legendary Dr Alister MacKenzie, the fairways and greens are not as benign as they look. Strategically placed bunkers and fast, contoured greens mean only the best achieve a good score. Flanked by deep bunkers, the green at the fifth hole on the West course looks inviting – but its tilt from back to front means any hit short of the flag races back down the glassy surface.
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golf
Nicolas Cage
Why did I play there? It's cheap to play there 
