The Most Scenic Golf Courses in Los Angeles
Most golf course rankings lean on shot values, conditioning, and pedigree. This one doesn't. We ranked the most scenic golf courses in Los Angeles on a single, unapologetic criterion: what you see between shots. If a course makes you reach for your phone four times a round, it belongs here; if it merely plays well, it doesn't.
Los Angeles is uniquely rigged for this exercise. Few places let you play cliff-top holes above the Pacific in the morning and tee off at the edge of a national forest that afternoon. The list below runs the full sweep of that geography: the ocean bluffs of the Palos Verdes Peninsula, the San Gabriel Mountains rising over Sunland and La Verne, and reclaimed hilltops — former oil fields and landfills among them — that now serve up panoramic views across the basin.
A note on access: most of these are public or daily-fee courses you can book this week, with two private exceptions flagged below, because leaving them off a scenery list would be dishonest. They run from most jaw-dropping on down — though "down" is relative when the last entry once needed a funicular.
1. Trump National Golf Club Los Angeles
No hedging on the top spot: every one of the 18 holes on this Rancho Palos Verdes daily-fee course looks out over the Pacific. Pete Dye routed the original layout along the bluffs and Tom Fazio reworked it after a landslide derailed the property's first act, with the stabilization and rebuild reportedly running around $264 million — frequently cited as the most expensive golf course ever constructed. The result is a 7,242-yard, par-71 test where coastal wind and cliff-edge carries are part of the scenery. It's public, it's pricey, and it's worth doing once.
2. Los Verdes Golf Course
The people's answer to its neighbor up the coast. This 1964 William F. Bell design is an LA County municipal course perched on the same Palos Verdes bluffs, with Santa Catalina Island filling the horizon and a signature 15th set hard against the oceanside cliffs. At 6,605 yards, par 71, for municipal green fees, it may be the best scenery-per-dollar ratio in public golf — which is exactly why it's one of the most heavily played courses in the country.
3. Palos Verdes Golf Club
The Golden Age entry. George C. Thomas Jr. and William P. Bell — the partnership behind Riviera and Bel-Air — laid this out in 1924, and fourteen of its eighteen holes offer Pacific views, with the downhill par-3 4th framing snow-capped Mt. Baldy on clear winter days. A 2013 renovation removed hundreds of trees specifically to reopen the ocean vistas, and the LPGA arrived in 2022 for the inaugural Palos Verdes Championship. It's private, but any honest scenery list has to include it.
Palos Verdes Golf Club
Palos Verdes Estates, CA
4. Angeles National Golf Club
Now for the mountains. Tucked into the mouth of Big Tujunga Canyon at the edge of the Angeles National Forest, this 2004 Jack Nicklaus design — the only Nicklaus Signature course in Los Angeles County — plays beneath the San Gabriel Mountains with two lakes, a winding creek, and fifty-plus bunkers cut into canyon terrain. At 7,141 yards with a 143 slope from the back tees, the backdrop isn't the only thing that will get your attention.
5. Rustic Canyon Golf Course
The connoisseur's pick. Gil Hanse, Jim Wagner, and Geoff Shackelford moved remarkably little earth building this 2002 minimalist layout across the floor of Moorpark's Happy Camp Canyon, and the scenery here is of a subtler kind: firm turf, native scrub, and canyon walls doing the framing. Ranked among the nation's top public courses and long one of Southern California's best values, it proves a great view doesn't need an ocean.
6. Black Gold Golf Club
Arthur Hills routed this 2001 daily-fee course along the ridgelines of a former Shell oil field in the Yorba Linda foothills, and the sweeping views across Orange County are the payoff for all that elevation. Tee shots drop to valley fairways, approaches climb to perched greens, and the par-4 18th finishes downhill beside a cascading waterfall — as theatrical a closer as any on this list.
7. MountainGate Country Club
Golf above the 405. Ted Robinson Sr. shaped 27 holes from a decommissioned landfill in the Sepulveda Pass, at the base of the Santa Monica Mountains near the Getty, and nearly every hole opens onto long views over the canyons and the city below. The three interchangeable nines are private-club terrain, but as landscape reclamation with a view, it has few rivals anywhere.
8. Marshall Canyon Golf Course
The sleeper. This 1966 LA County course in the La Verne foothills pairs tree-lined canyon fairways with views that stretch from the San Gabriel foothills toward the Los Angeles skyline on clear days — plus resident deer that wander the fairways in plain sight of golfers. At 6,110 yards, par 71, for county green fees, it's the quiet-scenery pick of the nine.
9. Industry Hills Golf Club — Eisenhower Course
Elevation, earned the hard way. William F. Bell built this 7,211-yard resort brute atop a former landfill in 1979, and the hilltop setting was once so steep that a funicular railway famously hauled golfers up the final climb to the clubhouse. At 74.9/141 from the tips it's one of the sternest cards in the region — bring a camera and your A game in equal measure.
Industry Hills Golf Club — Eisenhower Course
City of Industry, CA
Which View Should You Book?
If you want the ocean and money is no object, it's Trump National; if you want the ocean at a muni price, it's Los Verdes. Mountain drama peaks at Angeles National, architecture obsessives should make the drive to Rustic Canyon, and Black Gold is the move when you want elevation, a waterfall finish, and a tee time you can actually get. Whichever you pick, take the twilight slot — every course on this list saves its best light for the last three holes.
Industry Hills Golf Club — Eisenhower Course
City of Industry, CA
Palos Verdes Golf Club
Palos Verdes Estates, CA