1 · Nago, main island north · resort
Kanucha Golf Course
The complete Okinawa package. Eighteen holes from 1993 rolling through the hills of the vast Kanucha Bay Resort above Oura Bay, par 72 and 6,937 yards from the back tees, with the Pacific filling the view on the Seaside nine. The golf is genuinely good, the conditioning the most reliable on the island, and the resort behind it, hotel, villas, beach and a dozen restaurants, makes it the easiest base in the prefecture for a golf led holiday. Indicative fees run about 24,000 yen weekdays and 29,000 on holidays. Around 80 to 90 minutes from Naha Airport up the expressway.
2 · Onna, main island north · resort
The Atta Terrace Golf Resort
The stylish one. Par 72 and 6,925 yards from 1994 on the Onnadake highlands, with the East China Sea glittering beyond the fairways and an adults only hotel, The Atta Terrace Club Towers, at its center. The course is immaculate and the published 2026 rates are unusually transparent: 20,010 yen weekdays and 24,960 on weekends through October, rising through winter to a January and February peak of 33,100 and 38,050, when mainlanders flee south. Couples should book nowhere else first.
3 · Nanjo, main island south · championship
Ryukyu Golf Club
Okinawa's tournament course. Twenty seven holes from 1977 on the Chinen peninsula in the south, where the JLPGA's Daikin Orchid Ladies has opened the Japanese season since 1988; the 2026 edition ran March 5 to 8. The tour combination plays big and exposed above the sea, and the caddie included indicative rates, about 26,000 yen weekdays and 32,000 on holidays, buy the closest thing to a major venue experience in the prefecture. Just 35 minutes from Naha Airport, it is the natural first or last round of any trip.
4 · Nago, main island north · championship
Kanehide Kise Country Club
The big course. Michio Izumi's 2001 layout stretches 7,193 yards at par 72 across the Woods and Ocean nines, and the Japan PGA Championship came here in 2007 and 2017, the only men's major of the Japanese tour to visit the island in that era. Value is the quiet story: all inclusive rates of about 16,000 yen from April to September and 20,000 through the winter high season, with the Oriental Hotel Okinawa Resort three minutes away running free shuttles. For the strongest test on the island at the fairest price, this is the pick.
5 · Onna, main island west coast · resort
PGM Golf Resort Okinawa
The flexible one. Twenty seven holes, the Deigo, Hibiscus and Bougainvillea nines, first opened in 1972 to a Keiji Matsuyama design and renovated in 2017 with input from Isao Aoki, an hour from Naha on the Onna resort coast. PGM runs it with mainland efficiency: online booking, indicative fees of about 17,000 yen weekdays and 22,000 on holidays, and floodlit night golf, a rarity in Japan and a gift in the subtropical summer. The west coast sunset over the East China Sea is worth the twilight time alone.
6 · Itoman, main island south · hilltop
Palm Hills Golf Resort Club
The southern hilltop. An American flavored 1991 design by Fred Bliss, later refined by Ross Forbes, par 72 and 6,842 yards on a ridge 130 meters above the southern coast, with long Pacific views and wind that does the defending. Now operated by Accordia, Japan's biggest golf group, it books easily online and typically runs around 24,000 yen with lunch included, the standard Japanese resort formula. Twenty five minutes from Naha, it pairs neatly with Ryukyu Golf Club for a southern double.
7 · Miyako Island · seaside
Emerald Coast Golf Links
The postcard. Eighteen seaside holes from 1988 beside Maehama, regularly called Japan's most beautiful beach, with every hole facing the sea and a famous ocean carry at the 16th. It is not long and it is not trying to be; it is the round you describe to friends for years, played over coral ground against water in six shades of blue. Indicative fees run 14,000 to 22,000 yen including tax, and winter and spring tee sheets fill with mainland escapees, so book ahead. Fly Naha to Miyako in about 50 minutes.
8 · Miyako Island · seaside
Ocean Links Miyakojima
Miyako's second course and the value play of this entire list: par 72, 6,995 yards from the tips, laid along the coast in 1996, with wild peacocks strolling the fairways and indicative fees of just 9,000 to 15,000 yen before tax. The closing stretch along the water gives nothing away to its more famous neighbor. Pair the two Miyako courses with the island's beaches and you have the best three day golf escape in Japan that almost no western golfer has heard of. About 30 minutes from Miyako Airport.
9 · Uruma, main island center · 36 holes
Okinawa Royal Golf Club
The volume option. Thirty six holes in the Ishikawa highlands of central Okinawa, four nines that let a group rotate combinations across a weekend without repeating a hole. It is a members style club that takes public bookings through Japan's platforms, Rakuten GORA and GDO among them, where current rates publish; expect mid teens to about 20,000 yen and confirm when booking. The center island location splits the difference between Naha and the northern resorts, useful for a group scattered along the coast.
10 · Kohama Island, Yaeyama Islands · remote
Kohama Island Country Club
The far frontier. Eighteen holes at par 72 on tiny Kohama Island in the Yaeyamas, reached by a 30 minute ferry from Ishigaki and attached to Hoshino Resorts' RISONARE Kohamajima. These are Japan's southernmost and westernmost holes, played over a coral island between jungle and lagoon. Note that Ishigaki itself has only a 9 hole par 3 short course at the ANA InterContinental, so this is the Yaeyamas' one real round; treat it as an adventure attached to a beach holiday rather than a pilgrimage, and confirm operations with the resort when booking.
Our ranking and verdicts. Course facts and indicative fees verified June 2026 from club, resort, tourism board and booking platform sources; rates vary by season, day and plan, so always confirm directly before booking. Check tee time availability.
