Each January begins the identical method: huge plans, clean calendars, and a honest promise that this would be the 12 months you play extra golf. Not essentially higher golf – child steps – simply extra of it. Extra rounds, extra reminiscences, extra chasing daylight on the again 9.
If that’s your aim for 2026, these golf resorts make it oh really easy to comply with by means of.
1. Bandon Dunes Golf Resort
Bandon, Oregon
Should you haven’t already made the pilgrimage to Bandon Dunes, take into account this your signal. And in case you have, allow us to enable you to justify going again. Bandon isn’t your normal resort – there’s no pool scene, no youngsters working amok. Simply golf that transports you to the Scottish hyperlinks with out stamping your passport.
Seven distinct programs unfold throughout the property, every formed as a lot by wind and climate as by human fingers. You’ll stand atop towering cliffs, you’ll stroll (as a result of that is golf because it was meant to be), you’ll really feel the climate shift mid-round and watch pictures trip the breeze – or disappear into it solely.
From the uncooked drama of Bandon Dunes, the genesis of golf right here, to the rumpled fairways of Outdated Macdonald, the one mile of ocean frontage at Sheep Ranch, and the quiet brilliance of Bandon Trails, each course is acquainted sufficient to belong, however completely different sufficient to matter.
2. Adare Manor
County Limerick, Eire
Adare Manor has a method of recalibrating your sense of what “value it” actually means – as a result of it delivers on each doable degree. It might not carry the identical immediate recognition as different bucket-list locations, however with the property set to host the 2027 Ryder Cup, there could also be no higher time to expertise it in full showpiece kind.
Set throughout 840 acres alongside the River Maigue, Adare Manor seamlessly blends five-star Irish hospitality with a Tom Fazio–designed championship golf expertise already written into the way forward for the sport.
And but, as memorable because the golf is, the manor itself steals the present. The neo-Gothic property has been restored to close perfection, placing a uncommon steadiness between old-world grandeur and trendy luxurious. There’s Michelin-starred eating, fires crackling in impossibly giant hearths, unhurried afternoon tea, and night whiskey tastings to cap all of it off.
3. Pinehurst Resort
Pinehurst, North Carolina
Golf within the Sandhills has a rhythm you possibly can’t fairly discover anyplace else. Round right here, everybody both swings a membership or is aware of somebody who does. So it doesn’t take lengthy to really feel proper at residence.
Pinehurst Resort is the epicenter of all of it. The property boasts 10 programs (with an eleventh on the best way), plus a placing course and a brief course broadly thought-about among the many greatest within the nation. Pinehurst No. 2 stays the crown jewel, with No. 4 shut behind after a current inexperienced restoration. After which there’s No. 10, the resort’s latest addition, which opened in 2024. Translation: even if you happen to’ve been right here earlier than, Pinehurst has already given you loads of excuses to return again.
Off the fairways, the Village of Pinehurst leans into its storybook appeal. There are eating places value lingering at, bars value lingering longer at, and boutique buying to maintain non-golfers fortunately occupied. Lodging are simply as iconic, led by the Carolina Lodge, dubbed the “Queen of the South,” the place basic Southern magnificence meets the very trendy comfort of being a brief shuttle trip from the golf… and the grub.
4. Streamsong Resort
Bowling Inexperienced, Florida
Streamsong Resort is probably going not what you think about while you consider Florida golf. There’s no infinite beachfront or pastel-colored clubhouses. As a substitute, the resort’s programs rise from uncooked, windswept dunes, whispering pine forests, and glinting lakes – a panorama that feels extra Huge Sky than Sunshine State.
Set on a former phosphate mining web site in central Florida, Streamsong is residence to 3 of essentially the most architecturally daring programs within the nation: Pink, Blue, and Black. Designed by Coore & Crenshaw, Tom Doak, and Gil Hanse, every course has its personal persona, but all share a dramatic scale, agency turf, and actually creative greens.
Days at Streamsong are easy, however chic: it’s strolling the programs, savoring lengthy meals, and watching purple and orange sunsets spill over the horizon.
5. St. Andrews Hyperlinks
St. Andrews, Scotland
No checklist of must-play programs (or must-visit golf cities) can be full with out St. Andrews, the place golf’s historical past lives in each bunker, breeze, barroom, blade of fescue – you get the thought. Golf has been performed on this land because the early 1400s, and one way or the other, centuries later, it nonetheless feels extra alive than ever.
From the Swilcan Bridge, the sport’s most well-known photo-op, to the nerve-rattling Highway Gap, the Outdated Course is the center and soul of each the hyperlinks and the city. It’s woven into every day life right here: canine walkers stroll the fairways on Sundays, picnickers unfold out when play pauses, college students minimize by means of on their method to class.
Nevertheless it doesn’t cease there. St. Andrews Hyperlinks is definitely residence to a complete of eight golf programs, starting from the storied Outdated Course to the New, Jubilee, Citadel, and past. Collectively, they make this small seaside city probably the most concentrated and significant golf locations on Earth.
6. Casa de Campo Resort and Villas
La Romana, Dominican Republic
Probably the most playable. The hidden gem. The most effective within the Caribbean. That’s how golfers describe the three Pete Dye–designed programs at Casa de Campo. With the resort celebrating its fiftieth anniversary, there’s no higher time to expertise them in individual.
Tooth of the Canine® is the headliner right here, ranked No. 1 within the Caribbean and No. 27 on this planet. Seven holes cling to craggy coral cliffs that rise dramatically from the turquoise Caribbean waters – holes Dye humbly credit to God, whereas the remaining 11 he claims as his handiwork.
Dye Fore, added in 2002, winds throughout 300-foot cliffs and alongside the Chavón River, providing panoramic views of the Caribbean Sea. Its three distinct nines ship selection and problem, and it’s typically cited as essentially the most underrated golf expertise within the area.
Lastly, The Hyperlinks brings a contact of the British Isles to the tropics. With a basic links-style structure, it’s essentially the most playable of the three programs – good for many who need just a little technique with out sacrificing their sanity.
7. Huge Cedar Lodge
Ridgedale, Missouri
Tucked into the folds of the Missouri Ozarks, Huge Cedar is the uncommon golf vacation spot that proves you don’t want ocean views or centuries of historical past to be worthy of your bucket checklist. All you want is land with one thing to say, and designers prepared to pay attention. Tiger Woods, Jack Nicklaus, and different legends have finished simply that.
In 2025, the resort cemented its cultural cachet as host of the first-ever Web Invitational, produced with Barstool Sports activities and Bob Does Sports activities, the place the highest content material creators within the recreation battled for a $1 million prize.
Three 18-hole championship layouts anchor the gathering, whereas Payne’s Valley throws in a bonus nineteenth gap it’s a must to see to imagine. Two par-3 tracks and a 13-hole strolling course add selection, however what ties all of it collectively is the surroundings: forested ridges, uncovered limestone outcroppings, spring‑fed streams, and hills that roll on eternally.
8. Cabot Cape Breton
Nova Scotia, Canada
Cabot Hyperlinks and Cabot Cliffs, positioned at Cabot Cape Breton, are each ranked among the many World’s Prime 100 golf programs, and so they ship two very completely different however equally unforgettable exams of golf.
At Cabot Hyperlinks, you stroll a real seaside hyperlinks – agency, sandy turf with ocean breezes on almost each gap and 5 holes that play proper alongside the seaside. Cabot Cliffs turns up the drama even additional. Designed by Invoice Coore and Ben Crenshaw, this course feels prefer it was carved immediately out of the shoreline’s ridges and dunes with views that pull your eye farther than the following shot.
For fast enjoyable and selection, The Nest is an 11‑gap par‑3 route perched excessive atop the Cliffs. Golfers like it for a twilight spherical or submit‑dinner jaunt with mates.
Off the programs, cozy fireplaces heat chilly evenings, terraces invite lingering sunsets, and each consolation of residence is correct at your fingertips. Eating right here is equally deliberate, celebrating Nova Scotia’s freshest catches and native flavors – every dish a refined, savory reminder of the ocean that defines this place.
9. Kohler
Kohler, Wisconsin
Wisconsin could also be most identified for cheese curds and the Inexperienced Bay Packers, nevertheless it’s additionally residence to Kohler: probably the most full golf locations within the nation.
Together with Whistling Straits, which is golf on a grand scale. Uncovered and demanding, it’s designed to disclose selections beneath stress and constructed for moments that matter – from the Ryder Cup and PGA Championship to your very personal dream golf journey. It performs like a basic hyperlinks course, dropped on the sting of Lake Michigan as a substitute of the North Sea.
Simply inland, Blackwolf Run brings a very completely different power. Routed alongside the Sheboygan River, its River and Meadow Valleys programs commerce lakeside publicity for tree-lined corridors and elevation adjustments.
10. Pebble Seaside Resorts
Pebble Seaside, California
Even if you happen to’ve by no means performed Pebble Seaside Golf Hyperlinks, you understand the course. You’ve seen it on screens, in magazines, in spotlight reels. However nothing prepares you for the primary tee when you’re really there, standing with the Pacific at your again, wind off the water, and the world’s most well-known fairways stretching earlier than you. And the perfect half? You possibly can really play it. Pebble Seaside stays the No. 1 public course within the nation, and it’s each bit as breathtaking as its popularity suggests.
However Pebble Seaside Resorts affords extra than simply its namesake course. Del Monte Golf Course, a brief trip inland, really predates Pebble Seaside itself. It opened in 1897 and is the oldest course in steady operation west of the Mississippi.
Spyglass Hill is a distinct animal. Designed to mix seaside hyperlinks with tight tree-lined golf, it opens with dramatic holes amongst sandy dunes earlier than diving into the Del Monte Forest. The Hyperlinks at Spanish Bay, in the meantime, emphasizes agency turf, coastal winds, and basic links-style play – much less punishing than Spyglass however each bit as memorable
No world-class golf vacation spot is full with out a brief course, and Pebble delivers in spades with The Hay. Redesigned by Tiger Woods’ TGR Design staff, this nine-hole structure is approachable for golfers of each degree.
Morning fog lifts off the water. Sea lions bark within the distance. Waves lap the shore like a metronome on your swing. Because the day fades, the solar units over Spanish Bay to the decision of a lone bagpiper. And it actually doesn’t get significantly better than that.
You come for the golf, you keep for the setting, and you permit questioning how quickly is just too quickly to begin planning a return – not since you didn’t see all of it, however since you need to really feel it once more. That’s the magic of those greatest golf resorts.
With ShipSticks, getting there doesn’t get in the best way of being there. Ship your golf equipment (and your baggage) forward of your arrival, then ship them residence after the final putt drops. No juggling, no ready, no distractions – simply you, the golf, and each particular second in between.
