Augusta National is not the best golf course in the country. Here's why
Masters 2026: It might surprise you that Augusta National isn't the top-ranked course in the United States
It might surprise some people that Augusta National is not the top-ranked course in the United States. It's been No. 1 in our rankings three times, the last time being 2015.
Most often, Augusta National has been ranked second in our ranking of America’s 100 Greatest Courses list . Though the home of the Masters is the most famous course in the U. S.
, it’s Pine Valley Golf Club in southwest New Jersey that owns the top spot in our latest ranking. RELATED: 6 new courses on our bucket list for 2026 Our ranking of America's 100 Greatest courses are the result of scores from our course-ranking panelists, who evaluate courses for Golf Digest based on six scoring definitions— Shot Options, Challenge, Layout Variety, Aesthetics, Conditioning and Character . Not surprisingly, Augusta National ranks first in Character and Conditioning.
But you wouldn't technically be able to call it the most beautiful course, based on our rankings . That'd be Cypress Point, which edges Augusta National in our Aesthetics category by 16 hundredths of a point—which is essentially a rounding error considering the hundreds of evaluations submitted on both courses. What makes a course beautiful, according to Golf Digest?
Continue to the original source for the full article.