What are the Golfers’ Choice Rankings?

There's no shortage of course rankings published each year across the golfing world, and rightly so, we all love a good list and each year these rankings are eagerly anticipated by golf media around the world. Not only are lists and rankings just plain fun but they're incredibly useful to help you decide which golf courses to put on your bucket list or to help you plan golf trips.

Most of these course ranking lists are compiled by small groups of experts who (often) know what they are talking about and who have played the best courses in the world. They use their knowledge to decide which are the best courses of a country, a continent or the world. But the problem with this is that a small group of experts can have a lot of power over deciding where you spend your money and it's not a very democratic system.

When we launched our Golfers' Choice Rankings nine years ago, we decided to put you - the golfer - in control. When Leading Courses was founded in 2007, our main objective was to help fellow golfers gather information about golf courses, to help golfers make the best-informed choice in their search for the next golf course they wanted to play. Since 2007, more than 325,000 reviews on global courses have been written on Leadingcourses.com. These reviews are a unique source of insight and are the sole driving force behind the Golfers' Choice Ranking. To put it simply, the Golfers' Choice Awards are your rankings. There's no one better to decide if a golf course or club belongs in a top list than the golfers who have experienced it themselves. Power to the people, we say! 

The Golfers' Choice Rankings aren't just about Golf Courses. We also take into account the General Impression of a Golf Club, Maintenance, Price-Quality, Hospitality and Facilities. Every time a golfer writes a review about a golf club, they are asked to provide ratings (from 1 to 10) for these 9 different components:

• General Impression
• The Golf Course
• Maintenance
• Facilities
• Clubhouse 
• Value for money
• Hospitality
• Surroundings
• Restaurant (new)

Our algorithm calculates a weighted average based on the scores given for each of these review components. This algorithm also takes into account the status of the reviewer (Steel, Bronze, Silver or Gold), how recently a golfer has played the club, the completeness of the review and the number of times the user has reviewed the course to calculate the rating of the review.

When a golf club has gathered a sufficient amount of reviews (and more important, points) and meets the set criteria, they are eligible to qualify for the rankings. To make sure that ratings stay relevant, reviews are devalued over time. We only release our rankings in countries where Leading Courses has enough reviewed courses to create a reliable comparison. 

This year we will launch rankings in the following 15 countries: Austria, Belgium, Curaçao, Cyprus, France, Germany, Italy, Mauritius, Morocco, Portugal, Spain, Switzerland, The Netherlands, Turkey, United Arab Emirates.

The Golfers' Choice Rankings for 2022 will be published on March 14th. To have an impact on next years rankings, all you have to do is start (or keep) writing reviews about the golf courses you have played. The more reviews you write, the higher your user status on Leadingcourses.com and the more impact your review has on the rating of a golf club. On top of that you also keep an online journal of all your golf experiences and you have the chance to win great prizes every month. So go ahead and write a review, or download the Leading Courses app.

Write a review

Download the app on the Apple Store or on Google Play.

Want to keep up to date on all Golfers' Choice Rankings as soon as they're released? Subscribe to our newsletter and you won't miss a thing! To sweeten the deal, we're giving away 3x2 green fees for 2 of the most highly ranked clubs in Spain, La Cala, where you have a choice of 3 courses and the New Course at La Zagaleta's. Trust us, you really don't want to miss the opportunity to win this prize.

To enter, simply scroll down on this page and enter your email address in the "e-mail" field and hit "SUBSCRIBE TO OUR NEWSLETTER". Don't see the newsletter field below? Don't worry, we've got you covered and you're already subscribed to the newsletter, all you need to do it sit tight and you already have a chance to win.