At Open Links, we are constantly thinking of ways to pull together information that is informative, useful, and inspiring to passionate golfers around the world. Recently, we polled our Instagram followers to request topics that they would be most interested in us writing about. The top vote-getter was to list out the top-5 public courses by famous golf course architects (GCAs) around the world.

There are currently almost 1,000 different GCAs in our database so we knew this would be no easy task. We decided to start with 10 classic GCAs who performed the majority of their work before 1960 and 10 modern GCAs who performed the majority of their work after 1960. We made sure to include a few GCAs who performed the majority of their work outside of the United States so that we could include a global perspective. Also, the courses listed below are publicly accessible and include semi-private clubs. Please check each respective club website for more information on how and when you are able to access the course.

Finally, please keep in mind that this is merely Volume 1. Let us know what GCAs you’d like to see in subsequent volumes by leaving a comment at the bottom of this write-up! Here are the GCAs in Volume 1 and our selection for their Top 5 public courses (along with location):