Highland Golf Links

Highland Golf Links holds a legitimate claim to being the oldest golf course in the United States still playing on its original land. Established in 1892, the course sits on the outermost tip of Cape Cod, perched atop the dramatic Highland Cliffs that drop directly into the Atlantic. That setting alone makes it unlike almost anything else in American golf — salt air, sweeping ocean views, and a terrain shaped more by glacial geology than any architect's hand. It plays as a genuine links, because that's exactly what it is.

The layout is compact and unpretentious, a par 70 that rewards local knowledge and punishes complacency. Wind off the ocean is never decorative here — it's a playing condition, shifting the effective difficulty of nearly every hole on any given day.

North Truro sits within the Cape Cod National Seashore, and Highland's land is managed by the National Park Service, which has kept the course refreshingly uncommercialized. This is golf in a near-original state, and that rarity is the whole point.