Courses in the World for Views, The Views Golf Club golf course

Ranked · 6 courses · reviewed June 2026

The Best Golf Courses in the World for Views

Some courses are great golf. A rare few are also among the most beautiful places on earth, where the round is half the reason you came and the scenery is the other half. Here are six of the most spectacular golf courses anywhere for views, from a New Zealand clifftop to the edge of the Arctic, ranked, with our verdict on each.

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By the GolfForKings editorial desk · How we rank · Last reviewed June 2026

Photograph: The Views Golf Club, The Views Golf Club, via Google

How we chose them

This is a list about the view, not only the golf, though every course here is a serious test in its own right. We looked for the most dramatic settings in the game, the clifftops, the headlands and the coastlines where the landscape stops you mid swing, then weighed how much of the round actually plays along that scenery rather than just glimpsing it. The result spans the globe, from a New Zealand sheep station running out over the Pacific to a promontory two miles into the Atlantic off Ireland, to a course inside the Arctic Circle bathed in midnight sun.

Every fact here, the designers and the opening years, was checked at the time of writing in June 2026 by the GolfForKings editorial desk. These are remote, premium courses, and green fees and access move with the season, so always confirm directly before booking. The verdicts are ours. If one of these is on your bucket list, our concierge can build the round into a wider trip, with the lodging, the transfers and the timing handled and costed to the head.

6 of the best golf courses in the world for views

Cape Kidnappers

Tom Doak, 2004 · Hawke's Bay, New Zealand

Our pick for the most jaw dropping setting in golf, Cape Kidnappers runs along fingers of farmland that jut out high above the Pacific, the fairways framed by plunging ravines and the ocean a hundred metres straight down. Tom Doak's 2004 design plays out and back along these ridges so the sea is in view almost throughout, and the par five fifteenth, Pirate's Plank, runs toward a green seemingly suspended over the cliff. Part of the Rosewood Cape Kidnappers resort, it is as close to playing golf at the edge of the world as the game offers.

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Old Head Golf Links

Opened 1997 · Kinsale, County Cork, Ireland

The most improbable golf course in Europe, Old Head sits on a diamond of land that juts two miles into the Atlantic off Kinsale, joined to Ireland by a narrow rocky neck. Opened in 1997 to a design by a team including Eddie Hackett, Ron Kirby and Liam Higgins, it has nine holes that flirt with cliff edges two hundred feet above the sea, with lighthouses, sea stacks and circling gulls completing the picture. The golf is exhilarating and the setting unforgettable, weather permitting, which here is never guaranteed.

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Pebble Beach Golf Links

Jack Neville and Douglas Grant, 1919 · Monterey, California

The most famous coastal course in the world and the one most golfers dream of, Pebble Beach was routed in 1919 by amateurs Jack Neville and Douglas Grant to hang as many holes as possible along the Monterey Peninsula. The stretch from the seventh, a tiny par three to a green on the rocks, through the cliff hugging eighth, ninth and tenth, and home to the cape hole eighteenth, is the most photographed in the game. A regular US Open venue and open to resort guests, it is scenery and history in equal measure.

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Cabot Cliffs

Coore and Crenshaw, 2016 · Inverness, Nova Scotia

The modern benchmark for cliffside drama, Cabot Cliffs opened in 2016 to a Bill Coore and Ben Crenshaw design on the rugged west coast of Cape Breton. Six holes hug the clifftops above the Gulf of St Lawrence, the par three sixteenth playing across a chasm to a green on a promontory, and the routing builds to a finish among the best anywhere. Paired with its sister course Cabot Links in the village of Inverness, it has turned a remote corner of Canada into one of the great golf pilgrimages.

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Cape Wickham Links

Mike DeVries and Darius Oliver, 2015 · King Island, Australia

The wild card and one of the most thrilling new courses in the world, Cape Wickham opened in 2015 on the windswept northern tip of King Island in the Bass Strait, designed by Mike DeVries and Darius Oliver. The course wraps around a lighthouse and a curving beach, with the ocean in play on most holes and the closing stretch running right along the sand. Remote, raw and rarely crowded, it rewards the golfer willing to make the trip to one of the southernmost edges of Australia.

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Lofoten Links

Jeremy Turner, 18 holes 2015 · Gimsoysand, Norway

The most surreal setting on this list, Lofoten Links lies inside the Arctic Circle on Norway's Lofoten archipelago, expanded to eighteen holes in 2015 by Jeremy Turner. The course threads between white sand beaches, granite peaks and the cold blue Norwegian Sea, and in June and July you can tee off at midnight under the midnight sun. The golf is genuinely good links, but it is the scenery, the mountains rising sheer from the water, that makes it a bucket list round like no other.

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Designers and opening years verified June 2026 by the GolfForKings editorial desk. These are remote, premium courses; course profiles are added across the site as the directory grows. Always confirm access and fees directly before booking. Check tee time availability.

Where they are, and when to go

These six span four continents and both hemispheres, so timing matters as much as travel. Pebble Beach in California, Old Head in southwest Ireland, Cabot Cliffs in Nova Scotia and Lofoten in Arctic Norway are northern summer courses, broadly May to October, while Cape Kidnappers in New Zealand and Cape Wickham in Australia run opposite, peaking from spring to autumn in the southern hemisphere, around November to April. Most require a flight plus a transfer to reach, and several pair naturally with a sister course or a wider regional trip.

Course	Best months	Notes
Pebble Beach, Old Head, Cabot Cliffs	Roughly May to October	Northern hemisphere; book premium tee times ahead
Lofoten Links	June to August, midnight sun in June and July	Arctic Norway; short season, long daylight
Cape Kidnappers, Cape Wickham	Roughly November to April	Southern hemisphere; remote, pair with a wider trip

Seasonal guidance is indicative for 2026 and set expectations only. We are a guide, not an operator, and never quote our own pricing. Always confirm conditions and fees directly before booking.

Plan a bucket list golf trip

One of these on your list, or a tour built around several. Tell us roughly when and who is travelling, and one concierge arranges the tee times, the lodging and the long haul logistics, costs the whole trip to the head, and replies within one working day, with no obligation.

Scenic golf questions

What is the most scenic golf course in the world?

Opinions differ, but our pick is Cape Kidnappers in New Zealand, where Tom Doak routed the holes along clifftop fingers of land plunging into the Pacific. Pebble Beach on the Monterey coast, Old Head on its Atlantic promontory in Ireland and Cabot Cliffs in Nova Scotia are all in the conversation. The right answer depends on whether you want ocean cliffs, links dunes or Arctic light.

Can you play these scenic courses as a visitor?

Most of them, yes, though several are remote and command premium green fees. Pebble Beach, Old Head, Cabot Cliffs, Cape Wickham and Lofoten Links all welcome visitors, usually with advance booking and often paired with on site or nearby lodging. Cape Kidnappers is a resort course at Rosewood Cape Kidnappers. Always confirm access and current fees directly before booking.

When is the best time to play them for the views?

It varies by hemisphere. Pebble Beach, Old Head, Cabot Cliffs and Lofoten are northern summer and shoulder season courses, roughly May to October, with Lofoten famous for its midnight sun in June and July. Cape Kidnappers and Cape Wickham are in the southern hemisphere, so their prime months run from spring to autumn, around November to April. All are coastal and exposed, so pack for wind.

The Tee Sheet

Bucket list courses, the great coastlines and the booking windows that matter. Every other week.

Researched and written by the GolfForKings editorial desk. Designers and opening years verified June 2026. Last reviewed June 2026.