1. Diamante (Dunes), Cabo San Lucas, Arguably the best golf course designed by Davis Love, it plays through massive oceanside dunes, the tauter more upland front side setting the table for a big back nine beside the sea.
2. Cabo Del Sol, Cabo San Lucas, The first of the marquee layouts in Cabo, this Jack Nicklaus design linking desert and sea remains near the top. Jack immodestly calls his 16th through 18th “the three finest finishing holes in golf” and it’s hard to argue otherwise.
3. Quivira, Cabo San Lucas, Nicklaus’s latest is a stunner, set on a jaw-dropping stretch of coastline. The signature hole is the drivable par-four 5th, which drops more than 100 feet to a cliff-hanging green beside the sea.
4. Querencia, Cabo San Lucas, Centerpiece of an 1,800-acre private enclave, it’s set on rugged terrain between the mountains and the Sea of Cortez. Tom Fazio made full use of a series of rocky ravines and arroyos to create a course that is as relentlessly challenging as it is visually arresting.
5. Four Seasons Punta Mita GC (Pacifico), Punta Mita, Eight holes of this Nicklaus course border the Pacific Ocean and Banderas Bay including an optional par three, “The Tail of the Whale,” which plays 199 yards to the largest natural island green in the world.
6. Mayakoba (El Camaleon), Playa del Carmen, This Greg Norman design, like the chameleon for which it’s named, is an ever-changing assignment, weaving through mangroves, sand dunes, lagoons, and the occasional cenote (subterranean cave), all set beside the Caribbean Sea.
7. Club de Golf Mexico, Mexico City, Site of the 1967 World Cup won by Arnold Palmer and Jack Nicklaus, this is a tight, tree-lined parkland layout, nearly 100 miles from the nearest sea.
8. Vista Vallarta (Nicklaus), Puerto Vallarta, Set high in the foothills of the Sierra Madres, this Nicklaus course plays through a mountain-jungle landscape en route to some of Jack’s most wildly contoured greens. But even after a three-putt, the views of Puerto Vallarta and Banderas Bay are stunning.
9. El Dorado GC, Cabo San Lucas, Six holes of this Nicklaus course play along the Sea of Cortez. The other 12 climb through desert canyons where the sea is not in play but almost always in view. This is quintessential Cabo golf.
10. Four Seasons Punta Mita GC (Bahia), Punta Mita, The second Nicklaus course at Punta Mita, its steeply sloped fairways and heavily undulating greens make Bahia a slightly sterner test than Pacifico. Five holes play beside thewater, most memorably 17, a short par four that winds around a cove to a seaside green.
