Unless you are a cricket fan or have Pakistani roots, it’s probable that you don’t know much about beautiful Pakistan with its majestic mountains and its long, long history, which dates back some 2,000 years BC. With landscapes that will lift the soul and warm, friendly and hospitable people, Pakistan has every right to be better understood by the West.

Golf does not yet rival the national sport of cricket but it is certainly growing in popularity. According to the Pakistan Golf Federation there are more than 5,000 registered golf club members who are attached to the national body through five regional golf associations.

The Pakistan Golf Union, the forerunner to the PGF, was founded in 1960 by six clubs: Karachi, Pakistan West Railways, Lahore Gymkhana, Rawalpindi, Peshawar and Dacca (now in Bangladesh). The number of affiliated clubs has now risen to around fifty, with half the clubs located in the Punjab region.

All told, it’s reckoned there are forty-eight golf facilities located around the country. Twenty-five courses are of the 9-hole variety, twenty are 18-hole set-ups and there are three 27-hole complexes at Islamabad GC, Karachi GC and Rawalpindi GC, all of which feature in our national listings.

Our Pakistan rankings were last updated in December 2016.