GOLF's 40th Anniversary Top 100 Courses in the World

**GOLF’s 40th Anniversary Top 100 Courses in the World list is always an intriguing read for me. How many have I played? Where do I want to go next? And just as important—what’s on here that doesn’t quite seem to belong?

The list opens with the usual suspects—Pine Valley Golf Club, Cypress Point Club, St Andrews—but around No. 73 there’s a surprise: Childress Hall – Upper Course. That immediately caught my attention. I’ve lived in Texas for more than 40 years, split between Houston and Austin, and I’ve traveled extensively throughout the state—yet I had never even heard of this course.

A quick search reveals why: the course only opened in December 2024 and somehow landed in the world’s Top 100 by November 2025. Even more surprising, it doesn’t appear in Golf Digest’s ranking of the Top 40 Courses in Texas as of May 2025. That’s astonishing. Childress Hall sits in the Texas Panhandle—about a six-hour drive from Austin and nearly four from Dallas. Its pedigree is unquestioned: the Upper Course was designed by Tom Doak, with the Lower Course by Gil Hanse, two undeniable heavyweights in modern golf architecture.

Still, how does a brand-new, little-played course rank above established icons like Casa de Campo, Royal Liverpool Golf Club, or Bandon Dunes Golf Resort? These are courses with decades of history, major championships, legendary players, and widespread public acclaim. I don’t know how many rounds have actually been played at Childress Hall, but seeing it ranked alongside places like Kiawah Island Golf Resort, Ardfin, and Woodhall Spa puts it in some very rarefied air—perhaps a little too quickly.

All of that said, rankings exist to spark conversation—and this one certainly has. Maybe Childress Hall truly is a revelation, a course so exceptional that it leapfrogs tradition, history, and reputation in a single bound. Or maybe this is a reminder that lists can sometimes get ahead of lived experience. Either way, the only way to know for sure is the old-fashioned way: put the ball on the ground, walk the fairways, and see if the course lives up to the company it keeps. Until then, Childress Hall remains less a destination on my bucket list and more a fascinating question mark.