Golf Course Architecture Styles: Links vs Parkland vs Heathland

The Ground Decides The Game

The plan below moves from the oldest style to the newest: links first, because that is where golf and course design both began, then parkland, then the heathland courses that borrow from both, and finally desert and sandbelt golf. A comparison table pulls the differences together, and a section on the great architects explains why a Colt course looks nothing like a Pete Dye course even when the land is similar.

The Styles At A Glance

The number that matters most is the first one: five families of course, each defined by the soil and the setting rather than by a rule book. A single architect, such as Alister MacKenzie, could work brilliantly across three of them. The land came first; the design read what the land offered.

Links: Where Golf And Design Began

The links is the original golf course, and for centuries it was the only kind. The word comes from the old term for linksland, the rumpled sandy ground that links the sea to the farmland behind the dunes. It was useless for crops, so it was left to sheep, rabbits and, eventually, golfers. The sandy base drains almost instantly and stays firm, which is why links golf is played along the ground: you can land a shot 30 yards short of a green and let it scamper on, a shot that would plug in soft parkland turf.

Because linksland sits open to the coast, links courses have little or no tree cover. The defence is the wind off the sea, the firm running fairways that reject an imperfect line, and the deep revetted pot bunkers with their stacked-turf faces, from which the only sane shot is often sideways. The rough is wiry fescue and marram grass on the dune ridges. St Andrews Old Course, Royal County Down, Carnoustie, Muirfield and Royal Birkdale are all links, and The Open Championship is the only major played exclusively on them. The 2026 Open returns to the links of Royal Birkdale in July.

For two hole-by-hole links tours in this style, see our guides to the St Andrews Old Course and Royal County Down, and for how links golf specifically tests the swing, our guide to playing golf in the wind.

Parkland: The Aerial Game

A parkland course is the type most golfers play most weeks. It is an inland course laid out on softer, greener ground, lined with mature trees and dressed with ponds, streams and lakes. The turf holds moisture far more than sand does, so the ball stops where it lands rather than running, and the game becomes an aerial one: carry the hazard, fly the ball to the flag, and spin it to a halt on a receptive green.

Parkland is the default style of American golf and of most inland golf worldwide, which is why it feels normal to so many players and why links golf feels alien on a first visit. The trees do much of the strategic work, pinching fairways and framing greens, and water is used as a bold, all-or-nothing hazard in a way the sea and the pot bunker never are on a links. The most famous parkland course in the world is Augusta National, home of the Masters, where the fairways are wide, the greens are lightning-fast and severely contoured, and there is barely a bunker in play off the tee. Rory McIlroy completed his career grand slam at Augusta in 2025, winning the one major that had eluded him on the most scrutinised parkland stage in the game.

For the parkland tour that completed McIlroy's slam, see Masters History, and for the crowned-green sandhills variant of inland American golf, our guide to Pinehurst No. 2.

Heathland: A Links Built Inland

The heathland course is the clever middle ground, and it exists largely by accident of geology and railways. Across Surrey and Berkshire, south-west of London, the ground is sandy heath: free-draining, covered in heather, gorse and bracken, with scattered pine and silver birch. It plays firm and fast, with running fairways and natural contours, exactly like a links, but it sits inland and is framed by trees rather than dunes. In the early 1900s, when the railways let London golfers reach these sandy commons in an afternoon, a wave of architects turned the heath into golf courses, and heathland golf was born almost overnight.

The results are among the most admired inland courses on earth. Sunningdale has two of them: the Old Course by Willie Park Jr (opened 1901) and the New Course by Harry Colt (opened 1923), the latter usually rated the sterner test. Walton Heath, laid out by Herbert Fowler from 1904, gives an expansive, exposed heathland with heather crowding every fairway. The Berkshire, Wentworth and Swinley Forest belong to the same family. The five architects most associated with the style are Harry Colt, Herbert Fowler, Willie Park Jr, James Braid and Tom Simpson.

If you remember only one thing about heathland, make it this: it is what happens when you build a links-like course inland, on sandy heath, instead of on the shore. Same firm running turf; pines and heather instead of dunes and sea.

Desert And Sandbelt: Two Modern Extremes

Beyond the three classic styles sit two further categories worth knowing, one born of hostile ground and one of near-perfect ground.

You will also hear courses described as coastal or clifftop (Pebble Beach), stadium or championship (Pete Dye's TPC Sawgrass, built for spectators and drama), and modern minimalist (Coore, Crenshaw and Doak courses that move as little earth as possible). These are as much philosophies of design as they are types of ground. For a public clifftop major venue, see Pebble Beach Golf Links; for a modern faux-links stadium course, see Whistling Straits.

How The Styles Play Differently

Strip away the scenery and the styles differ in three practical ways: how firm the ground is, how you are expected to move the ball, and what punishes a miss. The table below is the quick reference a traveller can carry from one style to the next.

The pattern is clear once you see it. Sandy ground (links, heathland, sandbelt) plays firm and rewards the player who controls the ball on the ground and thinks about angles. Softer inland ground (parkland) plays through the air and rewards the player who can carry a number and stop it. Desert golf is simply parkland turf marooned in a landscape that punishes any miss off the grass. It is the same game, but the ideal shot changes with the soil.

The Architects Who Defined The Styles

Ground offers the possibilities; the architect chooses among them. A handful of designers shaped how each style looks and plays, and their signatures are recognisable a century later.

• Old Tom Morris (links)Shaped many of the earliest links through the second half of the 1800s, with work and revisions at St Andrews, Prestwick and Royal County Down. His courses grew out of the natural ground rather than being imposed on it.
• Alister MacKenzie (strategic, cross-style)The most versatile of the greats, responsible for Augusta National (parkland), Cypress Point (coastal) and Royal Melbourne (sandbelt). Famous for strategic options, natural-looking contours and bunkering that both threatens and beautifies.
• Harry Colt and Herbert Fowler (heathland)The architects of the English heath. Colt gave Sunningdale its New Course and shaped Wentworth and Muirfield; Fowler laid out Walton Heath. Willie Park Jr, James Braid and Tom Simpson complete the heathland school.
• Donald Ross (inland American)The Scot who defined a huge slice of American golf, most famously the crowned, repelling greens of Pinehurst No. 2, where an approach off the correct line trickles away in every direction.
• Pete Dye (modern, bold)Brought a sharper, more penal, more theatrical style, with railway-tie bunker faces, island greens and huge visual drama, at TPC Sawgrass and the faux-links Whistling Straits.
• Coore, Crenshaw and Doak (minimalist revival)The modern movement that moves as little earth as possible and lets the natural land dictate the holes, restoring the philosophy that made the old links great in the first place.

For a dedicated look at the great designers and their signature moves, see our companion guide to Famous Course Designers, and for how design shapes the way you should think your way round, our guide to Course Management.

McIlroy Across The Styles

Few players illustrate the styles better than Rory McIlroy, because he learned the game on one kind of ground and went on to win on all of them.

• Links roots: McIlroy grew up at Holywood Golf Club near Belfast, a short drive from the great links of Royal County Down. That firm, windy, running golf built the low, controlled ball flight and shot-making that links golf demands, and it showed when he won The Open on the links of Royal Liverpool in 2014.
• Parkland peak: His career grand slam was completed on parkland, at Augusta National in 2025, on the fast, contoured, tree-lined stage that is the opposite of the links he was raised on. A complete player has to master both, and the Masters green jacket was proof he had.
• Heathland at home: McIlroy keeps a home near Wentworth in Surrey, in the heart of the English heathland belt, and plays the BMW PGA Championship on its tight, tree-lined West Course (a Harry Colt design, later reworked by Ernie Els). It is the one course he has openly said he finds least to his taste, though he praised its most recent redesign, a reminder that even a player of his range has a preferred kind of ground.

The lesson of McIlroy's career is the lesson of this whole guide: the ground shapes the golfer as much as the golfer shapes the shot. For more on the man and the method, see Rory's Swing and Rory McIlroy's 2026 Season.

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