The recent edition of GOLF magazine with their 2009 rankings of their Top 100 golf courses around the world is always the subject for great debate and discussion amongst golfers. You may view entire list at;

http://search.golf.com/top-courses-and-resorts/top-100-world-courses-2009.html

One of the criticsms of the (ranking) lists are the relative inaccesibility of many of the courses, e.g. Pine Valley or Augusta National Golf Club. So with pen and paper in hand and my 25+ years of playing experience in the US and overseas I did a very simple analysis of course access of the two lists;

US Top 100 Courses – Of the Top 100 Courses, by my reckoning less than 20 permitted outside play that was not connected to a member, whether via sponsored unaccompanied or accompanied guest play. These 20 courses ranged from resort to daily fee.

On the World list, somewhere between 50 and 55 courses welcome visitor play, either because they are a resort, daily fee or a (semi) private club which accepts visitor play according to their rules.

I had no purposes to this “analysis” other than a curious observation and it supports my contention that there are many accessible world class golf courses spread throughout the globe….go and enjoy them!
 

About the Author: Gordon Dalgleish is the Co-Founding Director of PerryGolf, the leading provider of international golf vacations. You can find him on Google+