Want To Be A Golf Course Rater? Join Our Top 100 Panel
NB - Applications Can Be Submitted From April 15th Until April 30th, 2025
The biennial Top 100 Golf Courses UK & Ireland as well as the Next 100 lists are compiled with the assistance of a team of around three dozen experienced, enthusiastic and knowledgeable readers. Most importantly, each panellist will have played many courses of differing styles and standards, and ideally, each has played a minimum of 20 courses in the existing Top 100. This is key because all of the courses are wonderful. It therefore becomes a matter of working out which are actually even better than the others!
All panellists should be based in the UK or Ireland, and be able to commit to visiting and reviewing a minimum of ten contender clubs (from our shortlist of approximately 140 courses) during the review period. For the next set of rankings for 2027/28, this window will run from the summer of 2025 to late autumn 2026. There are more details on how we rank golf courses in the Top 100 section of the website.
All panellists are expected to arrange their own visits, beginning with a polite and friendly email to the club. They also pay for their own expenses such as travel, food and drink, and any associated accommodation. We believe that the integrity of the process relies on this. Each is supplied with a PDF 'letter of introduction' that explains they are an assessor for Golf Monthly.
In return, the majority of our contender clubs offer courtesy, although some do now charge a discounted reviewer's rate. Happily, we now find that most panellists also complete some of their reviews as a secret shopper; by playing in matches, society or corporate events, with friends who are members, or on golfing days out or trips further afield with friends. We very much welcome all such assessments. Another benefit is that great friendships are formed, and there is a biennial get-together which last time round was at Dumbarnie Links.
Although the group we have now is extremely strong, there is naturally a small turnover of personnel from time to time. In addition, it is healthy to seek fresh ideas and input. Golf Monthly's content and its audience is increasingly diverse, and we are keen to mirror this. We are therefore particularly interested in applications from women and younger golfers so long as they have the experience mentioned above. It is also worth noting that for the sake of impartiality, we do not allow golf industry professionals on the panel.
There will be just a handful of places on offer this time round, so if you are interested, then please email Rob Smith at r.smith896@btinternet.com between April 15th and April 30th, and he will send you more details about how to apply.
