Best in Every Country

The best golf courses in Puerto Rico

By Stephen Hennessey and Derek Duncan

September 16, 2024

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Designed by Robert Trent Jones as part of a development by Laurance Rockefeller, the East Course at TPC Dorado Beach has hosted the World Cup and PGA Tour events.

Courtesy of the club

When architect Robert Trent Jones built the Dorado Beach course in Puerto Rico in the 1950s for developer Laurence Rockefeller, it was a feat of engineering. Jones had to drain swamps, clear mangroves and excavate innumerous tons of rock and earth from the hostile tropical rainforest to lift the course off the jungle floor.

The task was more impressive for the lack quality earthmoving equipment he had at his disposal in the States (this was his first construction job outside the U.S. mainland). But the result was heralded as one of the great resort courses in the world and helped turn golf eyes toward Puerto Rico and the beaches of the Caribbean. Though Puerto Rico trails behind the Dominican Republic, the Bahamas, Barbados and even Jamaica as the region’s premium golf destination, it retains an important golf culture and iis a popular destination for international players.

Though Puerto Rico trails behind the Dominican Republic, the Bahamas, Barbados and even Jamaica as the region’s premium golf destination, it retains an important golf culture and iis a popular destination for international players.

Scroll down for our ranking of the best courses in Puerto Rico.

We urge you to click through to each individual course page for bonus photography, drone footage and expanded reviews. 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.

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Editor's Note: Our Best Courses in Puerto Rico ranking is the first in our rollout of the Best Courses in Every Country. Check back over the next few weeks for more of our rankings of the best golf around the world.

Courtesy of the club

Private

5. Palmas Athletic Club: Palm

Humacao, Puerto Rico

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Puerto Rican native Chi Chi Rodriguez once dueled Lee Trevino on this club’s Palm course in a Shell’s Wonderful World of Golf televised match. The course was built in 1974 by American architect Ron Kirby, who was working with Gary Player at the time. It’s a fairly tight course that alternates between jungle cover and resort development near the eastern coast of the island. Rees Jones built a second course for the club in 1999, then remodeled the Palm, building several new holes in the process.

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Courtesy of the club

4. El Conquistador Golf Club

Fajardo, Puerto Rico

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The hotel that accompanies “El Con” is built on stunning oceanfront headlands 200 feet above the Atlantic on the northeastern tip of Puerto Rico—had this land been used for golf, the course might be one of the most dramatic and photographed in the Caribbean. As is, the golf is set away from the cliffs on an interior section of land, but the design provides drama in other ways. The big elevation changes make the course feel like mountain golf, and architect Arthur Hills worried that the terrain might be too severe in some places, and shaping it was a challenge due to the site’s underlying rock. But the holes fit the land and take players on an attractive journey through the hilly rainforests, weaving around ponds toward small greens but allowing plenty of space off the tee.

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Courtesy of Royal Isabela

3. Royal Isabela Golf Club & Resort

Isabela, Puerto Rico

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Royal Isabela possesses one of the most dramatic golf sites in the Caribbean along with Cabot Saint Lucia and Playa Grande in Dominican Republic. Portions of the property are set on rocky cliffs 200 feet above the Atlantic on Puerto Rico’s dry northwest coast, and five green sites on the second nine sit on or close to the edge of land. The golf holes themselves are a strange brew, a kind of funhouse collection of golf shots that include a Pete Dye-like island green par 3 (architect David Pfaff worked for Dye in the 1960s), a Y-shaped hole that can veer left and play as a par 5 or to the right as a par 4, and a par 3 with a green 55 yards deep and 11 yards wide. Most holes have stirring up-close or long-range views of the sea, and every effort was made by the owners to conserve trees and the natural elements of the land. Perhaps that explains the tortured routing that includes some of the longest cart rides between holes that exist anywhere.

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Courtesy of the club

Public

2. Bahia Beach Golf Club

Río Grande, Puerto Rico

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Robert Trent Jones got golf going in Puerto Rico in the late 1950s when he built Dorado Beach, the protectorate’s No. 1 course. Fifty years later, his son, Robert Trent Jones, Jr., contributed the island’s second highest-ranked course, Bahia Beach at the St. Regis Resort, cut through an interior section of land near a crescent of shore just east of San Juan. Though designed for relaxed resort play, the holes are quite stern, well-bunkered and circling through and around woods and an omnipresent strand of lagoons—you can lose a ball in the water or marshes on 14 holes. Most of the prime oceanfront has been reserved for resort development and real estate, but just enough frontage was given to golf at holes 16 and 18 to make guests remember they’re playing on the Caribbean.

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Courtesy of the club

Public

1. TPC Dorado Beach: East

Dorado, Puerto Rico

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Now part of the vast TPC network, the East Course at Dorado Beach was one of the first courses of international acclaim, along with Villa Real in Cuba, Lyford Cay in the Bahamas and Jamaica’s Tryall, to be developed in the Caribbean—all four opened between 1957 and 1960. Long considered one of architect Robert Trent Jones’ masterpieces, the course was hacked out of tropical forests and mangrove swamps, wowing the golf world with one of its first looks at premium tropical golf. Most holes offer a view of the ocean and Trent Jones was able to place several greens on the beach, including that of the famous 13th, a short zig-zag par 5 that allowed players to cut across not one but two ponds to get home in two shots. Dorado Beach retains a wonderful old-Caribbean golf vibe even if the cadence of the holes are anticlimactic after the nines were swapped—the ground-breaking 13th is now played as the fourth.

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The best golf courses in Puerto Rico