North Carolina's best golf courses.

• Author: Brafford, Kevin
• Position: SPECIAL SECTION

For the fourth consecutive year, the North Carolina Golf Panel is proud to partner with BUSINESS NORTH CAROLINA magazine to publish its rankings of the best golf courses in what we believe is the best state for golf. Our list of the cop 100 courses is determined by a scoring system that asks panelists to consider a course's conditioning, routing, design, strategy, memorability, fairness, variety and aesthetics. Thanks to a voting process that is now completed and tabulated online, we can provide a greater array of specialty rankings that we hope you will enjoy.

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

Once again, Pinehurst No. 2 ranks No. 1-as has been the case since the panel was formed in 1995. A notable change this year is that Grandfather Golf and Country Club (Linville) supplants Old North State Club (New London) at No. 2, while Quail Hollow Club (Charlotte), home of the PGA Tour championship that now bears its name, moved from sixth to fourth. Other big jumps in the top 50: Myers Park Country Club (Charlotte) soared from 42nd to 27th, and The Club at Irish Creek (Kannapolis) leaped from 45th to 34th.

The approximately 150 club professionals and general managers, top amateur players, business executives and members of the media who make up the panel can vote only for places they've played, a daunting task in a state blessed with more than 550 golf courses. And we realize that ranking courses is not an exact science but a topic for debate. But that's OK--we love to talk about golf.

NORTH CAROLINA'S TOP-100 GOLF COURSES '10 '09 Par Yardage Course (back rating/slope tees) 1 1 Pinehurst No. 2, Pinehurst 72 7,252 75.9/138 2 3 Grandfather Golf and Country 72 7,085 74.3/145 Club, Linville 3 2 Old North State Club, New 72 7,102 74.8/142 London 4 6 Quail Hollow Club, Charlotte 72 7,396 75.0/140 5 4 Pine Needles Lodge & Golf Club, 71 7,015 73.5/135 Southern Pines 6 5 The Country Club of North 72 7,204 75.5/140 Carolina (Dogwood), Pinehurst 7 9 Charlotte Country Club, 72 6,764 73.3/136 Charlotte 8 7 Forest Creek Golf Club (South), 72 7,067 74.6/143 Pinehurst 9 8 Elk River Club, Banner Elk 72 6,826 73.4/141 10 10 Pinehurst No. 4, Pinehurst 72 7,117 74.5/136 11 11 Linville Golf Club, Linville 72 6,946 73.4/139 12 13 Pinehurst No. 8, Pinehurst 72 7,092 74.2/135 13 16 Cape Fear Country Club, 72 6,856 73.4/135 Wilmington 14 17 Eagle Point Golf Club, 72 7,170 74.5/137 Wilmington 15 12 Biltmore Forest Country Club, 70 6,606 71.5/127 Asheville 16 15 Forest Creek Golf Club...