Fairways to Heaven: The Biggest Golf Course in the World

The runners and riders for the title of world’s biggest golf course are masterpieces of design, engineering and artistic vision. These sprawling sanctuaries of the sport not only challenge the skill and strategy of players but also offer an immersive experience into the natural beauty and diverse landscapes they inhabit.

From the brilliance of Ballesteros to the tenacity of Tiger and the magic of McIlroy, golfers are leaner, stronger and more powerful than ever, and coupled with advancements in club and ball technology, courses are getting longer and more challenging.

The average golf course length is somewhere between 6,600 yards and 7,200 yards – golf courses have always been measured in yards rather than feet, metres, or even miles or kilometres – but the largest golf course in the world is longer. Much longer.

Read on to find out just how long the world’s largest golf course is, as well as finding out the size of the biggest mini golf course in the world, windmills and all!

We’ll also list the lengths of the world’s most iconic golf courses for comparison, and scroll all the way to the end to discover a unique golf course of such truly epic proportions it’s scarcely believable.

Location: Darlington, UK | Par: 72 | Length: 7,879 yards

Close to the meandering curves of the River Tees in England’s picturesque northeast, Rockliffe Hall is owned by Middlesbrough FC chairman Steve Gibson and is a contender for the longest course in the UK as well as the world’s biggest golf course.

Opened in 2009, the course was designed by Marc Westenborg from eminent golf course architecture firm Hawtree. With an island green on the par three 5th, coupled with lakes, woodland and deep, aggressive rough, it’s one of the region’s most beautiful courses as well as one of its most challenging.

Location: Colorado, USA | Par: 72 | Length: 8,114 yards

Three lakes and no less than 73 bunkers are the most prominent features of the prairie dunes-style Antler Creek, an hour’s drive south of Denver. While it isn’t the world’s biggest golf course, at over 8,000 yards, it’s comfortably in the top ten.

Unlike most of the courses on this list, Antler Creek is a pay-as-you-play public course which opened in 2004. Designed by Colorado native Dick Phelps, the course has played host to a number of qualifying tournaments for the USGA tour as well as the Colorado Golf Association Stroke Play Championship.

Location: Alabama, USA | Par: 72 | Length: 8,191 yards

Designed by prolific golf course architect Robert Trent Jones Sr., the eponymous golf trail is a series of dozens of courses in the US state of Alabama, including a contender for the world’s largest golf course, Ross Bridge.

The challenging parkland course includes ten holes running alongside two man-made lakes as well as a gently cascading 80 foot (25-metre) waterfall between the 9th and 18th holes.

Location: Johannesburg, South Africa | Par: 72 | Length: 8,420 yards

The first of two South African courses on this list, Blair Atholl was designed by nine-time major winner Gary Player, widely regarded as one of golf’s greatest ever players.

The stunning course, which opened in 2007, is designed in a loop around a number of natural water features and runs alongside the Crocodile River. It also offers sensational views of the Magaliesberg mountains, believed to be one of the oldest mountain ranges in the world.

Location: Limpopo, South Africa | Par: 72 | Length: 8,473 yards

South Africa’s longest course and the second-biggest golf course in the world, the Legend Signature Golf Course features eighteen holes, each designed by a legend of the game.

Hole 1 | Trevor Immelman | South Africa
Hole 2 | Thomas Bjorn | Denmark
Hole 3 | Jim Furyk | USA
Hole 4 | Bernhard Langer | Germany
Hole 5 | Michael Campbell | New Zealand
Hole 6 | Colin Montgomerie | Scotland
Hole 7 | Mike Weir | Canada
Hole 8 | Camilo Villegas | Colombia
Hole 9 | Justin Rose | England
Hole 10 | Padraig Harrington | Ireland
Hole 11 | Raphael Jacqelin | France
Hole 12 | Ian Woosnam | Wales
Hole 13 | Luke Donald | England
Hole 14 | Robert Allenby | Australia
Hole 15 | Vijay Singh | Fiji
Hole 16 | Sergio Garcia | Spain
Hole 17 | KJ Choi | South Korea
Hole 18 | Retief Goosen | South Africa

But perhaps the course is most famous for the Extreme 19th, the longest and highest par three in the world. Accessible only by helicopter, the tee – on top of Hanglip Mountain – is around 1,300 feet above the South Africa-shaped green and offers one of the best views of any golf hole in the world.

Location: Lijiang, China | Par: 72 | Length: 8,548 yards

Overlooked by the staggeringly beautiful 18,360 foot Jade Dragon Snow Mountain in China’s Yunnan province, the largest golf course in the world was designed by Robin Nelson and Neil Haworth as two distinctly different nine-hole courses. The front nine (holes 1 – 9) is akin to a northern European links course, and the back nine (holes 10 – 18), is a classic mountain course.

It’s also one of the world’s highest golf courses at approximately 10,800 feet above sea level. At that height, the air is thinner and the ball will travel around 20% further that it would on an American or European golf course.

Technically it’s 1,365 kilometres, or almost 850 miles long, but is the Nullarbor Links the biggest golf course in the world, or is it just a series of individual golf holes crossing the Eyre Highway in Australia’s outback?

Starting at the world-famous gold mining town of Kalgoorlie in Western Australia and ending at Ceduna in South Australia, the Nullarbor Links was created by Bob Bongiorno and Alf Caputo. They wanted to encourage travellers along the Nullarbor Plain to stop at roadhouses for refreshments and to stop attacks of driver fatigue.

Seven of the eighteen holes are replicas from existing courses and eleven have been created at roadside restaurants and service stations, with artificial grass for the tees and greens, and the desert as the fairway. The individual holes are of average length, for example the first hole, a par-5 called Oyster Beds is 530 yards, and the par three 9th, Brumby’s Run, is 137 yards.

But it’s the distance between the holes that makes the Nullarbor Links the world’s largest golf course, or at least arguably a strong contender for the title. The average distance between holes is around 66 kilometres (41 miles) and the furthest distance is a shade under 200 kilometres, or 120 miles!

Minigolf, or crazy golf as it’s sometimes known, was created in the early twentieth century and has become one of the most creative ways of playing golf! From shipwrecks and glow-in-the-dark courses, to recreations of the world’s most famous golf holes and even a course built under a funeral parlour in Chicago, minigolf captures the imagination of all who play, but where is the biggest mini golf course in the world?

The answer remains tantalisingly unclear, unlike that of standard golf courses. There are a number of contenders vying for the title, including Priština Golf located a few miles south of the capital city of Kosovo, Hawaiian Rumble Golf in South Carolina – complete with an active 40-foot volcano – and Championship Adventure Golf in New Brighton on the Wirral, which recreates some of the world’s most iconic golf holes, including Augusta’s Amen Corner, and the island green at the 17th at TPC Sawgrass.

According to Guinness World Records, the longest minigolf hole in the world is the 18th at the pirate-themed Shipwreck Amusements in Cortland, New York. It measures a staggering 459 feet 6 inches, or 140 metres.

When it comes to the most iconic golf courses in the world, there’s no single definitive list, it’s a question of opinion. Yet there are standout and prestigious venues that have witnessed the triumphs and challenges of the sport’s finest. Here’s a list of these iconic courses from the golfing world:

Old Course, St. Andrews | Scotland | 72 | 7,305 yards
Pebble Beach | USA | 72 | 6,802 yards
Augusta National | USA | 72 | 7,445 yards
Palmer North Course, K Club | Republic of Ireland | 72 | 7,350 yards
Royal Birkdale | England | 70 | 7,156 yards
Stadium Course, Sawgrass | USA | 72 | 7,275
North Course, Monte Rei | Portugal | 72 | 7,182 yards
West Course, Royal Melbourne | Australia | 72 | 6,646 yards
Dubai Creek | UAE | 71 | 7,009 yards
Dunluce Links, Royal Portrush | Northern Ireland | 71 | 7,337 yards

The biggest golf courses in the world represent a remarkable fusion of sporting challenge and architectural wonder, epitomising the boundless creativity and enduring spirit of the game. These colossal creations are not just feats of design and landscaping but are testaments to the game’s evolution, inviting players to encapsulate the essence of adventure, challenge, and the – often futile – pursuit of perfection that lies at the heart of golf.