Best in State
The best golf courses in Maryland
You don't have to travel far to get to the very best golf in Maryland. Eleven of the top 12 courses are located in the 35-mile corridor between Baltimore and Washington D.C., including No. 1 Congressional Blue. The Blue has long been the state's top-ranked course but its lead has increased following a major redesign by Andrew Green in 2020 (it won the Golf Digest Best Transformation award in 2021).
The four courses not located in the corridor are worth the ride for their distinctive designs. Bulle Rock in Havre de Grace east of Baltimore is one of Pete Dye's best non-resort affiliated public courses with a lovely core design. Four Streams, in the countryside northeast of Bethesda, is a stout player's course from Steve Smyers and Nick Price with sweeping cape and bay bunkers. The Links at Perry Cabin is a late-career Dye design that roams through a community near the banks of the state's eastern bay, and the U.S. Naval Academy course in Annapolis makes a debut after a 2019 renovation by Andrew Green.
Below you'll find our 2023-'24 ranking of the Best Golf Courses in Maryland.
We urge you to click through to each individual course page for bonus photography, drone footage and reviews from our course panelists. Plus, you can now leave your own ratings on the courses you’ve played … to make your case why your favorite should be ranked higher.
(Parentheses indicate the course's previous ranking.)
![1. (1) Congressional Country Club: Blue](http://golfdigest.sports.sndimg.com/content/dam/images/golfdigest/fullset/2021/10/congressional renovated course.jpg.rend.hgtvcom.406.305.suffix/1635163090580.jpeg)
![2. (2) Baltimore Country Club: East](http://golfdigest.sports.sndimg.com/content/dam/images/golfdigest/fullset/2019/01/06/5c325f6f2fa4575949207bfe_116 - Baltimore CC (East) -- 14th hole - Larry Lambrecht.jpg.rend.hgtvcom.406.229.suffix/1573162562511.jpeg)
![3. (3) Caves Valley Golf Club](http://golfdigest.sports.sndimg.com/content/dam/images/golfdigest/fullset/2021/9/Caves valley No 2.jpg.rend.hgtvcom.406.229.suffix/1631301810032.jpeg)
![4. (4) Burning Tree Club](http://golfdigest.sports.sndimg.com/content/dam/images/golfdigest/fullset/2018/06/26/5b3261195d800b540bf21ed1_best-locker-rooms-Burning-Tree-Club.jpg.rend.hgtvcom.406.305.suffix/1573244340478.jpeg)
![9. (7) Bulle Rock Golf Course](http://golfdigest.sports.sndimg.com/content/dam/images/golfdigest/fullset/2015/08/15/55cf90b24759c60c0823721d_Bulle-Rock.jpg.rend.hgtvcom.406.229.suffix/1573513719352.jpeg)
![13. (NR) U.S. Naval Academy Golf Club](http://golfdigest.sports.sndimg.com/content/dam/images/golfdigest/fullset/course-photos-for-places-to-play/naval-academy-golf-club-5059.jpg.rend.hgtvcom.406.271.suffix/1697595354284.jpeg)
![14. (NR) Links At Perry Cabin](http://golfdigest.sports.sndimg.com/content/dam/images/golfdigest/fullset/course-photos-for-places-to-play/links-at-perry-cabin-5017.jpg.rend.hgtvcom.406.229.suffix/1657218467078.jpeg)
From Golf Digest Architecture Emeritus Ron Whitten:
In 2015, when Pete Dye started work on Links at Perry Cabin, he had no idea that soon after his approval of the contours of its last green, he’d be forced into involuntary retirement by the cruelest aspect of the aging process, the dissipation of one’s memory. His fans should know that the 93-year-old Hall of Famer remains creative to the end.
Though he has routed 18s in northern Florida and Indiana that others are now building, this is his final full design, from start to finish. It opened last year and is accessible to guests of The Inn at Perry Cabin in St. Michaels, Md., about an hour outside Annapolis.Assisted by his younger son, P.B., Pete transformed a low-profile 1971 collaboration with brother Roy, replacing it with a far more dynamic creation.
Though it’s not meant to be the “best of Dye,” there’s no mistaking its inspirations. The diagonal fourth green—with its right half racing downhill and to the right—brings to mind Pete’s 13th at Crooked Stick.
The par-5 14th, its elevated fairway curving around a long strip bunker against a lagoon, resembles the fifth at Whistling Straits.The island-green, par-3 17th is a mirror image of Pete’s 17th at TPC Sawgrass, but with a larger green and a comforting ring of rough around the collar.
Two holes are particularly engaging curtain calls. The par-3 seventh features a Biarritz green, and though it was added at the request of owner Richard Cohen, it’s fitting that a Dye course finally contains a replica of the most iconic C.B. Macdonald and Seth Raynor convention, given how much Dye admires their architecture.
And the 487-yard 18th, a C-shape par 4 around an enormous lake, looks much like the Waterloo 13th at The Dunes Golf & Beach Club in Myrtle Beach, a Robert Trent Jones design. When Pete started his career, he said he’d do the opposite of whatever Trent Jones was doing, just to set himself apart. Can it be that Pete Dye’s final golf hole is a tribute to Old Man Jones?
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