Kiawah Island in Kiawah Island, SC
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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 South Carolina. 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 South Carolina (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. Kiawah Island – Ocean (Kiawah Island) (#, Y, P)
The mix of tidal marshes, scrub-covered dunes, live oaks and the soothing sound of the Atlantic on every hole makes this one of the most memorable playing experiences in the South. Although the course just turned 30 years old, it already has a distinguished history of hosting major events, none more memorable than the drama-filled Ryder Cup “War by the Shore” of 1991. Since then, around the greens has been added a lot more short grass, and now the design is more thoughtful than terror-inducing. Many of its greens are flat, with some of the most prominent coming on the 3rd, 11th and 14th holes. Phil Mickelson more than handled the putting surfaces on his way to his historic victory at the 2021 PGA Championship.
2. Yeamans Hall (Hanahan) (#)
Marrying Seth Raynor’s classic design with South Carolina’s coastal topography, Yeamans presents a charming tour of redan holes, biarritz and fairways weaving through swamps and magnificent live oaks. A two-decade renovation based on Raynor’s original property maps – discovered in the clubhouse loft – has returned this Golden Age masterpiece to its original glory. Jim Urbina oversaw much of the work that has seen the greens returned to their original size and every post bunker restored, even the most frustrating ones like those found on the fourth fairway. The green bunkers are not as deep as the green cushions are long and create nervous moments such as on the 10th Cape hole, where missing the green left or right leaves a tee shot, even though the hole plays flat. land. Although the overall vibe at Yeamans is relaxed, a green pad like the one built at Knoll 14 is as rough as it gets. Hard to fathom tackling the course with hickory clubs the way they did back then!
3. Old Barnwell (Aiken) (#)
Architects Brian Schneider and Blake Conant borrowed classic design principles and applied them in a new way to a sandy parcel of shifting soil outside Aiken. The ruggedness of the terrain that Chief Inspector Davis Verner routinely achieves (thanks in part to the lack of planting) allows the nuances of this design to shine through. Semi-equal holes are numerous. Can you reach the open but long green on the par-5 opener? Should you try driving the 2nd or 14th greens? (If you try and fail, the hunter quickly becomes the hunted as deep bunkers guard these two short 4s.) Can you use the mounds on the par-4 8th to launch an approach close to the inverted L-shaped green? are you Or how about trying to chip one onto the rolling green on the 235-yard 11th? Meanwhile, the centipede-like rust color gives this open course a skull-like feel. Complementing the ideal is the club’s ethos of giving back to the game and the community, as set out by Old Barnwell founder Nick Schreiber.
4. Harbor Town (Hilton Head Island) (#, Y, P)
Small greens. Comfortable roads. Details galore. Since 1969, the Dye-Nicklaus collaboration has been a breath of fresh air as an annual stop on the PGA Tour, a break from the same old bomb and yaw patterns. Modest in yardage but tall in character, Harbor Town demands precision from the tee and dead-eye iron game for fairways and greens framed by majestic pines and cap live oaks. Standout features include the V-shaped green on the short par-4 9th and the railroad ties around the 13th green, a Dye signature originally inspired by the architect’s travels with his wife, Alice, to Scotland in 1960s. The closing stretch from 1 p.m. onwards provides a particularly thrilling finale, punctuated by the sight of the red-and-white-striped lighthouse looming behind 18th green.
5. Palmetto GC (Aiken)
6. Congaree (Ridgeland)
7. Tree Farm (Batesburg)
8. Country Club of Charleston (Charleston)
9. Long Cove (Hilton Head Island)
10. Sage Valley (Graniteville)
11. Secession (Beaufort)
12. Chechessee Creek (Okatie)
13. Palmetto Bluff – May River (Bluffton) (Y, P)
This graceful design captures the allure of Lowcountry golf. Many of the features are attached to the ground as the course winds through the property. On some holes, like the par-3 2nd, the fairways aren’t very green; in others, such as on the dangerously short par-4 7th, the hazard is level with the putting surface. On the par-5 15th, a pair of Spectacle bunkers hide the long approach to the green, creating a sense of mystery. Holes 13 and 14 ooze beauty and epitomize the kind of golf you want to play every day.
14. Dunat (Myrtle Beach) (Y, P)
Before World War II, Robert Trent Jones Sr. worked for the legendary Canadian architect, Stanley Thompson. Jones’ early solo works, particularly at Peachtree and here at the Dunes, show a similar design style to what made the Toronto Terror so famous. The second nine is anchored by the iconic par-5 13th that stretches around the lake. Indeed, many consider the back nine to be one of the best in the Palmetto State. But the front nine is almost as good, with the 2nd and 4th dog holes favoring perfect pulls from every tee, and the one-shot green on the 9th offering the best view of Atlantic Ocean. For more than 50 years, the Golf Writers Association of America was smart enough to gather here the week before the Masters.
15. Colleton River Club – Pete Dye (Bluffton)
16. Quixote Club (Sumter)
17. Bull’s Bay (Awendaw)
18. Kiawah Island – Cassique (Kiawah Island)
19. Old Ties Tabby (Okatie)
20. Kiawah Island – River (Kiawah)
21. Caledonia (Pawleys Island) (Y, P)
Strantz’s wild artistic style — “You either like it or you don’t get it yet,” one astute observer once noted — has attracted a cult-like following since his death in 2005. Of the nine designs his original, Caledonia was first; it soon followed with a sister model in nearby True Blue. Among the classic Strantz touches here are a fairway isthmus on the par-4 13th and a “devil’s hole” bunker on the par-3 17th, set against a Lowcountry backdrop of Spanish moss and winding marshes. Strantz’s designs are full of strategic genius and intricate visuals. Caledonia is no exception.
22. Camden Country Club (Camden)
23. Greenville CC – Chanticleer (Greenville)
24. Colleton River Club – Nicklaus (Bluffton)
25. Musgrove Mill (Clinton)
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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