County Rankings / California

The Best Golf Courses in Los Angeles County, California

Los Angeles County holds a concentration of Golden Age architecture no other county in America can match, and most of it sits behind private gates on the west side. George C. Thomas Jr. built three of his best within these borders. William P. Bell's handwriting is on half the public golf in the county. The ranking problem here is not finding great courses. It is weighing Thomas's private trio against a municipal system that includes two of the most historic public courses in the country, and saying plainly that access and architecture point in opposite directions. We score the golf first. The gates come second.

1Los Angeles Country Club, North Course

Herbert Fowler laid out the North in 1921, Thomas redesigned it for 1928, and Gil Hanse, Jim Wagner, and Geoff Shackelford restored Thomas in 2010, even rebuilding Fowler's lost Little 17th as an extra hole. The 2023 U.S. Open, the club's first major, plus the 2017 Walker Cup, confirmed what the restoration promised. Beyond 7,500 yards for the Open across rolling canyon ground, this is the county's top course and a fixture at the top of the California state ranking.

2Riviera Country Club

Thomas's other masterpiece needs no record in our file to justify its place. Riviera has hosted the U.S. Open, PGA Championships, and a century of Los Angeles Opens, and its kikuyu, eucalyptus, and barranca ground game remain the tour's favorite California examination year after year. It loses the county's top spot to LACC's restored scale and major recency, and wins every argument about shot values that follows.

3Bel-Air Country Club

Thomas and Bell in 1926, the third of the trio, routed through canyons severe enough that tunnels were cut through hillsides between greens and tees. A suspension bridge. An elevator after the ninth green. Host of the 1976 U.S. Amateur, restored by Tom Doak, who has called Bel-Air the most unique of Thomas's three Los Angeles courses because of its property. Unique is right. Nothing else in the county plays like it.

4Palos Verdes Golf Club

Thomas and Bell again, opened November 15, 1924, on city owned land in an 800 acre parkland preserve over Santa Monica Bay, 14 holes with ocean views. Par 71 at just 6,433 yards, small greens, barrancas and creeks doing the defending, and a front nine with no two consecutive holes of the same par. It hosted the LPGA Palos Verdes Championship from 2022 to 2024. The best value per yard in the county's top tier, if you can get on.

5Lakeside Golf Club

Max Behr's masterpiece, opened 1924 along the Los Angeles River in Burbank as a man made dunes course with little or no rough. Alister MacKenzie called it the best course in Southern California and one of the world's greatest inland courses. Par 70, 6,539 yards, Hollywood membership from Crosby to Hope, Bobby Jones filming his instructional series here in the early 1930s, a restoration by Todd Eckenrode that won private Renovation of the Year in 2018. Behr is the county's most underquoted genius.

6Hillcrest Country Club

Willie Watson's 1920 layout in Cheviot Hills, founded as the first country club for Los Angeles's Jewish community, host of the 1929 PGA Championship, the first major held in the western United States, and Los Angeles Opens won by names like Ben Hogan. Kyle Phillips renovated it comprehensively in 2019. Par 71 at 6,489 yards, proof that the county's second tier would headline most states.

7Rancho Park Golf Course

The people's champion. Bell and William H. Johnson, 1947, in Cheviot Hills, host of the Los Angeles Open 17 times between 1956 and 1983, plus senior and LPGA events. Par 71 at 6,839 yards with a course record of 61, one of the busiest and most historic municipal courses in America. Seventh in this county would be first in almost any other, and it is the highest course on this list you can simply book.

8El Caballero Country Club

Robert Trent Jones Sr. in Tarzana, 1957, revitalized tee to green by Rees Jones in 2021 for 10 million dollars, Bermuda fairways cutting water use by about 30 percent, par 71 at 7,019 yards. LA Magazine has called it the finest course in the Valley. On this list, that still lands eighth, which says everything about the county.

9Angeles National Golf Club

Nicklaus Design's only public course in the Los Angeles area, opened 2004 at the mouth of Tujunga Canyon, par 72 at 7,141 yards, desert style with waste areas and the Big Tujunga Wash crossing the close. No housing around it, by design. The best modern public test in the county.

10Hacienda Golf Club

William Watson for Alphonso Bell's La Habra Heights subdivision, first nine in 1921, Thomas and Ed Tufts advising during construction, a canyon layout where Gene Sarazen and Tiger Woods have held course records. John Harbottle III restored the greens and bunkers in 2005. Invitation only, and worth the wait list gossip alone.

The rest of the county is a history seminar. Annandale in Pasadena opened in 1907 over ground regarded as California's first course. Harding in Griffith Park was Thomas's first 18, from 1923, and its sibling Wilson still hosts city golf daily. The Koiner course at Brookside sits by the Rose Bowl, Bell from 1928, a past Los Angeles Open host. Oakmont in Glendale is Behr again from 1922. Industry Hills, Virginia Country Club, Wilshire, San Gabriel, Recreation Park in Long Beach, and Trump National on the Palos Verdes bluffs fill out a bench of 22 that no other American county can copy. Los Angeles golf is a private museum with two great public rooms. Play the public rooms often. See the museum whenever anyone opens the door.