Scotland’s Top 15 Golf Courses, Ranked by Golfweek
As the golf world’s eyes shift to Royal Troon’s Old Course this week for the 152nd British Open – ahem … Open Championship, if you please – it’s worth a look at all the top-ranked courses in Scotland. Golfweek’s Best course-ranking program utilizes hundreds of members in our ratings panel to continually evaluate courses and rate them based on our 10 criteria. They also file a single, overall rating on each course based on a 1-10 scale. Those overall ratings on each course are averaged to produce a final rating for each course. Listed below are the top 15 courses in Scotland, as judged by those hundreds of raters. Included with each course is its average rating, location, designer(s), year opened and where it ranks on Golfweek’s Best 2024 list of top courses outside the U.S.
1-3. Royal Dornoch Golf Club
4-6. Carnoustie’s Championship Course
7-9. Ardfin
10-12. Cruden Bay
10. Cruden Bay
- Location: Cruden Bay
- Designer: Old Tom Morris, Archie Simpson, Tom Simpson, Herbert Fowler
- Year opened: 1899
- Rank among top 100 International: T45
Book your trip to Cruden Bay today
11. Loch Lomond
- Location: Dunbartonshire
- Designers: Jay Morrish, Tom Weiskopf
- Year opened: 1993
- Rank among top 100 International: 47
12. Cabot Highlands (Castle Stuart)
- Location: Inverness
- Designers: Gil Hanse, Mark Parsinen
- Year opened: 2009
- Rank among top 100 International: 48
Book your trip to Cabot Highlands today
View Cabot Highlands golf trips
13-15. Royal Troon’s Old Course
We occasionally recommend interesting products, services, and gaming opportunities. If you make a purchase by clicking one of the links, we may earn an affiliate fee. Golfweek operates independently, though, and this doesn’t influence our coverage.