Greg Norman reveals his top golf courses in the world

There may be no man more adept at understanding the international scope of golf than Greg Norman. The Shark traveled halfway around the world—literally—for the opportunity to forge a professional career in the United States. Once Norman had made it in the States, he spent the following three decades as an ambassador for the game of golf on continents near and far.

What that reflects, beyond an affinity for lengthy flights, is a perception of golf course architecture that is as worldly as it is varied. A perception that is evident up and down Norman’s list of his top 10 courses in the world.

1. Royal Melbourne G.C.
   Melbourne, Australia
2. Shinnecock Hills
   Southampton, N.Y
3. St. Andrews
   St. Andrews, Scotland
4. Royal Dornoch
   Dornoch, Scotland
5. Kingston Heath
   Cheltenham, Australia
6. Oakmont
   Oakmont, Pa.
7. Augusta National
   Augusta, Ga
8. Machrihanish
   Machrihanish, Scotland
9. Harbour Town
   Hilton Head Island, S.C.
10. Cathedral Lodge
    Melbourne, Australia

The Composite Course at Royal Melbourne—one of the most natural courses in the world. Alister MacKenzie didn’t move any dirt. The flow of the course, the length—it tests every aspect of your game mentally and physically.

Magnetic Island Country Club off the coast of a town called Townsville in northeastern Queensland, Australia. It’s a nine-hole sand green golf course and that’s where I first played the game.

I just played my new course, Rancho San Lucas in Cabo, and my next round will be at Medalist Golf Club near West Palm Beach, Fla.

Royal Queensland Golf Club—I was an assistant pro there when I was 20–21 years old and I played just about every day of the week I could, sometimes 36 holes.

A tie between Shinnecock Hills and Carnoustie. I think Shinnecock is the hardest fairest golf course in the world. With Carnoustie, particularly in an Open Championship, it depends on the weather and how they set up the course—it is brutal. The routing is like a bowl of cooked spaghetti— everything goes in all different directions. No matter what direction you’re going it’s always into a cross-wind.

Doonbeg in Ireland because we built it by hand and it was one of the most environmentally sensitive projects we’ve ever done of the 106 I’ve opened. We proved that the developer/golf architect and builder/environmentalist can work hand-in-glove to achieve everybody’s wishes.

Harbour Town—it’s a classic Pete Dye. They use trees as hazards and as a test of shotmaking. There’s not much water there at all, but it’s one of the few golf courses where the greens are small and you really do have to shape your golf ball to score. To me, it should be in the Top 60.

Valderrama with all the reverse camber fairways—if the hole goes dogleg left-to-right, the camber of the fairway will be right-to-left. It goes against the grain of my visual architecture. It’s a good golf course, but it’s a little bit out of balance for me from an architecture standpoint.

Winged Foot. I love the golf course, love the layout. I came close there in the 1984 U.S. Open but I’ve never really been able to unlock the code to it.

St. Andrews backwards, because it was designed to be playable backwards, designed to go from the first tee to the 17th green. It’s just damn good.