Is This The Best Golf Course in The World

What is the best golf course on the planet? It's a question that exercises the minds of many a keen student of the game, mostly because it's impossible to answer definitively. Just like asking someone to name the best album ever released or the best movie ever made - no matter how considered or educated the perspective, as with any opinion, it's subjective.

However, people do love to rank things, golf courses included, and one that frequently dominates the discussion is Northern Ireland's Royal County Down.

You only have to glance around many of the leading publications that base their lists on the combined views of learned panels of experts to see just how highly it is regarded.

Golf Digest - in its World's 100 Greatest Golf Courses - placed the Championship Course at Royal County Down 1st, as did Golfweek in its collection of The Top 100 International Courses.

Golf World's GB&I Top 100 placed Royal County Down in second place behind The Old Course at St Andrews, while Golf.com's Top 100 Courses in The World has the esteemed venue in 6th behind Pine Valley, Cypress Point, St Andrews, Shinnecock Hills, and National Golf Links of America.

For Top 100 Golf Courses, only the ultra-exclusive Cypress Point and Pine Valley rank ahead of Royal County Down.

On Golfshake, where the rankings are based on reviews submitted by everyday golfers, Royal County Down is 16th in the UK.

What is The Best Golf Course in The World?

But what makes a course truly great and how do you distinguish one great one from another? Do you base that judgement on its architectural ingenuity and influence, the uniqueness of the holes, the challenge it presents, the location, the scenery, or even the history of the place? Ultimately, you probably bring each of these factors together and that's why Royal County Down ticks so many boxes.

Resting next to Dundrum Bay and the Irish Sea, with the Mountains of Mourne in the background, there are few more majestic spots for a golf course than at Royal County Down in the small seaside town of Newcastle, just an hour away from Belfast.

Its layout is naturally rustic and full of character, with blind shots being a significant factor to keep all standards of golfer on their toes, and the holes are undeniably memorable.

But like any of the other frequently talked about candidates (Cypress Point, Pine Valley, St Andrews, etc), you can probably find other places that are more challenging, distinctive, scenic or historic than Royal County Down, but it's having that complete package that separates places like it from the pack.

Just like music, film, or any form of art, you could more or less objectively draw up a list of hundreds of great pieces of work that merit such recognition, but how can someone realistically rank one of these outstanding jewels ahead of another? That's where subjectivity - and the fun of debate - comes into play.

Royal County Down, the venue for the 2024 Irish Open on the DP World Tour, is clearly by any measure one of the finest, best, greatest (choose your word) golf courses in the world. 

Determining exactly where it ranks will be a topic among golf aficionados for generations to come, because, ultimately, the subjective nature of this discussion means that it can never be answered.

What we can say is that - yes - Royal County Down is a great one.

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