Brazil is South America’s largest and most populous country and is the only Portuguese-speaking nation in the Americas. From a landscape perspective, Brazil has it all, tropical beaches, the Amazon River, rainforests and five different climates. Beautiful Brazil is a country of excitement from the sensual samba to football.

Soccer is the No.1 sport in Brazil but there are great golf courses in and around virtually every major city and some of them are simply stunning. There are around 75 golf courses in Brazil and we now feature Brazil’s Top 20. We may recommend a few more in the not too distant future.

Terravista headed the national rankings in 2012 (it's now No.3) and Dan Blankenship, Brazil’s most prolific golf course architect, designed it, “Terravista has proven to be the most enjoyable project of my career. Working in an area with incredible ocean views from seaside cliffs, native Brazilian rain forest, contours almost ideal for a golf course, and knowing that Brazil was discovered at this exact location 500 years ago, was a wonderful experience.”

Golf's return to the Olympics was announced in 2009 and the seaside city of Rio de Janeiro was chosen to host Olympic golf for the first time since 1904. A brand new course was designed by Gil Hanse, the Rio 2016 Olympic Golf Course and it’s this layout that catapulted to No.2 in our latest Brazil Top 20.

Several years in the making, Tom Fazio’s Santapazienza is the national No.1 and it has the potential – if enough people can get to see it – to take the world by storm. According to the designer: “The land is spectacular, with water features, great trees and big elevation changes. We were given the freedom to explore ways to maximize the potential of the land and… I believe we have created a golf experience unlike any in the world.”

We last updated our Brazilian golf course rankings in June 2021.