Golf's Record Breakers: 14 of the World's Most Extraordinary Golf Courses

• 6 juvenile bull sharks
• 17 years in the lake
• Gone after the 2013 flood

For a golf app called Shark Club, this one had to come first. Carbrook Golf Club sits beside the Logan and Albert rivers, south east of Brisbane. During the floods of the 1990s, most likely in 1996, river water spilled into the lake on the course and carried six young bull sharks with it. When the water went down, the sharks were trapped.

Bull sharks can cope with fresh and brackish water, and these ones thrived. They grew to around three metres, golfers saw them feeding at the surface, and the club adopted them as its mascot, even naming a members' competition the Shark Lake Challenge. Few water hazards have ever been taken so seriously.

Another big flood in 2013 reconnected the lake to the river, and after that the sharks were not seen again. At least one died in the lake; the rest are thought to have escaped back downstream. So the lake no longer has sharks, but for 17 years it was the only golf course hazard on earth that could eat you.

• 70.11°N latitude
• 9 holes, artificial greens
• Season about 5 months

Most lists name Tromsø as the most northerly golf course in the world. Our data says otherwise. Varanger Golfklubb, at Vestre Jakobselv on the Varangerfjord near the Russian border, sits at 70.11°N, about 50 km further north than Tromsø Golf Club. Alta Golfklubb comes second at 69.92°N, so Tromsø is actually third. Tromsø can still claim to be the most northerly 18 hole course, because Varanger has nine holes, played twice from different tees.

How many months can you play?

The club advertises a season from May to October, weather permitting, which in a typical year means about five months of golf. From roughly November to April the course is under snow, and for about two months in midwinter the sun never rises at all. Varanger uses artificial greens, which helps: They are ready as soon as the snow melts and stay true when real grass would struggle.

The reward for that short season is the midnight sun. From around mid May to late July the sun never sets this far north, so you can tee off at midnight or finish a round at two in the morning in full daylight. The Gulf Stream keeps the coast milder than you would expect at 70°N, but pack a hat anyway.

If you want an Arctic golf trip, Norway has a cluster of courses above the Arctic Circle, including Lofoten Links, one of the most spectacular seaside courses anywhere. In North America the most northerly course in our data is Roads End Golf Course in Inuvik, Canada, at 68.35°N.

• 54.83°S latitude
• About 1,000 km from Antarctica

At the bottom of the world, Ushuaia Golf Club is the most southerly course in our data. Ushuaia calls itself the city at the end of the earth, the port where most Antarctic cruises begin, and the course sits in a valley with the mountains of Tierra del Fuego rising behind it.

The next two courses south are also in Patagonia: Golf Club Rio Grande, on the Atlantic side of Tierra del Fuego, and Club Naval de Campo Rio de los Ciervos in Punta Arenas, Chile, on the Strait of Magellan. The seasons are the reverse of Europe's, so the golf here happens from roughly November to March, with long southern summer evenings and plenty of wind.

• 2,437 km to the nearest course
• 9 holes, par 35
• About 250 islanders

We measured remoteness one way for every course: The distance to the nearest other golf course of any kind. By that measure the winner is a course that is not even in our database. Tristan da Cunha, the most remote inhabited island on earth, has a nine hole golf course, and its nearest neighbour is the course on St Helena, 2,437 km to the north. Cape Town is further still, about 2,800 km away.

The course was laid out in 1977 in a cattle pasture beside the island's only settlement, Edinburgh of the Seven Seas. There are no real greens: Grazing cattle keep the grass short, and the bunkers are filled with volcanic sand. With no airport, getting there means a voyage of about six days from Cape Town, so very few golfers ever add it to their list.

Second place goes to St Helena, which is often called the most remote course in the world. Its nearest neighbour is the One Boat course on Ascension Island, about 1,300 km away, where the greens are made of crushed volcanic rock. The St Helena Golf Club dates from 1903 and plays nine holes at Longwood, close to the house where Napoleon spent his final exile.

• 1,004 m (1,097 yards)
• Par 7
• Lakes all the way

The third hole of the Jeongeup nine at Gunsan Country Club measures 1,004 metres, or 1,097 yards, from the back tee. It is a par 7, and the number was chosen on purpose: In Korean, 1004 sounds like the word for angel. The course was built on reclaimed salt farms on the west coast and has lakes alongside every hole, so the long walk is a scenic one. On our page it appears as hole 12, because the Kimje and Jeongeup nines are played together as one 18.

For a sense of scale, a tour professional needs a driver and four more full shots just to reach the green in regulation. The longest hole in our own database with a full scorecard yardage is the 910 yard par 6 thirteenth at St Andrews 2000 in Rayong, Thailand. The UK's longest is the 8th at West Midlands Golf Club near Solihull, a par 6 known as The Devil. It measures 666 yards from the yellow tees, naturally, and 725 yards from the back.

• Yak: 3,970 m
• La Paz: about 3,300 m
• Ball flies about 20% further

Guinness World Records lists the Yak Golf Course at Kupup in Sikkim, India, as the highest in the world at 3,970 metres. It is on an Indian Army base near the Chinese border, rarely open to visitors and often closed by weather, so it is not a course you can simply book.

The highest course most golfers could actually play is La Paz Golf Club in Bolivia, at around 3,300 metres. It is set among the strange eroded clay pinnacles of the Mallasilla valley outside the world's highest capital city. The thin air makes the ball fly roughly 20 percent further than at sea level, which flatters your driving, but it also leaves visitors short of breath walking up to the green. China's Jade Dragon Snow Mountain course is another giant, at over 3,000 metres.

• 65 m (214 feet) below sea level
• 6,236 yards from the back

At the opposite extreme, Furnace Creek in Death Valley National Park is the lowest golf course on earth, about 214 feet (65 metres) below sea level. Death Valley also holds the record for the hottest air temperature ever measured, and summer days regularly pass 45°C, so most golf here is played between October and April.

The dense air at this depth does the reverse of La Paz: The ball flies a little shorter than normal, which is worth knowing when the course measures 6,236 yards from the back tees. Date palms and spring water turn the desert green, and coyotes are regular visitors on the fairways.

• 8,548 yards (7,816 m)
• Par 72
• Over 3,000 m above sea level

Guinness World Records lists Jade Dragon Snow Mountain Golf Club, near Lijiang in south west China, as the longest golf course in the world at 8,548 yards. Its 5th hole alone is a 711 yard par 5. For comparison, Augusta National plays at about 7,550 yards for the Masters.

The length is less brutal than it sounds. The course sits more than 3,000 metres up, beneath a glacier topped peak of over 5,500 metres, and the thin air makes the ball fly roughly 15 to 20 percent further than at sea level. The catch is your lungs: Walking 18 holes at that height leaves most visitors short of breath.

For many years the longest course in the United States was the Pines at The International in Bolton, Massachusetts, which stretched to 8,325 yards from its Tiger tees. A redesign by Bill Coore and Ben Crenshaw, reopened in June 2025, cut it to around 7,100 yards. Records like this one can disappear overnight.

• 123 yards
• Shortest hole in the Open rota

Thousands of par 3s are shorter, but none is as famous for being small. The 8th hole at Royal Troon, known as the Postage Stamp, is about 123 yards long, the shortest hole on any course that hosts The Open. The green is tiny and narrow, wrapped in deep bunkers, and set into the side of a sand dune.

Its most famous moment came in 1973, when 71 year old Gene Sarazen made a hole in one there in front of the television cameras, 50 years after his first Open appearance. It has also wrecked plenty of rounds: In 1950 a German amateur, Hermann Tissies, took 15 on it. Short does not mean easy.

• 12 courses
• 216 holes

Most golfers are happy with one course. Mission Hills, spread across Shenzhen and Dongguan in southern China, has twelve. Guinness World Records recognised it as the world's largest golf club, with 216 holes, and each course carries the name of the star who designed it.

You will find course pages for many of them on Shark Club, including the World Cup course by Jack Nicklaus, the Faldo, Annika, Norman, Olazábal, Ozaki, Vijay Singh, Ernie Els and Pete Dye layouts. Playing all of them would take nearly two weeks at one round a day.

• 2 countries
• 2 time zones
• No passport needed

The Green Zone course, home of Tornio Golf, straddles the border between Tornio in Finland and Haparanda in Sweden, just south of the Arctic Circle. Some holes are in Finland and the rest are in Sweden, and the round crosses the border several times.

Because Finland is an hour ahead of Sweden, a tee shot on the 6th hole can leave Sweden and land in Finland an hour later, at least according to the clock. The club likes to call it the longest hole in one in the world. Tee times are booked in Finnish time, which catches out visitors staying on the Swedish side. Being this far north, it is also one of the courses where you can play through the night in June.

• No fences
• Hippos, crocodiles, lions, elephants

If Carbrook's sharks sound tame, try Skukuza. The course sits inside the Kruger National Park and has no fences, so anything in the park can wander onto it. Hippos and crocodiles live in the lake beside the course, impala and warthogs graze the fairways, and lions, leopards and elephants have all been seen between the holes.

Golfers sign an indemnity form before they tee off, and the local advice is simple: If an animal is near your ball, leave the ball. It was built in the 1970s for the park's staff, and it is now one of the most unusual rounds of golf anywhere.

• Tee about 430 m above the green
• Shot of about 360 m
• Reached by helicopter

At Legend Golf and Safari Resort, a bonus par 3 called the Extreme 19th starts on top of the Hanglip mountain. You get there by helicopter, then hit down to a green shaped like a map of Africa. The resort puts the tee about 430 metres above the green, while the shot itself covers only around 360 metres, so the ball falls further than it travels forward. It is in the air for around 30 seconds, long enough to wonder where it is going to land.

The rest of the resort is remarkable too. Each hole of the main course, now called the 18 Signatures, was designed by a different major champion or tour winner. The resort closed in 2019 for a full rebuild and reopened in May 2026, and published lengths for the new layout vary, so check the current scorecard before you go. A second course, the Tribute, sits alongside it.

• Membership by invitation only
• No published member list

This one is a matter of opinion, so we will give you two candidates. Augusta National, home of the Masters, has around 300 members, and nobody applies: You are invited, or you are not. The club does not publish its membership list, and it only admitted its first women members in 2012. Unless you win a ticket in the Masters ballot or know a member, the closest most of us get is watching on television.

Pine Valley in New Jersey is the other contender. It regularly tops rankings of the best courses in the world, yet you can only play as a member's guest, and it hosts no professional tournaments that would let you watch in person. Its 636 yard 7th hole crosses a huge waste area known as Hell's Half Acre. Which is harder to get into is a debate golfers will never settle.