The Best Courses to Play on GolfZon

GolfZon’s library runs past 300 courses, which sounds great until you’re standing in the bay with the clock running and three people behind you deciding what to play. The menu isn’t built for browsing. You scroll, you recognize four names, you load Pebble Beach again.

So here’s the list we actually use — grouped by the kind of night you’re having, not alphabetically. Bucket-list layouts, courses on the other side of the world, tracks that will hurt you, easy ones for a first-timer, and the arcade games for when half your group doesn’t golf.

Bucket-list courses

The ones you’ve watched on TV. The scans are detailed enough that elevation, run-outs, and greens that reject a ball landing on the wrong shelf all translate — a good round here feels earned.

St. Andrews — Old Course (Scotland) The Home of Golf. Golf has been played on this ground since the 1400s, and it has hosted 30 Open Championships. Walk the Swilcan Bridge, then find out what Hell Bunker does to a good round.

Pebble Beach Golf Links (California) Six U.S. Opens, and it’s still a public course anyone can book. The Pacific holes are the reason people buy simulators.

Bethpage Black (New York) The first tee has a sign warning that the course is extremely difficult, which is not marketing. Tiger won the 2002 U.S. Open here, and it hosted the 2025 Ryder Cup — the one Europe won 15–13 on the road.

Kiawah Island — Ocean Course (South Carolina) Pete Dye, ocean views on all 18, and “The War by the Shore” — the 1991 Ryder Cup. At the 2012 PGA Championship, only 20 players in the field broke par over 72 holes.

Royal Birkdale (England) Classic Open links. Eleven Opens now, the most recent in 2026.

Royal Portrush (Northern Ireland) Dramatic cliffs, deep bunkers. Hosted the Open in 2019 and again in 2025.

Quail Hollow Club (North Carolina) A PGA Championship venue, and home of the Green Mile — holes 16, 17, and 18, which have ended more good rounds than they’ve rewarded.

Historic tracks worth a look

St. Andrews — Jubilee Course (Scotland) — opened in 1897 for Queen Victoria’s Diamond Jubilee.
St. Andrews — New Course (Scotland) — “new” since 1895, on the same links terrain.
Harbour Town Golf Links (South Carolina) — Pete Dye design with the lighthouse finish.
Bay Hill Club (Florida) — Arnold Palmer’s home course and an annual PGA Tour stop.
Valderrama (Spain) — has hosted both the Ryder Cup and the Solheim Cup.

Courses you’d need a passport for

The best argument for a simulator: you can play Guam on a Tuesday in February.

Tropical

The Ocean Course at Hokuala (Kauai, Hawaii) — Jack Nicklaus design, oceanfront holes.
Leo Palace Resort (Guam) — Pacific island golf.
Phoenix Golf Resort (Vietnam) — three courses (Champion, Dragon, Phoenix), mountain and coastal views.
El Camaleón at Mayakoba (Mexico) — jungle, mangroves, and Caribbean coastline.
Casa de Campo — Teeth of the Dog (Dominican Republic) — seven holes run along the Caribbean.

Europe

Evian Resort Golf Club (France) — LPGA major venue overlooking Lake Geneva and the Alps.
Marco Simone Golf Club (Italy) — hosted the 2023 Ryder Cup, outside Rome.
Celtic Manor (Wales) — three courses; hosted the 2010 Ryder Cup.
Kingsbarns Golf Links (Scotland) — clifftop links on the North Sea.
Old Head Golf Links (Ireland) — 220 acres on a headland, 300-foot cliffs, Atlantic on every side.

Asia

Mission Hills Shenzhen (China) — seven courses on one property, with designs by Faldo, Norman, Els, and Vijay Singh.
Mission Hills Haikou (China) — ten courses on volcanic terrain, with names like Black Stone, Lava Fields, and Shadow Dunes.
Clearwater Bay (Hong Kong) — clifftop holes over the South China Sea.
Kawana Hotel — Fuji Course (Japan) — Mount Fuji in the background; often called the Pebble Beach of Japan.

When you want to get beaten up

Load these when the group wants a real test and someone has been talking all week.

Bethpage Black (New York) — 7,400+ yards, narrow fairways, rough that eats a 7-iron.
Kiawah Island — Ocean Course (South Carolina) — plays to 7,800 yards with constant wind. Dye at his least forgiving.
Tobacco Road (North Carolina) — a Mike Strantz design with blind shots and enormous waste areas. “Unconventional” is doing a lot of work in that sentence.
Spyglass Hill (California) — Robert Trent Jones Sr.; holes 6 through 16 run through dense forest.
Stadium Course at PGA West (California) — Pete Dye’s Stadium layout, including the island green 17th.
Colorado Golf Club (Colorado) — sits at 6,200 feet, so the thin air changes every club. Has hosted the U.S. Senior Open.
Troon North — Monument (Arizona) — desert target golf. Miss the fairway and the ball is gone.
Forest Dunes — The Loop (Michigan) — a Tom Doak reversible course: play it Black one day and Red the next, same ground, opposite direction.

Easy nights and new players

Not every session needs to be a grind, and the course you pick matters more than people think. A tight, penal layout will turn a curious beginner off in three holes.

Forgiving

Del Monte Golf Course (California) — opened 1897, the oldest course west of the Mississippi. Short, classic, walkable.
PGA National — Estates (Florida) — designed as a junior course. Shorter and more forgiving than the Champion.
Poppy Hills (California) — firm, fast, and scenic through the forest.
The Southern Links (Japan) — a designated junior-friendly layout.

Scenic and low-stakes

Links at Spanish Bay (California) — Scottish-style links, and there’s a bagpiper at sunset.
Dumbarnie Links (Scotland) — opened in 2020, pristine condition.
Lahinch Golf Club (Ireland) — Wild Atlantic Way links. Club lore says the goats predict the weather.
Prince’s Golf Club (England) — classic links, an Open Championship qualifying venue.

You can also lean on the machine’s settings: move everyone up a tee box, turn on gimmes, and let a new player pick up when a hole gets ugly. The goal is getting them to 18 still smiling and asking when you can go again.

When half the group doesn’t golf

This is the part people forget the sim can do, and it’s the difference between a fun night and three non-golfers on their phones.

Fantasy courses — real golf, imaginary places:

New York Central Park Golf Club — golf through Central Park, past yellow cabs and Bow Bridge.
Tokyo City and Seoul City Virtual Country Clubs — urban fantasy layouts.
Robotron Ridge Golf Club — sci-fi themed.
Rio Golf Club — carnival scenery.
Lost Valley Golf Club — adventure theme.
Rags Adventure — kid-friendly.

Arcade games — not golf at all, which is the point:

Darts Golf — a giant pirate dartboard. Hit bullseyes with a putter.
Block Golf — Breakout with a golf ball. Smash gem barriers.
Whack-A-Mole — throw stones at moles on a farm.
Slope Golf — carnival skeeball, up ramps into holes.
Wild Wild West — Angry Birds rules. Knock down buildings, bust outlaws.
Pro Bowl Showdown — you’re the quarterback, hitting moving targets.

Put a beginner on Whack-A-Mole for ten minutes and they’ll ask to try a real hole. It works better than a lesson.

Pick a format, not just a course

The course is half of it. The format sets the tone, and a few travel especially well on a sim:

Scramble for a mixed group — weaker players contribute and nobody holds up the bay.
Skins for edge without the pressure of a full stroke-play card.
Points play (Stableford) when you want everyone still in it after a blow-up hole.

Your scores are already data

Everything in the bay is measured, so your rounds are real numbers whether you keep them or not. If you’re playing regularly — a weekly group, a league, or just tracking your own game across courses — it’s worth having them in one place so you can watch a handicap move and compare cards.

On GolfZon specifically, scores sync automatically into the Fareway golfer app, so a 79 at Bethpage doesn’t disappear when you leave the bay.

The short version

Match the course to the night. Bucket-list layouts when you want a test, somewhere tropical when it’s February, a short forgiving track when you’re bringing someone new, and the arcade games when half the group would rather not swing a club. Then pick a format that keeps everyone involved and you’ve got a good couple of hours regardless of the weather.

Course names and availability do shift as GolfZon adds scans and rotates licenses, so if something here isn’t on your machine, it’s worth a scroll for what replaced it.