Updated as of November 27, 2025.

Bali has long lured elite travelers with its spiritual calm, volcanic majesty, coastal glamour, and primed golf courses. In recent years, it has quietly reshaped itself into one of Southeast Asia’s most compelling golf destinations—where the sport transcends competition and becomes a full-bodied lifestyle pursuit. Here, golfers do not simply play; they arrive for orchestral sunrises, designer-grade hospitality, ocean-edged fairways, mist-draped tees, and the sense that every drive is accompanied by a moment worth capturing. Yet, Bali’s golf scene has evolved. Notable closures have shifted attention toward a more exclusive roster of courses, leaving today’s players with a distilled but exceptional selection that promises both artistry and indulgence.

Among the courses no longer in operation are the once-prominent coastal layouts formerly favoured by travelling professionals. Bali National Golf Club closed its doors in May 2025, marking the end of its luxury golf services. Likewise, the secondary 9-hole option, Bali Beach Golf Course, remains permanently shuttered, while the awe-inspiring ocean-cliff masterpiece, Nirwana Bali Golf Club has been inactive since 2017, with redevelopment plans yet to yield a reopening.

The warm climate, unique atmosphere, pristine beaches, rich culture and tradition, high-end resorts, private luxury villas, best surfing spots, and stunning golf courses are just a few of the many things that make Bali a major tourist destination.

Here are the Top Golf Courses You Can Visit When in Bali:

1. Bali Handara Kosaido Country Golf

The natives view this country golf as one of the most astonishing golf courses. The golf course is situated in Bali’s lush highlands and nestled in the crater of a volcano in the Bedugul Mountains. After a 2-hour drive from Nusa Dua or an hour’s drive from Ubud, you pass Lake Bedugul to reach the golf course’s entrance. Established in 1974, with Peter Thompson and Michael Wolveridge as its designers, the course is opened daily (with 4, as the maximum golfers per group on both weekdays and weekends).

Handara’s terrain is a lush quilt of rainforest-meets-mountain meadow, where local flora frames every fairway and the stillness is broken only by the sound of a clean strike. The approach alone sets the tone: winding uphill through cooler elevations, where golfers often encounter fog that curls around the slopes like a theatre curtain lifting for a performance. The iconic gates of Handara have become a photo-op legend in their own right, signalling that one has entered a place where scenery and sport converge.

The playing conditions reflect its championship aspirations and meticulous groundskeeping. Creeping Bentgrass greens ensure a smooth, responsive surface ideal for precision putting. Fairways and roughs feature a resilient mixture of local grasses, while tees are finished in hardwearing Bermuda grass for reliable launch pace. The course offers multiple tee boxes, including a 6,983-yard Championship Tee with a 73.6 rating and 139 slope, 6,407-yard Men’s Tee (70.8/128), and 5,698-yard Ladies Tee (72.6/131), accommodating every calibre of luxury golfer without diluting the challenge. These statistics convey more than numbers—they underscore Handara’s enduring positioning as a serious course for players who appreciate legacy design and measured play.

Beyond the game, Handara also invites golfers to stay longer. Thoughtfully rustic yet elegant mountain-view rooms and stay-and-play packages blend wellness, sport, and exclusivity. For guests journeying from Ubud or coastal southern enclaves, a round at Handara is best embraced early in the day before the clouds grow bolder and tropical afternoons take over. This is sunrise golf at its finest, where a hot towel, a warm drink, and 18 holes feel entirely aligned with Bali’s natural cadence.

2. New Kuta Golf

Located in the Pecatu compound next to Dreamland Beach, Southern Bali, this course is one of the finest golf courses in the region. The course designed by Golfplan; Ronald Fream was established in 2007 and has 18 holes par 72, which is 7515 yards. New Kuta Golf is open daily with a maximum number of golfers per group tagged at four on both weekdays and weekends. The restaurants, spa and ample clubhouse beside the ninth and 18th greens make the course a memorable and exciting place to play golf.

Fairways here hug limestone cliffs that plunge into ocean horizons, affording golfers uninterrupted Indian Ocean views—masterpieces that feel minted for lifestyle campaigns, brand storytelling, and aspirational travel imagery. The course is engineered around shot-making strategy, where wind conditions, natural undulation, and surface firmness influence every decision. “Fream’s Island” at Hole 6—a par-3 suspended in visual isolation—and “The Cliff Hanger” at Hole 15 exemplify the course’s dual identity as a sporting test and a destination statement. Five sets of tees make this course playable for varying skill levels, yet its distance peaks at over 7,500 yards from the tips, preserving its competitive backbone for seasoned golfers.

New Kuta’s clubhouse is equally memorable. Its design encourages the ritual of unwinding post-round—think ocean-view balconies, structured stone silhouettes, cocktail-hour timing, and a lookout tower for championship-style overviews of play. Many travelers deliberately schedule tee-off in late afternoon for the unmatched golden-hour crescendo that pours over the ridges. This is sunset golf perfected, where a game’s final holes are accompanied by skies of amber and rose, followed by drinks, cigars, and a slow descent from elevated exhilaration into tropical ease.

3. Bukit Pandawa Golf & Country Club

A standout addition to Bali’s luxe golf narrative is the modern cliff-top precision course, Bukit Pandawa Golf & Country Club. Debuting in 2016 and designed by Bob Moore of JMP Golf Design, Bukit Pandawa distinguishes itself as the island’s only 18-hole par-3 course. This makes for an intriguing pivot in the landscape of luxury golf—an offering for guests who value time-efficiency, tactical finesse, and dramatic visual payoff.

While it lacks a par-5’s stretched heroism, Bukit Pandawa compensates with the elegance of precision. Its par-54 configuration allows most players to complete a round in under three hours, presenting the game as a curated experience rather than an endurance test. From tee to green, the course is optimised for strategic irons, approach artistry, bunker composition, terraced waterfalls, and ocean-backed shotmaking. Pure Dynasty seashore paspalum grass maintains a robust surface, ensuring durability under tropical conditions while producing cushion-clean roll on the putting surfaces.

The course also embraces accessibility—buggy rides and caddies are included, lifting the experience with seamless comfort. Its location, close to a constellation of opulent hotels in Nusa Dua and Uluwatu, positions it ideally for families, leisure players, and time-bound luxury travellers seeking golf as an interlude rather than the entire agenda. For lifestyle narratives that merge golf with villa, ocean, or wellness content, Bukit Pandawa has become a compelling muse.

Legends in the Landscape: The End of Bali’s Iconic Courses

Bali’s golf landscape carries storied echoes of world-class design and seaside brilliance. While three of its most celebrated courses—Bali Beach, Bali National, and Nirwana Bali—no longer host tee times, their legacy remains intrinsic to the island’s allure. Thoughtfully etched into volcanic highlands and oceanfront cliffs, these courses defined different eras of Bali’s golf history. For guests planning to include them in their itineraries, it’s essential to note that these fairways are now part of Bali’s heritage, following their announcements of permanent closure.

Bali Beach Golf Course

Set along the gentle shoreline of Sanur, this 9-hole course once served as the island’s most approachable seaside golf retreat. Towering palms and frangipani bordered smooth fairways, while lagoon-like water features introduced technical finesse rare to shorter layouts.

Bali Beach Golf Course had a driving range and clubhouse, surrounded by tall, mature trees, regulation green complexes, earth molding, and lakes. The golf course provided an amazing pitch having spots of flowering hibiscus plants and shady pines. The course has remained closed for several years, with redevelopment plans unable to restore it to active service. What lives on instead is nostalgia—sunrise tee-off photos shared among enthusiasts who once played its tranquil loops by the coast.

Bali National Golf Club

Reopened in 2013, after undergoing a comprehensive renovation, Bali National Golf Club had its final chapter in May 2025, marking its transition from competing contender to cultural waypoint. Today, Bali National Golf Club remains permanently closed, while its heyday showcased reinvention. The island’s most exclusive golf baton has since been passed to new frontrunners.

Nirwana Bali Golf Club

The golf club lies on the southwest coastline of Bali where the famous temple, Tanah Lot, is located. In July 1997, the golf course, whose designer happened to be the “Great White Shark” of golfing, Greg Norman, was opened. Its signature Par 3 7th hole overlooks the famous Tanah Lot temple and the stunning Indian Ocean and is by far the most photographed hole on the course. Used to be managed by IMG Golf Course Management, it gathered global distinction and repeatedly topped lists for scenic integrity, cultural framing, and design ambition.

Its permanent closure in 2017 signaled an ambitious pivot toward hospitality redevelopment that has not yet revived its fairways for sport. Though no longer playable, Nirwana Bali Golf Club remains Bali’s most quoted golf legend.

Experiencing Bali’s Top Golf Courses

The reduction in active courses has not limited Bali’s appeal, but rather, it has elevated it. Its glow is archival, not absent—a reminder for today’s golfers: Bali’s most cinematic course lives beautifully in past-tense prestige, firmly part of history, and permanently closed.

The island proves that less is more—fewer tee sheets, more soul; fewer courses, greater stature. As Bali continues its ascent as a luxury leisure capital, every swing played here becomes a celebration of destination, design, and possibility—an open invitation to experience golf not as a game alone, but as a defining moment of the journey. Bali remains the grand stage where sport and serenity meet, always forward-looking, endlessly inspiring.

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Featured Photo: Bali Handara Kosaido Country Golf