The top-rated public access course in Arkansas is nestled in the south of the state not far from Louisiana.
Arkansas features plenty of variation in terrain, with plenty of mountainous golf in the north of the state. But to find the highest-ranked public-access golf course in Natural State, head south toward the Louisiana line.
There, in El Dorado, you’ll find Mystic Creek Golf Club, a Kenneth Dye Jr. layout that opened in 2013. Mystic Creek is the top-ranked layout in Arkansas on Golfweek’s Best Courses You Can Play list for public golf.
Golfweek’s Best offers many lists of course rankings, with the list of top public-access courses 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.
Mystic Creek tops the list in Arkansas for Golfweek’s Best Courses You Can Play 2020.
With a few exceptions, Arkansas isn’t exactly on many golf maps for must-see playing opportunities for traveling, public-access golfers. But for those willing to try out the Natural State, there’s a wide range of terrain that promises everything from rolling forests in the south of the state all the way to steeper layouts in the Ouachita Mountains.
The best public-access course in Arkansas, as judged by the Golfweek’s Best national panel of raters, is Mystic Creek Golf Club in El Dorado, about 15 miles north of the Louisiana border. Designed by Kenneth Dye Jr. and opened in 2013, Mystic Creek plays at a maximum 7,492 yards through rolling timberline. It has hosted a Symetra Tour event, the Murphy USA El Dorado Shootout, that will resume in 2021 after the completion of a new clubhouse at the course.
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, including that state-by-state list for private clubs and the popular Golfweek’s Best Courses You Can Play list for facilities that allow non-member tee times.
Big Creek Golf and Country Club in Arkansas (Courtesy of Big Creek)
Mystic Creek is followed on that Best Courses You Can Play list by No. 2 The Ridges at Village Creek in Wynne, Hot Springs Country Club with its No. 3 Park Course and its No. 4 Arlington Course, and No. 5 Big Creek Golf and Country Club in Mountain Home.
It’s on the private side that Arkansas really shines, with The Alotian Club in Roland tops on the list. The mountainous Tom Fazio layout, which opened in 2004 not far from Little Rock, is also ranked No. 14 on Golfweek’s Best list for all Modern Courses built in or after 1960 in the United States.
The Alotian Club is followed on the private list by No. 2 Texarkana Country Club, No. 3 Blessings in Fayetteville (host site of the 2019 NCAA Championships) and No. 4 Hardscrabble in Fort Smith.
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.
