Highlands Links, Cape Breton, Nova Scotia

Nova Scotia’s tallest mountains loom over this Stanley Thompson-designed jewel, where wildly humped and slanting fairways snake dramatically through terrain ranging from a pine- edged valley floor cut by the charging Clyburn River to rocky outcrops and seaside marshes. Especially memorable are the legendary Canadian architect’s green complexes, left open at the front in the classic style, then made treacherous by Thompson’s distinctive hollows, run-offs and bumps. (Image: Golf Cape Breton)