Tag: Big Cedar Lodge

Golfweek’s Best 2023: Top 40 par-3, short and non-traditional courses in the U.S.

Our inaugural list of best par-3, short and non-traditional courses in the U.S. includes a bit of everything.

What makes a great short course? We posed that question to our huge network of course raters to establish the first Golfweek’s Best ranking of non-traditional courses in the United States. 

We included par-3 courses as well as short courses that might have a few par 4s and even par 5s. Some are crazy, over-the-top fun meant to be played barefoot with a cold drink in hand. Others are more traditional in their design. They might be at an elite private club, or they might be a muni down the street. There might be 18 holes, or there might be only six — who cares when you’re having a blast?

Basically, they all fit the bill of not being a traditional-length, traditional-par course. And just like the best short courses, we threw out some of the rules used for rating traditional courses and asked the raters to submit one overall score for each course based on how much they enjoyed the design and the environment. Those individual ratings were then combined to form one average rating, which is listed for each course. Each course had to receive a minimum number of 10 votes, and there are several other great short courses that likely will make this list when they receive enough votes. We received nearly a thousand ballots in all for this inaugural list.

Pinehurst Cradle
The Cradle at Pinehurst Resort in North Carolina (Courtesy of Pinehurst Resort)

And as for how we decided which courses fit the bill: All of these would be shorter than 2,700 yards if they were nine holes, compared to a traditional course typically being made up of nines measuring 3,100 to 3,800 yards. Short courses, particularly the public-access variety, are the most welcoming of all golf — everyone can take their shot. 

And there’s more to come. Streamsong Resort in Florida is adding a new short course this fall called The Chain, and the newly renovated Cabot Citrus Farms (formerly World Woods) in Florida also will have one named The 21 when the resort opens in December. Bandon Dunes Golf Resort in Oregon, already home to one of the best short courses in the world, is adding another. There’s no end in sight for fresh additions.

One note: Many courses have also added large putting courses, but those are not included on this list.

For this list, we included each course’s rating on a points scale of 1 to 10. We also included their locations, the designers, the year they opened, the number of holes, the total length and the par. At the end of each entry, the letter “p” indicates a private club, “d” indicates daily fee and “r” indicates a resort.

10 U.S. destinations with three or more top-ranked resort courses

10 destinations have three or more highly ranked courses on Golfweek’s Best Top 200 Resort Courses list.

What do you really want in a golf trip? If your answer is golf, golf, then more golf in one spot, sometimes followed by a wee bit of extra golf, we have you covered.

Golfweek’s Best ranks courses around the world by various categories, ranging from modern courses to the best in each state. One of our most popular rankings is the top 200 resort courses in the U.S.

Any of the layouts on the list would make for a great getaway. More than three dozen resorts have two courses on the list, always begging for a comparison between layouts over a nice cold drink and dinner after a full day of golf.

But if you’re looking for more, keep reading. Because 10 resorts are home to three or more courses on Golfweek’s Best ranking of top resorts in the U.S. From coastal Oregon to inland Florida, these destinations have the holes — and the pedigrees — to keep golfers swinging for days.

Pinehurst No. 4
Pinehurst No. 4 (Courtesy of Pinehurst Resort)

Six of these resorts have three courses ranked among the top 200. They are Big Cedar Lodge in Missouri, Firestone Country Club in Ohio, Pebble Beach Resorts in California, the Robert Trent Jones Golf Trail in Alabama, Sea Pines in South Carolina and Streamsong in Florida.

Two of these are not traditional resorts. The first is Firestone, which for the most part is a private members club. But Firestone offers stay-and-play packages open to the public. That qualifies it as a resort based on Golfweek’s Best standards in which any course that offers tee times to the public, even if the club is mostly a private facility, is deemed to be public-access.

The other in question is the Robert Trent Jones Golf Trail, which offers golf at 11 sites around the state. Because all the facilities are managed under one umbrella and offer great opportunities to bounce from one site to another with relative ease, we opted to include the Trail on this list.

Next up are the resorts with four courses ranked among the top 200 — rarefied air. They are Destination Kohler in Wisconsin (Whistling Straits and Blackwolf Run are two clubs, each with two courses, that are part of one resort) and Reynolds Lake Oconee in Georgia, which is a sprawling resort and residential community.

Only two resorts in the U.S. have five courses among the top 200 in the U.S.: Bandon Dunes Golf Resort in Oregon and Pinehurst Resort in North Carolina. Both of them are bucket-list destinations that every golfer should see, hopefully more than once. They offer all the golf most players would ever want on one vacation — playing one round on each course would take days, and one round on each course is never enough.

The resorts with three or more ranked courses have gone about their development in multiple ways. Some were established more than a century ago and have added courses through the decades — these resorts often feature courses designed by multiple architects, offering an array of styles and architectural features. Others feature several courses by one designer, with the resorts sticking with the architects who proved to work best for them.

Either way, you can’t go wrong with a trip to any of these locations listed on the following pages. Included for each resort are its top-200 courses listed with their average rating on a scale of 1 to 10 as assigned by Golfweek’s Best rater program, their designers, the years they opened and their rankings on various Golfweek’s Best lists. We hope you enjoy perusing these elite resorts, both on these pages and in real life.

And it’s worth noting, there is one more resort destination that is very likely to join this list of 10 in the coming years. Pine Needles in North Carolina, not far from Pinehurst Resort, operates three courses, two of which are on the 2023 list of top 200 resorts: Pine Needles (No. 47) and Mid Pines (T-35). The company’s third course, the recently renovated Southern Pines, didn’t have the requisite number of votes to qualify for this year’s list but is almost a lock to appear on the list in upcoming years.

Golfweek’s Best 2022: Top public and private courses in Missouri

The best public-access courses in Missouri are gathered around Branson, with Big Cedar offering three must-plays.

Want the best public-access golf in Missouri? It’s simple: Head to the Branson area for Big Cedar Lodge and the independent Branson Hills. Each of the top four public-access layouts in the state lies not far from the southern Missouri border with Arkansas.

Golfweek’s Best offers many lists of course rankings, with that of top public-access courses in each state among the most popular. All the courses on this list allow public access in some fashion, be it standard daily green fees, through a resort or by staying at an affiliated hotel. If there’s a will, there’s a tee time.

Also popular are the Golfweek’s Best rankings of top private courses in each state, and that list for Missouri’s private offerings is likewise included below.

(m): Modern course, built in or after 1960
(c): Classic course, built before 1960

Note: If there is a number in the parenthesis with the m or c, that indicates where that course ranks among Golfweek’s Best top 200 modern or classic courses. 

* New to or returning to list

Watch: Two holes-in-one in rapid order find the cup at recently upgraded 19th hole of Payne’s Valley at Big Cedar Lodge

Check out the photos of the recently upgraded bonus hole beneath staggering cliffs, which now features a new waterfall and bar.

The most popular golf hole at Big Cedar Lodge isn’t even among the Missouri resort’s three traditional 18-hole courses or even its two par-3 courses. That distinction goes the 19th hole, a 112-yard bonus hole designed by Bass Pro Shops and Big Cedar founder Johnny Morris at the resort’s newest layout, Payne’s Valley.

Built into a pond beneath a stunning cliff wall featuring waterfalls, the bonus hole until recently had been aced 12 times since its introduction in September of 2020, when the Tiger Woods-designed Payne’s Valley opened with a name in tribute to Ozarks native Payne Stewart. But on August 18, that total was raised by two more holes-in-one in a matter of minutes.

Billye Hollister of Arlington, Virginia, made the first hole-in-one of the pair, and his group went suitably bonkers after his shot from the back tees found the cup toward the front-middle of the island green. The left-hander’s ball touched down just past the stick before one-hopping backward into the hole.

Just minutes later in a different group, Susan Stevens of Augusta, Georgia, jarred her tee shot from the front tee box, the ball bouncing twice before rolling into the cup as gently as a putt.

It’s an amazing setting for a 19th hole, and the resort has made significant upgrades since the par 3 opened two years ago. A bar was recently built near the tee, and a new waterfall feature was added to the cliff wall atop which sits the clubhouse and cabins. Check out the photos below.

Susan Stevens and Billye Hollister after their holes-in-one at the bonus 19h hole at Payne’s Valley at Big Cedar Lodge in Missouri (Courtesy of Big Cedar Lodge)

Big Cedar is home to three of the top four courses in Missouri, as judged by Golfweek’s Best rating of public-access courses for each state. Ozarks National, designed by Bill Coore and Ben Crenshaw, ranks No. 1 on that list, followed by the Tom-Fazio designed Buffalo Ridge at No. 2 and Payne’s Valley at No. 4. The resort also boasts the Top of the Rock and Mountain Top par-3 courses among dozens of other attractions that include everything from fishing to go-cart racing for kids.

Golfweek’s Best Courses You Can Play: Missouri

Big Cedar Lodge has the top two public-access courses in Missouri: Ozarks National and Buffalo Ridge. Payne’s Valley could join them soon.

Missouri presents one of the best opportunities in the United States to play one state’s top two public-access golf courses within an easy 30-minute drive of each other.

It’s easy: Just head to Branson, not far north of the Arkansas state line. Big Cedar Lodge has the top two courses – Ozarks National and Buffalo Ridge – on Golfweek’s Best Courses You Can Play list for 2020 in the state, and No. 3 is less than half an hour away at Branson Hills Golf Club.

Golfweek ranks courses by compiling the average ratings – on a points basis of 1 to 10 – of its more than 750 raters to create several industry-leading lists of courses. That includes the popular Best Courses You Can Play list for courses that allow non-member tee times. These generally are defined as courses accessible to resort guests or regular daily-fee players.

No. 1 in Missouri is Ozarks National, built by the design duo of Bill Coore and Ben Crenshaw and opened in 2019. The course takes advantage of the mountainous terrain with holes playing atop and along several ridges. With long views from atop the hills and no adjacent development, it’s one of the most scenic mountain courses anyone could hope to play. It also ranks No. 33 on Golfweek’s Best 2021 list of top resort courses in the U.S.

Buffalo Ridge at Big Cedar Lodge in Missouri (Courtesy of Big Cedar Lodge)

Minutes away is No. 2 Buffalo Ridge, which Tom Fazio redesigned in 2015 and that plays tighter than Ozarks National through the mountainous terrain. It ranks No. 63 among top resort courses in the U.S.

Also at Big Cedar Lodge and just across the parking lot from Ozarks National is the new Tiger Woods-designed Payne’s Valley, which is sure to appear at some point on the Best Courses You Can Play list in Missouri but which hasn’t received the minimum number of ratings to be included in the Golfweek’s Best rankings. The island-green, bonus 19th hole at Payne’s Valley, which sits beneath giant rock walls, has become a social media darling since the layout opened in 2020.

Swope Memorial in Kansas City, Missouri (Courtesy of Swope Memorial)

No. 3 in the state is Branson Hills, another mountain layout that was designed by Chuck Smith with consultation by former PGA Tour player Bobby Clampett. Swope Memorial in Kansas City is No. 4 in the state, and Old Kinderhook in Camdenton is No. 5.

Old Kinderhook in Missouri (Courtesy of Old Kinderhook)

 

 

Golfweek’s Best Courses You Can Play in Missouri

1. *Big Cedar Lodge (Ozarks National)

Hollister (m) 

2. Big Cedar Lodge (Buffalo Ridge)

Hollister (m) 

3. Branson Hills

Branson (m)

4. Swope Memorial

Kansas City (c)

5. Old Kinderhook

Camdenton (m)

6. Creekmoor

Raymore (m)

7. Ledgestone

Branson (m)

8. Stone Canyon

Blue Springs (m)

9. Missouri Bluffs

St. Charles (m)

10. Shoal Creek

Kansas City (m)

Golfweek’s Best Private Courses in Missouri

1. St. Louis CC

St. Louis (No. 49 c)

2. Bellerive

Creve Couer (m)

3. Dalhousie Golf Club

Cape Girardeau (m)

4. Old Warson

Ladue (c)

5. *Persimmon Woods

Weldon Spring (m)

*New to the list in 2020

(m): modern; (c): classic

How we rate them

The members of our course-ratings panel continually evaluate courses and rate them based on our 10 criteria. They also file a single, overall rating on each course. Those overall ratings on each course are averaged together to produce a final rating for each course. Then each course is ranked against other courses in its state, or nationally, to produce the final rankings.

Tiger Woods, Justin Thomas outlast Rory McIlroy, Justin Rose at Payne’s Valley Cup

Tiger Woods and Justin Thomas outlasted Rory McIlroy and Justin Rose at Payne’s Valley in the Ozarks in a Ryder Cup-style exhibition match.

RIDGEDALE, Mo. – Tiger Woods and his TGR Design firm have built one of the widest golf courses imaginable at Big Cedar Lodge. Never mind that he missed the first fairway left on opening day in the Payne’s Valley Cup and lost a ball. It all worked out fine for Woods and American partner Justin Thomas.

That duo outlasted Rory McIlroy and Justin Rose on the first day of golf at Payne’s Valley in the Ozarks in a Ryder Cup-style exhibition match. The course was named in honor of Missouri native Payne Stewart, who died in a plane crash in 1999, and Stewart’s family was in attendance.

The American side took the title in a mix of fourball, foursomes and singles – with a bonus shot at a watery 19th hole designed by Bass Pro Shops and Big Cedar founder Johnny Morris. McIlroy and Rose won the opening six-hole segment of best-ball foursomes, and Woods and Thomas won the second six-hole segment of alternate shot. It went to singles matches from there, with Rose beating Woods 1-up and Thomas beating McIlroy 2-up to leave the match tied after 18 holes.

It all came down to that 120-yard shot to an island green at the par-3 19th hole set among exposed rocks towering an imposing 150 above the green. That final hole was played as a closest-to-the-pin contest, and Thomas hit the best shot to within 9 feet of the hole to close out the international duo. As a bonus, Jack Nicklaus, Gary Player and Payne Stewart’s son, Aaron, also played tee shots at the 19th hole.

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It was all to showcase one of the biggest course openings of the year. Payne’s Valley, the first public-access course Woods and his team designed in the United States, is the third 18-hole course at the expansive resort, which also is home to two par-3 courses. Phil Mickelson won his first PGA Tour Champions event, the Charles Schwab Series, at Big Cedar in August.

“I’m just so thankful that these guys came, and that they enjoyed it,” Woods said of Tuesday’s match. “The experience we had, that is what we want this to be all about.”

The other two 18-hole courses – Ozarks National by Bill Coore and Ben Crenshaw, and Buffalo Ridge Springs by Tom Fazio – are the top two courses in Missouri in Golfweek’s Best Courses You Can Play rankings for public-access courses. Payne’s Valley shares the mountain views and rolling landscape among exposed rock formations, but it couldn’t be a more different golf experience than those two existing courses.

Woods said Payne’s Valley was built to accommodate families and new players, giving everyone a chance to enjoy their time outside. In that vein, the fairways are incredibly wide, allowing just about any player to keep moving without too many punitive hazards. Many of the Zosia grass fairways are 80 yards wide or more in the typical landing areas, and the only real rough is positioned to stop balls from rolling off mountainous ridges and into trouble. Many of the holes feature slopes to help keep a wayward shot in play or even feed it toward the green.

For better players, there’s almost a different course within all that width. Greens are set at angles that can challenge better players, forcing them to play to one side of the fairway or another to set up the best angle to attack the pins and make birdies. There’s hardly a flat spot on the property, and even with all that width there are not really any pushover holes.

“My philosophy is to try to have movement and have flow, and to not lose a golf ball,” Woods said. “… To have kids, to have grandparents all play, the whole idea is to keep the ball moving and have it on the ground and give them the chance to have a good time.”

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Tiger Woods is back in Payne’s Valley Cup: What is it, where is it, how to watch it

Tiger Woods is back on the course at Payne’s Valley Golf Course at Big Cedar Lodge. Who’s playing? And how can you watch?

Tiger Woods is back.

We last saw the Big Cat on Friday in the second round of the U.S. Open, where he would go on to miss the cut.

On Tuesday, he’ll be back on the course at Payne’s Valley Golf Course at Big Cedar Lodge in Ridgedale, Missouri, near Branson.

Phil Mickelson recently won his first over-50 event at the PGA Tour Champions’ Charles Schwab Series at nearby Ozarks National.

Named in honor of Ozarks native Payne Stewart, the three-time major winner who died in a plane crash in 1999, Payne’s Valley will be the third 18-hole course at Big Cedar and also the highly anticipated, first public-access golf course designed by Woods.

“Payne’s Valley is the first public golf course that I have designed. I couldn’t be prouder of how it turned out,” said Woods in a statement. “It was an honor for me and my TGR Design team to work with Johnny Morris and Big Cedar Lodge on this spectacular golf course. I am thrilled that it will be featured during the Payne’s Valley Cup.”

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Who’s playing?

Woods will be teaming up with Justin Thomas to take on Rory McIlroy and Justin Rose. It’s basically Team USA vs. Team Europe in an 18-hole charity exhibition match.

What’s the format?

The event will feature a mix of fourball, foursomes and singles matches.

All four players will be mic’d up. The match will be closed to the public, although a select group of VIPs will be on allowed site to watch in person.

How can I watch it?

Golf Channel will have live television coverage. The match can also be streamed on the Golf Channel and NBC Sports apps as well as golfchannel.com. The fun starts at 3 p.m. ET and will be replayed at 8 p.m. ET. on Golf Channel.

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Payne’s Valley Cup at Big Cedar

Golfweek’s Jason Lusk travels to Big Cedar, home of the Payne’s Valley Cup, to discuss the new course and how it will fare for the players.

Golfweek’s Jason Lusk travels to Big Cedar, home of the Payne’s Valley Cup, to discuss the new course and how it will fare for the players.

Tiger Woods, Justin Thomas to battle Rory McIlroy, Justin Rose in Payne’s Valley Cup

An 18-hole charity exhibition match will mark the grand opening of Payne’s Valley Golf Course at Big Cedar Lodge in Missouri.

It’ll be Team USA vs. Team Europe in an 18-hole charity exhibition match at the grand opening of Payne’s Valley Golf Course at Big Cedar Lodge in Ridgedale, Missouri.

Tiger Woods and good buddy Justin Thomas will make up Team USA, while Rory McIlroy and Justin Rose will be Team Europe in the Payne’s Valley Cup.

The special event will be Tuesday, Sept. 22, two days after the conclusion of the U.S. Open at Winged Foot. It will be carried live on Golf Channel at the highly anticipated, the first public-access golf course designed by Woods. The course pays tribute to Ozarks-native and World Golf Hall-of-Famer Payne Stewart.

“Payne’s Valley is the first public golf course that I have designed. I couldn’t be prouder of how it turned out,” said Woods in a statement. “It was an honor for me and my TGR Design team to work with Johnny Morris and Big Cedar Lodge on this spectacular golf course. I am thrilled that it will be featured during the Payne’s Valley Cup.”

The event will feature a mix of fourball, foursomes and singles matches. All four players will be mic’d up. The match will be closed to the public. In addition to live coverage on Golf Channel, the match can also be streamed on the Golf Channel and NBC Sports apps as well as golfchannel.com.

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