The GOLF Course Guide has featured a list of courses available for Green Fee Play for over two decades, and coined the term 'public access' to describe these courses.

Although other publications publish rankings that include all the best Private Golf Clubs, such as ROYAL MELBOURNE, we think it's important to focus on those layouts where everyone can get a game. 

nr =  not ranked. NB for both magazines this is in overall Top 100 (including Private courses) hence their list of Public Access rankings is shorter.

NC SEVEN MILE BEACH was not open for play during the judging period for the GOLF Course Guide

Comments

Golf Australia Magazine previously ranked all courses by asking each judge to award 100 points to the top course, 99 to the next, etc. and to place primary importance on design, followed by conditioning and visual appeal. We were critical of the unscientific nature of this method. Their new criteria (revised this year to place even more emphasis on design and aesthetics and less on conditioning) aligns well with the GOLF Course Guide, but their (previous) definition of CONDITION includes:

• "The overall condition of playing surfaces. Take into consideration elements out of control of course staff like drought, bushfire and flood."  The Guide does not suggest this to judges, we ask them to judge on what they see, and hope to present a fair assessment of year-round conditions since our judges visit throughout the year.
• "Are the fairways cut to be well-defined from semi-rough and rough?" The Guide does not consider this a desirable feature at all. We dont believe in 'prescriptive' mowing patterns. We like the fairways to blend naturally into the roughs, and feel that a distinct 'first cut' is often penal for the golfer who 'just misses' the closely mown fairway edge.

All three publications named the same top 3 - all new Tasmanian links. There is little significant difference in the top 20 courses, with GA Mag favouring ST ANDREWS BEACH and LONSDALE LINKS more than Digest or The Guide, and being harsher on JOONDALUP.  PORT FAIRY,  CURLEWIS and SANDY LINKS are also GA Mag favourites. The Guide marks BROOKWATER down a little as we find it penal for many public players.