Pacific Dunes in Bandon, Ore.
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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 Oregon. 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 public, best munis, best short courses, best par-3s and more – or filter by price to create the 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 Oregon (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. Pacific Dunes (Bandon) (#, Y, P)
This unconventional Tom Doak treasure catapulted him into the limelight at the turn of the century. A huge par-4 on the front nine paves the way for a 3-3-5-4-3-5 start to the second nine. Only Mike Keizer would have approved such an unusual sequence before, and this course helped free modern architecture from some of the design shackles that had constrained designers for the past five decades. Scattered bunkers, giant natural dunes, cleverly contoured greens and vistas of the Pacific complete Doak’s first masterpiece.
2. Bandon Trails (Bandon) (#, Y, P)
Some of Coore & Crenshaw’s best designs are housed in hard-to-reach private clubs, but many of their works are thankfully available to the public, often courtesy of developer Mike Keiser. The trails are one of their best – public or private. The course runs along and across high dunes and through a fascinating coastal forest and the fact that you don’t miss the view of the water nearby for most of the round speaks volumes for the quality of its design. 3 to 5 is a particularly inspired stretch of inland golf, featuring an example par-5, par-4 and par-3.
3. Bandon Dunes (Bandon) (#, Y, P)
Bandon’s original course is a David McLay Kidd design draped over steep cliffs above the Pacific. Ocean views dazzle the senses, along with bluff sand dunes sprinkled with Scots broom and giant bush, coastal pines, slips on slips, windswept tall native grasses and stacked wood bunkers. The most memorable seaside tests are the par-4 4th and 5th, the par-3 12th and the drivable par-4 16th, each with stunning scenery and pleasing risk/reward. The 2020 American amateur broadcast from here was fascinating.
4. Old Macdonald (Bandon) (#, Y, P)
The fourth 18-hole course built at Bandon Dunes, this Tom Doak-Jim Urbina collaboration pays tribute to Golden Age giant Charles Blair Macdonald, who himself was famous for paying tribute through his portfolio of template holes. Redan, Short, Long, Eden – these are all on display, along with hat tips for the fairway hole at St. Andrews and the Double Plateau green that Macdonald first used at National Golf Links on Long Island. . For all its imitation, Old Macdonald makes a unique impression, with deep, spiked bunkers and firm, fescue turf that make for as faithful an Old World experience as any public-access course in the United States.
5. Sheep farm (Bandon) (Y, P)
In a destination known for its minimalist designs, Sheep Ranch is somehow the most bare-bones of courses, with just a patch of trees and not a single sand bunker on the smallest plot of any of the five 18-hole courses. of Bandon Dunes. appearances. In other ways, though, it’s a maximized design, claiming more than a mile of shoreline on the windiest point in Bandon, with nine greens on the bluffs and water views from every hole. Either way, the course represents a master class in traveling, making the most of the modest surface area, moving through all the points on the compass but never going back and forth.
6. Waverley (Portland)
7. Silvies Valley Ranch – Craddock/Hankins Reversible (Seneca) (Y, P)
Golfers aren’t going to trek all the way to eastern Oregon for any old course, so the ownership of Silvies Valley Ranch agreed to architect Dan Hixson’s new idea for a reversible layout. One day, it’s the Craddock course; the next day it’s Hankins. Here’s the math: 36 holes, 27 greens and 16 fairways. Serious elevation changes will have you reaching for your rangefinder often; you’ll also need to allow for altitude—the high desert landscape is almost 5,000 feet above sea level. The 18th at Hankins descends 100 feet from the tee to the fairway, with stacking helping to provide a bit more spin.
8. Eugene (Eugene)
9. Pronghorn – Fazio (Band) (Y, P)
Tom Fazio had long made his mark on the world of architecture when he built the second course at Pronghorn, but this work was a turning point for him and his team’s aesthetic. While Fazio was known for designs that required a lot of ground movement (see the Alotian Club and Shadow Creek), his work at Pronghorn represented a shift toward a more natural approach, which he would extend to designs such as Gozzer Ranch and Shooting Star. At Pronghorn, the debris bunkers blend seamlessly into native manzanita and brush areas, the edges of the bunker resembling the Cascade Mountains looming in the distance. The par-3 8th was just like any other single putter before a dynamite explosion during construction revealed a century-old lava tube, a spectacle magnificent enough for Fazio to design around it. This course should be in conversation with the best wilderness offerings in the country.
10. Pumpkin Ridge – Witch Hollow (North Plains)
11. Portland
12. Pronghorn – Nicklaus (Bend) (Y, P)
The first of two courses at Pronghorn Golf Club opened in 2004 and introduced the ‘high desert’ to the Oregon golf lexicon, a style that has since grown in popularity with designs such as Tetherow and Brasada Canyon. Rock outcroppings dot the course and are used as risk-reward carriers as well as centerline hazards that need creativity and desire to navigate successfully, perhaps most memorably on the par-5 15th. In an area so concentrated for great golf, Jack Nicklaus’ signature course has its own identity and is among the best inland courses in the Pacific Northwest. The design also has helped solidify Bend’s reputation as one of the premier golf destinations on the West Coast.
13. Cross water (Solar River) (P)
14. Astoria (Warrenton)
15. Bar Run (Roseburg) (P)
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.Need help taming the greens on your home course? Get an order The Green Book to 8 a.m. Golf affiliate GolfLogix.
