Best Golf Courses in Maryland for 2024-25

As part of GOLF’s rigorous assessment process for our newcomers Top 100 courses in the USA AND The best 100 courses you can play ranking, our fleet of 100-plus expert panelists identified the best golf courses in each state.

You can check out the links below to browse all of our course rankings, or scroll down to see the best courses in Maryland. And if you’re looking to create your future ride, you’d be wise to let the new GOLF Course finder the tool helps you. Here, you can edit all of our lists—top 100 publics, best munis, best short courses, best par-3s, and more—or filter by price to create your own itinerary. perfect for your next trip.

Ranking of other GOLF courses: Top 100 courses in the world | Top 100 courses in the USA | The best 100 courses you can play | The 100 most valuable courses in the USA | America’s Best Municipal Courses | The 100 best short courses in the world

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Best Golf Courses in Maryland (2024/2025)

SYMBOL GUIDE
# = Top 100 courses in the USA
Y = Top 100 you can play in USA
V = The 100 most valuable courses in the USA
P = Public/Resort

Ed. Note: Some subjects were removed from our ranking because they did not receive enough votes.

1. Congress – Blue (Bethesda) (#)

Big things were always in store for this course, given its location outside of our nation’s capital. But after 100 years of existence, many architects had had a hand in its evolution and this Devereux Emmet design lost its golden age ethos. What should be done? The club turned to Andrew Green and gave him carte blanche to completely reimagine the course and unify it under one side. The green delivered with the revamped design now looks like it’s been there for over a century. The alternate questions are great and every aspect of your game is tested. Take the stretch from 7 to 9: the uphill par-3 7th requires a carry over the course’s deepest green bunker; 8 is a teaser of a short par-4 with a wide protected par on the angled green; and the 9th is a 600-plus-yard roller coaster that follows the dirt that rises back to the stately clubhouse. Pete Wendt is one of the nation’s top greensmen, and his layering of native grasses across the rolling landscape gives the course a sumptuous texture that had been missing for a long time. With the trees removed and the wind blowing, the days of a soft course — like the one Rory McIlroy encountered when he won the 2011 US Open here — are a distant memory at the “new old” Congress.

2. Baltimore – Five Farms East (Baltimore) (#)

The Five Farms are spread over a large tract of rolling land. Tillinghast made good use of the land with a fairway that takes advantage of many natural greens, resulting in varied, interesting and challenging greens that are the crown jewels of the course. Five Farms also features two of Tillinghast’s best par-5s, the 6th barn hole and the huge 14th hazard. The course restoration expanded the greens and fairways, allowing for more hole locations resulting in more angles and opportunities along the course. If you score an invitation, drop everything and go.

3. The Burning Tree (Bethesda)

4. Columbia Country Club (Chevy Chase)

5. Valley of the Caves (Owings Mills)

How we rank our courses

For our newly released US Top 100 and Top 100 Playable lists—a process that helped us create the top 50 rankings in the country—each panelist was given a ballot consisting of 609 courses. . Alongside the list of courses were 11 “buckets” or groupings. If our panelists deemed a course to be among the top three in the US, they marked the first column. If they believed the rate was between numbers 4-10, they checked that column, followed by 11-25, 26-50 and so on up to 250+ and even a column for “remove”. Panelists were also free to write in courses they felt should have been included on the ballot.

Points were assigned to each bucket; to arrive at an average score for each course, we divide its overall score by the number of votes. From these point totals, courses are then ranked accordingly. It’s an intentionally simple and straightforward process. Why? Because it has historically produced results that are widely praised. Like the game itself, there’s no need to overcomplicate things or try to fix something that already works so well.

The key to the process is the experience and expertise of our panel. Hailing from 15 nations and all the golfing meccas around the world, each of our 127 hand-picked panelists has a keen eye for architecture, both regionally and globally. Many of our panelists have played more than 1000 courses in over 20 countries, some over 2000. Their handicaps range from +5 to +15.

Because the nature of course evaluation is so intensely subjective, no opinion counts. The only way, then, to build meaningful consensus is to incorporate this diversity of panelists and experiences into a ranking.

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