15 October 2026

Apes Hill Named Among the World's Top 100 Golf Resorts

Apes Hill Barbados joins GOLF Magazine's World's Top 100 Golf Resorts, tops Best Lodging and earns eleven World Golf Awards 2026 nominations.

GOLF Magazine has named Apes Hill Barbados in its Top 100 Golf Resorts in the World for 2026. Its editors then went a step further and picked Apes Hill as one of five resorts on the list with the best lodging. For a course that reopened in 2022, that is a pleasing thing to read over breakfast.

September had more to give. The same month brought eleven nominations at the 2026 World Golf Awards, across world, Caribbean and Barbados categories. We are proud of all of it, and we will try to stay measured for the next few hundred words. No promises.

What the Top 100 Recognises

A Top 100 resort list sets a different exam from a Top 100 course list. A course is judged on eighteen holes. A resort is judged on everything that happens around them, and GOLF's editors say as much in their introduction: at the best destinations, the amenities now stand comparison with the golf.

That suits Apes Hill. Golf sits at the heart of life here, from the Championship course to the Performance Centre, but the recognition reflects a broader experience. There are Padel and tennis courts, hiking trails, wellness experiences, farm-to-table dining and a Beach Club on the west coast. Together they make for an active island lifestyle that extends well beyond the fairway.

It also matters who is doing the recognising. GOLF is one of the most widely read golf titles in North America, which is home to a large share of our guests and members. A listing there reaches people who already trust the source, and who may be wondering where to spend the winter.

Best Lodging

GOLF also judged the Top 100 on where guests sleep, and named Apes Hill among just five resorts worldwide with the best lodging. We read that line twice, then once more to be sure.

There are no hotel rooms here. Guests stay in villas. The three-bedroom Courtyard Villas overlook the 18th fairway and come with a private pool. The four-bedroom Hilltop Villas are set on a single storey beside Little Apes, our nine-hole par-3 course. Every stay includes a private golf cart, daily housekeeping, access to the Beach Club and rounds of golf.

The villa is only part of it. Golf, dining, the courts and the Beach Club are reserved for members and staying guests, so a villa stay is the chance to try a lifestyle that is otherwise open only to the people who own here. The villa is where you stay. It is also the gateway to a way of life that tends to leave guests feeling rather better than when they arrived.

That is what the Best Lodging recognition reinforces: a blend of luxury accommodation, recreation and community in one place. Apes Hill is a golf community you get to stay in. It is not a hotel with a course attached.

Eleven Nominations at the 2026 World Golf Awards

The Top 100 news arrived alongside eleven nominations at the 2026 World Golf Awards.

On the world stage, Apes Hill is nominated for Best Golf Course, Best 9-Hole Golf Course, Best Eco-Friendly Golf Course, Best Golf Academy Venue, Best Golf Real Estate Venue and Best Par-3 Hole. In the Caribbean categories, the nominations are for Best Golf Course, Best 9-Hole Course, Best Golf Clubhouse and Best Golf Real Estate Venue. The eleventh is for Barbados' Best Golf Course.

Read the list back and it sounds less like a trophy cabinet and more like a description of the place. Sustainability sits beside the clubhouse. The par-3s sit beside the homes. These are nominations, not results, and the winners have yet to be announced. We will update this piece when they are, whichever way it goes.

Family Traveller Awards 2026

Not all of this year's recognition came from people who carry a handicap. At the Family Traveller Awards 2026, announced on 11 September 2026, Apes Hill was shortlisted as a finalist in two categories: Best Long-Haul Family Stay and Family Travel Sustainability.

A family travel title and a sustainability category are a long way from a course ranking, and that is the point. Set alongside the golf awards, they show the whole resort being judged, by quite different juries. Families will recognise the reasons: Little Apes, a par-three course where children and adults play side by side, and a community where families come first. The sustainability shortlist reflects how the land is looked after, from the Audubon-certified course to the rainwater reservoir that irrigates it.

Barbados had a good night too. The island itself was highly commended as a Beach and Sun Family Destination, which will surprise nobody who has spent an afternoon on the west coast.

A Track Record

None of this arrived from nowhere. In January 2026, Golfweek ranked the Championship course No. 7 in its Top 50 Courses in Mexico, Caribbean, Atlantic Islands & Central America. Readers of USA TODAY also voted it No. 9 Best Caribbean Golf Course in the 2026 10Best Readers' Choice awards.

The World Golf Awards have been kind before as well. Apes Hill won five titles in 2024, and in 2025 Little Apes was named the Caribbean's Best 9-Hole Golf Course. Our piece on being recognised among the world's best covers the rest. A track record does not guarantee the next result. It does suggest the judges keep finding their way back.

What the Recognition Means

Awards are judged by visitors, on a visit. The people who stay and own here judge Apes Hill every day, which is a harder test and the one we care about most. For them, a listing like this is mostly confirmation. The place they chose is being measured against the best in the world, and holding its own.

If you would like to see what the judges saw, the simplest way is to stay in a villa and live as a member does for a week or two. And if a week turns out not to be enough, membership at Apes Hill comes with owning a home here. Plenty of owners began as guests. Perhaps your Apes Hill story will start the same way.