Plantation Lakes Golf & Country Club in Millsboro, Delaware, expanded its nine-hole course that opened in 2016 to a full 18 in 2020, and Golfweek’s Best raters have judged it to be the top-ranked public-access layout in the state in 2022.
Plantation Lakes originally was designed by Arthur Hills and expanded by Hills & Forrest International Golf Course Architects principal Shawn Smith. It narrowly unseated Bayside Resort Golf Club’s Jack Nicklaus layout as No. 1 in Delaware on Golfweek’s Best Courses You Can Play list for public-access courses in the U.S.
Golfweek’s Best offers many lists of course rankings, with the list of top public-access courses in each state among the most popular. All the courses on this list allow public access in some fashion, be it standard daily green fees, through a resort or by staying at an affiliated hotel. If there’s a will, there’s a tee time.
Also popular are the Golfweek’s Best rankings of top private courses in each state, and that list is likewise included below.
MORE: Best Modern | Best Classic | Top 200 Resort |
Top 200 Residential | Top 100 Best You Can Play
(m): Modern course, built in or after 1960
(c): Classic course, built before 1960
* New or returning to list
Bayside Resort Golf Club in Delaware (Courtesy of Bayside)
1. Plantation Lakes*
Millsboro (m)
2. Bayside Resort
Selbyville (m)
3. Baywood Greens
Long Neck (m)
5. Rock Manor
Wilmington (m)
Wilmington Country Club in Delaware (Golfweek files)
1. Bidermann
Wilmington (m)
2. Wilmington CC (South)
Wilmington (m)
3. Fieldstone
Greenville (m)
4. The Peninsula
Millsboro (m)
5. Du Pont CC (Du Pont)*
Wilmington (c)
The hundreds of members of the Golfweek’s Best ratings panel continually evaluate courses and rate them based on 10 criteria on a points basis of 1 through 10. They also file a single, overall rating on each course. Those overall ratings are averaged to produce these rankings.
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