Every Presidents Cup Course—Ranked

Stellar venues have played host to this extraordinary competition, with some better than others.

The 2024 Presidents Cup returns to a familiar venue, Canada’s Royal Montreal, home to the 2007 edition. Royal Montreal is one of only four international courses to host the Presidents Cup, but it’s not the best. That honor falls to Australia’s Royal Melbourne.

With the Presidents Cup celebrating 30 years since its debut, we wondered how those two Royals compare with the other seven courses that have hosted this prestigious event. Here are the nine Presidents Cup venues, ranked top to bottom.

1. Royal Melbourne Golf Club (Composite)—Melbourne, Australia

Year(s) hosted: 1998, 2011, 2019

The appeal of Alister MacKenzie’s Golden Age masterpiece is best explained by Sir Nick Faldo: “I love the way it plays firm and fast-running, the way the bunkering frames and almost intrudes into the putting surfaces, and the brilliance of the bunkering style with the native scrubby look. I’m also a fan of the often very wide fairways that reward positioning and of the mix of long and short par fours. Add to this the splendid contouring of the greens and the rich variety of approach shots that you play into those greens.”

Ahead of one Presidents Cup competition held at Royal Melbourne, Phil Mickelson observed, “The (short) par fours may be reachable, but they are not really drivable. It’s more important to set up your approach shot and get the correct angle…much like a British Open.” Ultimately, per Faldo, Mickelson, and countless others, Royal Melbourne—comprised of 12 holes from the club’s West course and six from the East—is a supreme test of both shotmaking and strategy.

2. Muirfield Village Golf Club—Dublin, Ohio

Year(s) hosted: 2013

Jack Nicklaus’s homage to Augusta National currently ranks 17th in the United States by Golf Digest and has been a favorite of PGA Tour players since the Memorial Tournament started in 1976. Beautiful, fair, and balanced, if devoid of any quirk, Muirfield Village presents compelling match-play drama via risk/reward par fives and a terrific short par four at the 14th, while also being a strong test from start to finish.

Tiger Woods, a five-time winner of the Memorial at Muirfield Village entering the Presidents Cup, led all scorers in 2013 with four points, as the U.S. held off the fast-charging Internationals 18.5–15.5.

3. Fancourt (The Links)—George, Western Cape, South Africa

Year(s) hosted: 2003

Some have called the 2003 Presidents Cup the greatest of them all, when Tiger Woods and Ernie Els dueled in the gloaming after the team match ended in a 17–17 tie. The superb, rigorously challenging venue, The Links at Fancourt, brought out the best in the best that week. Perhaps South Africa’s toughest test of golf, Fancourt Links is a 2000 Gary Player creation that was designed to play firm and fast, with massive dunes and the Outeniqua Mountains as handsome framing devices.

Player stated: “It has been designed to make golfers feel as though they were at Ballybunion, Dornoch, or St. Andrews, with rolling fairways, pot bunkers, big greens, high rough, and a seascape appearance.” Mission accomplished, Gary.

4. Robert Trent Jones Golf Club—Gainesville, Va.

Year(s) hosted: 1994, 1996, 2000, 2005

Named for the dean of U.S. golf course architects, this four-time Presidents Cup host is chock-full of water hazards and puzzle-piece bunkers, both which encourage and at times require risk/reward decision-making on tee shots and approaches. Located 30 miles from Washington, D.C., and opened in 1991, the best holes at RTJGC edge and even jut out into 850-acre Lake Manassas—though the 65,000-square-foot Georgian clubhouse is so full of creature comforts, it’s equal in grandeur to the golf course. Ranked among America’s top 50 modern courses by Golfweek, it again proved a worthy host for international team competitions when it served as the venue for the 2024 Solheim Cup.

5. Quail Hollow Club—Charlotte, N.C.

Year(s) hosted: 2022

A mainstay on the PGA Tour since 1969 (Kemper Open host 1969–79; Wells Fargo host since 2003), Quail Hollow’s fortunes soared following a series of Tom Fazio renovations that began in 1997, culminating in two new holes in time to host the 2017 PGA Championship, won by Justin Thomas. Fazio effected more tweaks ahead of the 2022 Presidents Cup, when Jordan Spieth’s 5–0–0 record was the difference in the U.S. downing the Internationals 17.5–12.5. The changes fit seamlessly into the rolling terrain that’s framed by hardwoods and crisscrossed by lakes and creeks. Renowned for its stern, gorgeous trio of closing holes, dubbed the “Green Mile,” Quail Hollow’s creek-slashed par-four 18th may well be the toughest finishing hole in tournament golf.

6. Liberty National Golf Club—Jersey City, N.J.

Year(s) hosted: 2017

Host on four occasions for The Barclays, the opening event in the PGA Tour’s FedExCup Playoffs, Liberty National is a 2006 Bob Cupp/Tom Kite design next to Liberty State Park on the Upper New York Bay. After its Barclays hosting debut in 2009, Cupp and Kite smoothed out some of the more controversial green complex contours, improving the course in time for the 2013 edition. Captain Steve Stricker directed the U.S. squad to a 19–11 victory at the 2017 Presidents Cup, but the star of the show as always was the 150-yard par-three 14th (which played as the 10th on the Presidents Cup layout). With unobstructed views of the Statue of Liberty, Manhattan skyline, and Verrazano Narrows Bridge, this bayside hole is unforgettable. Rose Zhang and Nelly Korda won LPGA Tour events here in 2023 and 2024, respectively.

7. Jack Nicklaus Golf Club Korea—Incheon, South Korea

Year(s) hosted: 2015

Designed by—guess who—Jack Nicklaus in 2010, his namesake golf club one hour from downtown Seoul played host to a Champions Tour event that same year and to a follow-up in 2011. Nicklaus was then in a period of crafting wild interior contours on his greens, which proved unpopular everywhere. They were softened at his Korea layout in time to host the 2015 Presidents Cup. Situated near the West Sea, Jack Nicklaus Golf Club Korea proved to be a worthy venue. Tall, gleaming skyscrapers backdrop many of the holes and seaside breezes were ever-present, notably at the par-four 2nd, which plays closest to the water. The drivable, split-fairway 361-yard par-four 14th played as a superb match-play hole, and option-laden par fives at 7, 15, and 18 held up superbly.

In perhaps the most exciting contest in Presidents Cup history, the 2015 competition came down to the final match, between two Captain’s picks: Bill Haas, whose father was the U.S. team captain, and Sangmoon Bae, the local favorite. Haas secured a tension-filled duel, holding off Bae on the final hole to preserve a 15.5–14.5 U.S. triumph.

8. Royal Montreal Golf Club (Blue Course)—Ile Bizard, Quebec, Canada

Year(s) hosted: 2007, 2024

The oldest golf club in North America, dating to 1873, Royal Montreal eventually moved to a new site in Ile Bizard in 1959, when preeminent architect Dick Wilson crafted 45 holes. The Blue Course is the championship layout and has hosted five Canadian Opens since the first in 1975, when Tom Weiskopf edged Jack Nicklaus in a playoff. In the past two decades, Rees Jones has made frequent tweaks of the renovation and restoration varieties. Enormous, propped up, well-guarded greens—by water and deep bunkers—form the primary challenges on this 7,279-yard par 70 spread. The petite par-three 17th, at just 157 yards, frustrates birdie-seekers with a narrow green and a pond to carry.

Canada earned its turn to host the Presidents Cup for the first time in 2007, when the U.S. triumphed 19.5–14.5, though the highlight—or lowlight—occurred when Woody Austin of the U.S. team tumbled face-first into the water at the drivable par-four 14th while whiffing on an attempted recovery shot.

9. TPC Harding Park—San Francisco, Calif.

Year(s) hosted: 2009

Perhaps more famous for hosting the 2020 PGA Championship, TPC Harding Park also served as a well-received Presidents Cup venue in 2009, when the U.S. topped the Internationals 19.5–14.5. Tiger Woods led the Yanks with a 5–0–0 record, while Phil Mickelson was nearly his equal, with a 4–0–1 mark.

This venerable 1925 muni sports fairways hemmed in by frequent fog and cypress trees, lush rough, and a wild closer (the 15th during the Presidents Cup), a 475-yard par four that opens with a bite-off-as-much-as-you-can-chew drive over a lake, followed by an uphill smash to a rollicking three-tier green. At the hotly contested 2020 PGA Championship, eventual winner Collin Morikawa hit the shot of the year, driving the green at the 336-yard par-four 16th, when bunkers, trees, and Lake Merced lurking to the left could have wrecked his chances. There’s a bit of sameness to the holes at this William Watson/Sam Whiting design—the same duo that created the Olympic Club’s courses next door—but it’s all challenging and it’s all beautiful.

What is your favorite Presidents Cup course?