From St Andrews to Pebble Beach: The 12 Best Luxury Golf Resorts in the World

Gleneagles was a golf course before it was a hotel. James Braid's King's Course opened on 1 May 1919, and Gleneagles followed on 7 June 1924, built in Perthshire by the Caledonian Railway Company and sold as a "Riviera in the Highlands". The railway left its mark. Our winner has its own station, less than two minutes from the front door.

Three championship courses share the 850-acre estate. Braid's King's Course is heathland, and his Queen's Course plays to a par 68. Jack Nicklaus built the PGA Centenary Course, nearly 7,000 yards from the white tees, where Europe won the 2014 Ryder Cup and the 2019 Solheim Cup. The hotel says it is the only European golf resort to have hosted both. The Wee Course has nine par-3 holes. Guests and visitors book the same tee times, and nobody asks for a handicap certificate.

The non-golfer in your party will not be bored. Restaurant Andrew Fairlie holds two Michelin stars, The American Bar pours cocktails in a 1920s room, and the estate runs falconry, fishing, riding and off-road driving. Breakfast comes with every rate. The catch is the drive. Edinburgh and Glasgow airports are about an hour away, so save the first round for the day after you land.

Neither of the men who laid out Pebble Beach Golf Links had designed a course before. Jack Neville and Douglas Grant were amateurs. Their links opened in 1919, the same year as The Lodge at Pebble Beach. The Lodge frames the 18th green, on 17-Mile Drive in California. A fire had destroyed the earlier log lodge on the site.

Six U.S. Opens have been played here. Gary Woodland won in 2019, and in 2023 the course staged its first U.S. Women's Open. The 18th is a par 5 of 541 yards. The par-3 5th is newer, a Jack Nicklaus hole added in 1998. Every February the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am comes back, as it has since 1947. The same resort runs Spyglass Hill, The Links at Spanish Bay and The Hay, so a week here never means one course on repeat.

Back indoors, every room has a gas fireplace, and the Fairway One cottages look over the first fairway. Book dinner at Stillwater or The Tap Room. The spa covers 22,000 sq ft.

Every evening at six, the Road Hole Bar pours a taster from more than 250 whiskies. The Old Course Hotel overlooks the 17th of the Old Course, the Road Hole itself, and the town centre of St Andrews is a five-minute walk. Kohler runs the 175 rooms, with views over the course and the West Sands.

Here is the awkward part. The hotel does not own the course. The Links Trust manages the Old Course, and the hotel's Suite Golf package guarantees you a tee time on it: five nights between April and October, for a group of at least four, with rounds at Kingsbarns and Dumbarnie on top. The Duke's Course is five minutes away by courtesy car, and the spa's contrast suite has a snow cabin.

Jack Nicklaus was 19 when he won the 1959 U.S. Amateur at The Broadmoor. Annika Sorenstam won the 1995 U.S. Women's Open there too, and in all its courses have hosted nine USGA championships, seven of them on the East. Golf came with the hotel. It opened in Colorado Springs in June 1918, and Donald Ross's first course followed on 4 July. Robert Trent Jones Sr. later added holes to both the East and West courses.

You cannot drop in for a round. The courses and the spa are kept for overnight guests and members. It is a big hotel, with 784 rooms and about 20 places to eat. Take dinner at The Penrose Room, then ride the cog railway up Pikes Peak.

The Mediterranean is in view from several holes at Finca Cortesín, and the Sierra Bermeja rises behind the 10th and 17th. Cabell B. Robinson designed the par-72 course. The hotel says the 7th, at 452 metres, is the longest par 4 on the Costa del Sol. In 2023 it hosted the Solheim Cup on the event's first visit to Spain, after three World Match Play Championships.

Off the course, this is a 67-room cortijo at Casares. Book the Pool Suite Sea View for its 60 m² terrace and private pool. The spa covers more than 2,200 m², the Beach Club has a 35-metre infinity pool, and the hotel holds a MICHELIN Key.

County Clare has its own copy of the Road Hole bunker at St Andrews. It sits, riveted, in the practice area at Dromoland Castle, the O'Brien family seat, rebuilt in grey Gothic stone between 1800 and 1836 and a hotel since 1962. The par-72 parkland course by Ron Kirby and JB Carr is on the 500-acre estate and has hosted the KPMG Women's Irish Open.

Inside are 96 rooms and a cocktail bar in the old O'Brien library. Outside, the lake has rowing boats you can take out for free. Residents pay a lower green fee than visitors, but they still pay one. Shannon Airport is 15 minutes away.

Ireland's first Ryder Cup was played on Palmer North at The K Club in 2006, 30 minutes from Dublin. Arnold Palmer designed both courses, on a 550-acre estate on the River Liffey around Straffan House, built in 1832. The club recommends its courses to golfers with a good level of play, so beginners should look elsewhere. After the round, the K Spa's outdoor hot tub is waiting.

Your neighbours at Rosewood Cape Kidnappers are sheep. The lodge is on a 6,000-acre sheep and beef farm in Hawke's Bay, New Zealand, and Tom Doak's par-71 course, completed in 2004, is perched 140 metres above the Pacific. Between rounds, join a shepherding tour with the farm's Huntaway dogs, walk out to the gannet colony on the cape or give a day to the Hawke's Bay wineries. Napier Airport is 45 minutes away.

Hotel guests at Montage Los Cabos never tee off alone, because a caddie is required. The course is the Twin Dolphin Club, a par-72 Fred Couples design that runs through canyons, arroyos and desert cliffs with views of the Sea of Cortez. Back on Santa Maria Bay, each of the 122 rooms has a terrace and an outdoor shower, and the spa covers 40,000 sq ft.

At Aurora Anguilla, the 2nd and 10th holes of Greg Norman's International Course share one 16,000 sq ft green on Rendezvous Beach. The 18th asks more of you. The resort calls it one of the hardest finishing holes in the Caribbean, with a tee shot over the salt pond. Avalon Links adds nine holes, par 27, that take about an hour. Bring the children, because the 300 acres also hold a water park with a lazy river.

In Frank Capra's Lost Horizon, Shangri-La is the grounds of Ojai Valley Inn. The inn began as a golf course, laid out in 1923 by George C. Thomas Jr. and Billy Bell in California's Ojai Valley. It runs to 6,292 yards and was shaped without heavy equipment. Bing Crosby and Bob Hope played an exhibition match at the club in 1945.

The 171-yard 16th at Fox Harb'r runs down beside the Northumberland Strait. It belongs to the links Ocean Nine, and the heathland Vineyard Nine makes up the rest of the golf, all designed by Doug Carrick and Tom McBroom. The resort covers 1,100 acres on the Nova Scotia shore, an hour and a half's drive from Halifax, with a 25-slip marina and a private airstrip. The course season runs from May to late October.