This Corner of Europe Just Got Five Spots on Golf Digest's Continental Ranking

Golf Digest has published its Best Courses in Continental Europe ranking for 2026. Five golf courses within reach of Copenhagen — three in Denmark, two in southern Sweden — appear among the top 50. Golf Travel Denmark can book all of them.

When a panel of Golf Digest raters assesses the best golf courses across an entire continent, a handful of destinations keep reappearing at the top: Morfontaine and Chantilly in France, Valderrama in Spain, the Dutch heathland classics. What the 2026 ranking makes clear, perhaps more emphatically than any previous edition, is that the Copenhagen region now belongs in that conversation.

Five courses within a comfortable drive of the Danish capital — or just across the Øresund Bridge into the Swedish province of Skåne — appear among the 50 best golf courses in Continental Europe. Three are in Denmark. Two are in Sweden. Together they form one of the most concentrated pockets of top-ranked golf anywhere in northern Europe, and all five are accessible on a single golf holiday. No other region of comparable size in continental Europe can make that claim.

No. 12 in Continental Europe · Skåne, Sweden Barsebäck Golf and Country Club: Masters Course

The highest-ranked of the five, Barsebäck Golf and Country Club Masters Course sits on the Skåne coast north of Malmø, with views across the Øresund to Denmark. A former venue for the Solheim Cup and the European Tour's Scandinavian Masters, Barsebäck is one of the great links-influenced courses in northern Europe — exposed, strategic, and demanding in the wind that rolls in off the strait. The fairways are generous enough to encourage attacking play, but the bunkering and the ever-present sea breeze ensure that careless golf is quickly punished. It ranks among the finest courses in Scandinavia, and it is less than an hour from central Copenhagen by car across the Øresund Bridge.

No. 15 in Continental Europe · Skåne, Sweden Falsterbo Golf Club

Three places below Barsebäck in the ranking, Falsterbo Golf Club is a different kind of classic. Laid out on a narrow peninsula at the very southwestern tip of Sweden — where the Baltic meets the Øresund — it is one of the oldest courses in Scandinavia and one of the most purely links-like on the continent. Broad fairways, firm turf, no natural shelter from the wind that arrives from almost any direction, and a setting that feels genuinely remote despite being reachable from Copenhagen in under ninety minutes. Falsterbo rewards low, creative shot-making over the kind of high aerial game that suits parkland courses. Playing it on a breezy afternoon is among the most authentic links experiences available anywhere in northern Europe.

No. 35 in Continental Europe · Funen, Denmark Great Northern Golf Club — Kerteminde

The highest-ranked Danish course on the list, and the one with the most significant news attached to it. Great Northern opened in 2017 with 18 holes by Nicklaus Design on rolling farmland on the island of Funen — seven artificial lakes, a 100-foot ridge where eight championship holes play, and a signature island green at the 18th that has become one of the most recognisable finishing holes in Danish golf. The excavated terrain creates constant changes in elevation, and as wind direction shifts across the manufactured ridge, the course plays differently on every visit. Holes four through six form one of the most demanding three-hole stretches in the country, with water protecting the full length of a fairway on each. Two driveable par 4s — at seven and thirteen, played in opposite directions — guarantee that conditions favour at least one of them on any given day.

In June 2026, Great Northern opens a brand-new hotel building with 52 rooms and suites, expanding a property that already includes a spa and course-side lodge accommodation. Read our full article on the new hotel at Great Northern. For groups wanting a complete stay-and-play experience on a Golf Digest-ranked course without leaving Danish soil, the timing could hardly be better.

No. 42 in Continental Europe · North Zealand, Denmark The Scandinavian Golf Club: Old Course — Farum

Thirty minutes north of Copenhagen, The Scandinavian Golf Club is the only property in Denmark to have two courses ranked among the 50 best in Continental Europe. The Old Course, designed by Robert Trent Jones Jr. and Bruce Charlton and opened in 2010 on a former military land, is the more demanding of the two. Water comes into play on 12 of the 18 holes, including every par 3. Copious amounts of sand were imported during construction to ensure drainage good enough to support the creeping bentgrass surfaces that now run firm and fast through the season. The finishing hole — a reachable par 5 with hazards shrinking the fairway on both sides and a green that falls toward a stone-tiered river — is one of the best closing holes in Danish golf.

No. 46 in Continental Europe · North Zealand, Denmark The Scandinavian Golf Club: New Course — Farum

Opened a year after the Old Course, the New at The Scandinavian Golf Club shares the same Trent Jones Jr. and Charlton pedigree and the same exacting conditioning. Fairways snake through native grasses and carefully placed hazards, bunkers are shaped to create visual pressure as much as physical penalty, and the 18th plays to a peninsula green with water running the full length of the left side. In 2024, the designers returned to introduce additional scoring opportunities and make the layout more welcoming for a wider range of handicaps — without softening the challenge for stronger players. Playing both courses on consecutive days at The Scandinavian is one of the finest back-to-back golfing experiences available in Denmark.

ONE REGION, FIVE RANKED COURSES

All five courses can be reached from Copenhagen within 90 minutes. A well-constructed golf holiday might combine Barsebäck and Falsterbo in Skåne with the two courses at The Scandinavian Golf Club in North Zealand — with Great Northern on Funen added for groups with a day or two to spare. The Øresund Bridge makes the Swedish golf courses as straightforward to reach as any golf course north of Copenhagen, and the combination of Danish and Swedish golf within a single trip is one that relatively few international visitors have discovered.

PLANNING YOUR GOLF HOLIDAY

Securing tee times at courses of this calibre — particularly at Barsebäck and Falsterbo, where international demand is high — requires forward planning and local knowledge. Green fee access at top-ranked Danish and Swedish golf clubs is not always straightforward for visiting groups, and coordinating logistics across two countries takes experience.

Golf Travel Denmark is a specialist destination management company based in Denmark. We arrange tee times, accommodation, transport, and dining for golf groups visiting Denmark and southern Sweden on a golf holiday, and we know all five of these courses personally. Whether you are planning a three-day golf break centred on Copenhagen and North Zealand, a full week golf holiday combining Denmark and Skåne, or a bespoke itinerary built around Great Northern and the island of Funen, we would be glad to put together a programme for your group.

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At Golf Travel Denmark we don't just book tee times — we create unforgettable moments.

Contact us to start planning your golf holiday in Denmark.