The 25 best golf courses in America in 2019, ranked

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Shinnecock Hills Golf Club in Southampton, NY, is one of the best courses in the US.

• This month, a report by Wealth-X intelligence confirmed golf as the No. 1 preferred sport for multi-millionaires worldwide.
• Golf Digest released their biennial ranking of America's 100 Greatest Golf Courses, with Pine Valley Golf Club in NJ ranked first.
• The top 25 courses included courses as far north as Michigan and as far south as Florida.

Golf Digest recently released its 2019-2020 ranking of America's 100 Greatest Golf Courses. Established in 1966, the biennial ranking by the publication is considered the "gold standard" in the sport's community.

In Wealth-X's inaugural High Net Worth Handbook, golf was ranked as the No. 1 preferred sport amongst individuals with a net worth of $1 million to $30 million.

Many of the top ranking courses are elite private clubs, where non-members can only play if invited by a current member. Other courses are public but come with high green fees as a result of their prestige. Courses in Pebble Beach, California and Augusta, Georgia are often utilized for annual professional golf tournaments such as The Masters.

Read more: The top 15 sports wealthy people around the world love, ranked

To score each prestigious course, the Golf Digest panel totals its averages in seven categories, including shot value, aesthetics, and ambience. In addition, 60 evaluations over the past 10 years are required for a course to even be considered.

Golf Digest defines shot value as the variety of risks and rewards when playing each hole. Aesthetics assess the course's scenic value, while ambience takes into account the overall feel and atmosphere.

Below are the top 25 of the 100 courses provided by Golf Digest, in descending order with scores rounded to the nearest tenth.