Lofoten Golf Guide

Lofoten Links: The Northernmost Bucket List Course on Earth

Most bucket list golf trips involve a debate about which courses you can squeeze in. A trip to Lofoten Links involves a debate about whether to tee off at midnight. This is a real question you will have to answer, because from late May through mid-July the sun does not set on Gimsoy Island, and Lofoten Links is the only Top 100 course in the world where you can play 144 holes in 24 hours if your body and your dignity hold up.

Gimsoy sits at 68 degrees north latitude in Norway's Lofoten archipelago, above the Arctic Circle, with a permanent population of 181 people and a golf course ranked number 88 in the world by Golf Magazine. The course is the work of the Hov family, who spent roughly a quarter century turning a piece of remote Norwegian coastline into what reads like a Scottish links course that washed ashore in the wrong country. Six of the eighteen holes touch the Norwegian Sea. The 2nd is a 140-meter par 3 with a beach between the tee and a two-tiered green perched on a rocky outcrop. Cabot acquired the property in 2024, which tells you everything about where this place ranks.
You can fly into Evenes or Svolvaer, rent a car, and drive in through some of the most photographed scenery on the planet. White sand beaches, jagged peaks straight out of the sea, picture-book fishing villages. The on-site lodges face north toward the ocean, the midnight sun, and in winter the northern lights. The clubhouse restaurant serves Lofoten lamb and Arctic char. There is an Icelandic horse farm next door.