Golfweek’s Best Courses: Delaware

Delaware is more than horseshoe crabs and nice beaches – there’s plenty of golf, too, for a state that stretches only 96 miles long and 39 miles wide. And Bayside Resort Golf Club tops the list for best public-access golf in the first state to ratify the U.S. Constitution.

Golfweek ranks courses by compiling the average ratings – on a points basis of 1 to 10 – of its more than 750 raters to create several industry-leading lists of courses. That includes the popular Best Courses You Can Play list for courses that allow non-member tee times. These generally are defined as courses accessible to resort guests or regular daily-fee players.

Bayside Resort Golf Club in Selbyville, designed by Jack Nicklaus and opened in 2005, has been No. 1 on Delaware’s Best Courses You Can Play list for 14 years. The 7,525-yard layout plays alongside the Assawoman Bay coastline and through pine forests, and it was the first Jack Nicklaus Signature Course in Delaware.

Baywood Greens in Long Neck, designed by Brian T. Ault and opened in 1998, is No. 2 on the Golfweek’s Best Courses You Can Play list in Delaware. White Clay Creek in Wilmington is No. 3 on that public-access list, followed by No. 4 Deerfield Golf & Tennis Club in Newark and No. 5 Bear Trap Dunes in Bethany Beach.

On the non-public-access side, Bidermann Golf Club in Wilmington is No. 1 in Delaware on Golfweek’s Best Private Courses list. Wilmington Country Club’s South Course is No. 2 on that list, followed by No. 3 Fieldstone in Greenville, No. 4 The Peninsula in Millsboro and No. 5 Wilmington Country Club’s North Course.

Golfweek’s Best Courses You Can Play in Delaware

1. Bayside Resort

Selbyville (m)

2. Baywood Greens

Long Neck (m)

3. White Clay Creek

Wilmington (m)

4. Deerfield Golf & Tennis Club

Newark (c)

5. Bear Trap Dunes

Bethany Beach (m)

Golfweek’s Best Private Courses in Delaware

1. Bidermann

Wilmington (m)

 

2. Wilmington CC (South)

Wilmington (m)

3. Fieldstone

Greenville (m)

4. The Peninsula

Millsboro (m)

5. *Wilmington CC (North)

Wilmington (m)

How we rate them

The members of our course-ratings panel continually evaluate courses and rate them based on our 10 criteria. They also file a single, overall rating on each course. Those overall ratings on each course are averaged together to produce a final rating for each course. Then each course is ranked against other courses in its state, or nationally, to produce the final rankings.