Tag: public

Where to play golf around Los Angeles: Golfweek’s Best 2023 public-access courses

We rank the best courses within a reasonable drive of Los Angeles.

Looking for the best public-access golf around Los Angeles? If you’re willing to drive a bit, there are several courses available that appear on the Golfweek’s Best rankings of top public-access layouts in each state.

But it’s not as easy as pulling up our state-by-state rankings, which lists California courses that might be a full day’s drive away from Los Angeles. We wanted to focus on courses that – while they might require golfers spend a fair bit of time in the car – are within reasonable driving distance.

For the purpose of this exercise, we limited driving time to within two hours of Los Angeles International Airport. Why two hours? Because it can take a while to get anywhere in Los Angeles, two hours seemed like a reasonable amount of time in a car to reach great golf.

And why LAX? Because that airport is a fair starting point with a reasonable amount of courses to the north, east and south. For the sake of this Los Angeles list, we did not include courses in San Diego to the south or those well to the east in areas such as La Quinta, which might be reached in just over two hours from parts of LA if traffic cooperates at off-peak times.

We used Google Maps for its drive times, keying in LAX on a mid-afternoon that showed no significant traffic slowdowns; take all drive times around Los Angeles with a grain of salt, of course, as backups can be considerable.

It’s worth noting for a city where prices, particularly for private golf, can soar: Two of the courses on this list are bargains. The peak annual green fee at Rustic Canyon is $104 on weekends, and much better deals are available during the week and off-peak times. At the municipal Soule Park, peak weekend tee times are just $49 for walkers.

None of this is to say there aren’t plenty of other worthy places to play around Los Angeles, because there are. For example, players should definitely check out the vibe at Goat Hill Park south of Los Angeles, which narrowly misses out on our list of top courses in California. The purpose of this list is merely to identify which courses around Los Angeles are included among the top 30 courses in a very gifted state by Golfweek’s Best.

Included with this list is a general map of where to find all these courses. Each one on the list below is represented with a number on the map – keep scrolling to see the numbers.

Included with each course is its position in its state on the Golfweek’s Best public-access list. For any course that appears on our other popular rankings lists, those positions are included as well.

A little background: The hundreds of members of our course-ratings panel continually evaluate courses and rate them on 10 criteria on a points basis of 1 through 10. They also file a single, overall rating on each course. Those overall ratings are averaged to produce all our Golfweek’s Best course rankings.

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 – no membership required.

Los Angeles GWB public map
(Google Earth/Golfweek)

Where to play golf around New York City: Golfweek’s Best 2023 public-access courses

The best golf courses within two hours of New York City include layouts in four states.

nLooking for the best public-access golf around New York City? If you’re willing to drive a bit, there are more than a dozen courses available that appear on the Golfweek’s Best rankings of top public-access layouts in each state.

But it’s not as easy as pulling up our state-by-state rankings, because the Big Apple sits at a crossroads of states and golfers frequently cross state lines to find a game. This list includes courses in New York, New Jersey, Connecticut and Pennsylvania.

How’d we come up with that? For the purpose of this exercise, we limited driving time to two hours from the city, with LaGuardia Airport as a starting point.

Why two hours? Because it takes awhile to get around New York, of course, and two hours seemed like a reasonable amount of time in a car to reach great golf.

And why LaGuardia? Because that airport is a fair starting point for the courses to the north and those out to the west. (We used Google Maps for its drive times, keying in LaGuardia on a mid-afternoon that showed no significant traffic slowdowns; take all drive times around New York with a grain of salt, of course, as backups can be considerable.)

Included with this list is a general map of where to find all these courses. Each one on the list below is represented with a number on the map – keep scrolling to see the numbers. These numbers are not intended to be a ranking of the best courses around New York, but simply indicate their position on the map.

However, included with each course is its position in its state on the Golfweek’s Best public-access list. For courses that appear on other popular rankings lists, those positions are included as well.

A little background: The hundreds of members of our course-ratings panel continually evaluate courses and rate them on 10 criteria on a points basis of 1 through 10. They also file a single, overall rating on each course. Those overall ratings are averaged to produce all our Golfweek’s Best course rankings.

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 – no membership required.

New York City Golfweek's Best map
(Google Earth/Golfweek)

Where to play golf around Chicago: Golfweek’s Best 2023 public-access courses

Anyone in a window seat on a flight into Chicago can see there are plenty of golf courses in the area.

Anyone in a window seat on a flight into Chicago can see there are plenty of golf courses in the area. Particularly on the private side, there are dozens of courses that could land on any player’s bucket list.

But what about public-access courses? Where should you begin?

Thanks to Golfweek’s Best annual rankings of top public-access courses in each state, we can break out the highest-ranked layouts in the Chicago area. For the purpose of this exercise, we limited driving time to about 90 minutes. from downtown Chicago. (We used Google Maps for its drive times, keying in downtown Chicago on a mid-afternoon – take all drive times around Chicago with a grain of salt, of course.)

Golfweek’s Best ranks 15 public-access courses in all of Illinois on our state-by-state ranking, and 12 of those fit the bill of being within 90 minutes of Chicago. Keep scrolling to see how they stack up, and check out the accompanying map to get a handle on roughly where everything is located.

A little background: The hundreds of members of our course-ratings panel continually evaluate courses and rate them on 10 criteria on a points basis of 1 through 10. They also file a single, overall rating on each course. Those overall ratings are averaged to produce all our Golfweek’s Best course rankings.

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 – no membership required.

(Google Earth/Golfweek)

Photos: Feast your eyes on every hole at Belvedere, a step back in time in Michigan

Come along for the full 18 at Belvedere Golf Club in Michigan.

CHARLEVOIX, Mich. – The past several weeks at home in still-steamy Florida have me dreaming of golf in different climates and some of the cooler places, both literally and figuratively, I have visited in recent months. In my mind, I keep hitting on the spots that offer a classic vibe, a great course and just a perfect atmosphere for golf.

Belvedere Golf Club in northern Michigan ticks all those boxes. Nestled inland between Lake Michigan and Lake Charlevoix, its nines divided by a two-lane road, Belvedere is a step back in time with a central ridge that keeps balls rolling up and down hills the entire round.

Built by William Watson and opened in 1927, the layout was restored by Bruce Hepner starting in 2016. Hepner and longtime course superintendent Rick Grunch (who has since retired) received a blessing when Watson’s original drawings were uncovered in an old building nearby, giving them the blueprint for a restoration. The greens were returned to their original dimensions, their internal contours paired with frequent runoffs to keep players on their toes.

Belvedere
The back nine at Belvedere Golf Club in Charlevoix, Mich. (Golfweek)

Belvedere ranks No. 6 in a very stacked Michigan on Golfweek’s Best list of top public-access courses in each state, and it also ties for No. 192 among all classic courses built before 1960 in the U.S.

Rankings aside, it’s just a very cool place to spend a day. There’s the right-sized clubhouse, its pro shop lined with photos of top professionals who have ambled through. It’s a private club that accepts some outside play, and it’s the type of course that surely makes every guest ponder a membership application. The peak guest green fee for walkers is listed as $125 in 2023, and the offseason rate is half that – a bargain for the experience.

I was lucky enough to play it for the third time this summer, and the experience was too good not to share. So here goes: photos of every hole at Belvedere, with multiple shots of some holes.

Photos: Whistling Straits is 25 years old

Pete Dye and Herb Kohler Jr. wanted to challenge the best players in the game.

Whistling Straits became so embedded in golf’s championship schedule so quickly, it’s sometimes difficult to remember that Pete Dye’s creation on the shores of Lake Michigan is only 25 years old. On Thursday, the Straits Course celebrates its silver anniversary of July 6.

Since its opening in July 1998, the Straits has hosted three PGA Championships (2004 won by Vijay Singh, 2010 won by Martin Kaymer and 2015 won by Jason Day). The Straits joins Pebble Beach Golf Links, Pinehurst No. 2, Bethpage Black and Southern Hills as the only layouts to have hosted three men’s major championships in that span.

Throw in the 2007 U.S. Senior Open (Brad Bryant) and the 2021 Ryder Cup (U.S. won 19-9 over Europe), and Whistling Straits has quickly established itself as a major player.

That was the idea from the beginning.

Herb Kohler Jr. – the longtime executive chairman of Kohler Co., the plumbling fixtures powerhouse based near Sheboygan, Wisconsin – branched into golf with the creation of Blackwolf Run in 1988. That resort club eventually became home to two 18-hole courses (River and Meadow Valleys) as well as the newer Baths of Blackwolf Run par-3 course. In addition to the American Club Resort Hotel, Blackwolf Run formed the initial backbone of what has become Destination Kohler. Blackwolf Run hosted the first big event for the resort, the 1998 U.S. Women’s Open (Se Ri Pak won), and the composite course there again hosted the Women’s Open in 2012 (Na Yeon Choi won).

But Kohler had no intent of stopping there. He wanted more major championships, including for the men.

“That was our ambition right from the outset,” Kohler told Golfweek in a 2019 interview. “We wanted tournaments, and we didn’t want the weekly tournaments, so the only possible thing was majors.”

As he had with the creation of Blackwolf Run, Kohler turned to architect Pete Dye. It was Dye’s sometimes quirkiness that initially drew Kohler’s attention.

“This one particular chap, he was an odd duck, but he had two courses in particular that were of interest,” Kohler said. “One that had just been open to the public, it was the TPC at Sawgrass, the home course for the PGA Tour. And at least 20 different pros who had a chance to play it were extraordinarily upset, and they were making their feelings known to the local press. … It sort of fascinated me. What I liked about it was, he had this desire to get into the psyche of a pro and really befuddle him.

“This fellow, Pete Dye, took them right to the edge of embarrassment, and they didn’t like being embarrassed, but I enjoyed it. … So here was this single person, a little strange as he might be – he always wore khaki pants and always wore tennis shoes – but here was this single person who could befuddle the pros but was considerate to the amateurs when he had to be. And I liked that combination.”

Vijay Singh hits out of a bunker on the 15th hole en route to winning the 2004 PGA Championship at the Whistling Straits in Wisconsin. (Jeff Gross/Getty Images)

That determination to challenge the pros on every shot was the impetus for creating the Straits Course. Kohler found 560 suitable acres on the shore of Lake Michigan, but the land was relatively flat, perched on a tabletop above the lake – the site included an abandoned military airfield. Dye, who passed away in 2020 at age 94, went to work converting the site into a rocking and rolling golf course reminiscent of something found in wild Irish dunes, moving 13,000 truckloads of sand in the process of creating 70 feet of elevation change. It became home to the Straits Course and the adjacent Irish Course.

“Pete and I had this general agreement that the Straits course would be something like Ballybunion (in Ireland), but that was the closest we got to any specifics in design. It was all Pete thereafter, and he did a wonderful, wonderful job,” Kohler, who passed away in 2022 at age 83, said of the course that features eight holes on the edge of the massive lake. “It was the sand that gave it the character and gave the fairways some speed.”

The Straits has been challenging the best players in the game ever since. And even in the absence of its two masterminds – Kohler and Dye – the resort will continue to challenge and thrill its guests for years to come. The Straits ranks No. 9 on Golfweek’s Best list of top modern courses in the U.S., and it’s the highest-ranked public-access course in Wisconsin.

Check out several photos of the 1998 grand opening of the Straits below, along with more shots of the course today. And for even more on Whistling Straits, check these hole-by-hole flyover videos of the course shot before the 2021 Ryder Cup.

Golfweek’s Best Courses You Can Play 2023: Top 100 U.S. public-access courses ranked

Check out Golfweek’s top 100 U.S. public-access golf courses in 2023.

Welcome to the Golfweek’s Best 2023 list of the Top 100 Best Courses You Can Play in the U.S. Each year, we publish many lists, with this selection of public-access layouts among the premium offerings.

The hundreds of members of our course-ratings panel continually evaluate courses and rate them based on 10 criteria on a points basis of 1 through 10. They also file a single, overall rating on each course. Those overall ratings are averaged to produce these rankings. The top handful of courses in the world have an average rating of above 9, while many excellent layouts fall into the high-6 to 8 range.

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.

Each course is listed with its 2022 ranking in parenthesis in the title line, its average rating next to the name, the location, the year it opened and the designers.

KEY: (m) modern, built in 1960 or after; (c) classic, built before 1960. For courses with a number preceding the (m) or (c), that is where the course ranks on Golfweek’s Best lists for top 200 modern or classic courses in the U.S.

* Indicates new to or returning to this list.

More Golfweek’s Best

Photos: Black Desert Resort opens gorgeous new Tom Weiskopf/Phil Smith course in Utah

Check out photos of the new Black Desert Resort course in Utah that is quickly earning rave reviews.

Black Desert Resort Golf Course in Ivins, Utah, opened in late May as the last course designed by Tom Weiskopf, who passed away in 2022. The Golfweek’s Best raters have a lot of great things to say about the new layout not far from St. George in the southwest corner of the state.

The resort’s 18-hole layout is open for daily-fee play among the region’s ancient basalt rock formations near Snow Canyon State Park. Partnering with architect Phil Smith, Weiskopf built an expansive layout with most fairways 70 to 100 yards wide. The course features two driveable par 4s, the fifth and 14th.

Upon buildout, Black Desert will feature a full hotel and conference center, more than a thousand residences, trails, a spa and plenty more. The property is managed by hospitality-management company Troon Golf, and Black Desert is already slated to host an LPGA event starting in 2025. The course also will offer an amphiteater-style 19th hole and a 36-hole lit putting course.

After a first tour of the course, the Golfweek’s Best raters had many positive comments.

“An amazing design and absolutely stunning contrast of the lava rocks with the greenery and surrounding red mountains,” wrote one rater. “Truly an oasis. Several holes can be played in multiple different ways depending on your confidence that day as risk/reward options abound. It’s a beautiful course, one you’ll remember for a lifetime.”

“Black Desert blew me away,” wrote another. “It has everything I would want in a modern course. The combination of setting, vistas and course itself is the total package. The black lava rock is so unique, I’ve never seen it anywhere else in the mainland. You also have the beautiful sweeping vistas of the red canyons visible from every hole.”

Check out several photos from Black Desert Resort below.

Golfweek’s Best Courses You Can Play 2023: State-by-state rankings for public-access layouts

State-by-state rankings of the best public courses you can play in all 50 states.

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Want to play the best public-access golf courses in each state? Keep reading.

Fresh for 2023, we present the Golfweek’s Best Courses You Can Play list for the top public-access layouts in each state, as judged by our nationwide network of raters.

The hundreds of members of our course-ratings panel continually evaluate courses and rate them on 10 criteria on a points basis of 1 through 10. They also file a single, overall rating on each course. Those overall ratings are averaged to produce all our Golfweek’s Best course rankings.

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 – no membership required. (There are a handful of courses on this list that some players might consider to be private, but they do allow non-hosted, non-member guest play in some limited form, normally through a local hotel or similar arrangement.)

There’s one course of particular note this year. Of the dozens of courses new to this list, only Landmand Golf Club in Homer, Nebraska, debuts in the No. 1 spot in its state. Designed by Tad King and Rob Collins, Landmand opened in 2022.

KEY: (m) modern, built in 1960 or after; (c) classic, built before 1960. For courses with a number preceding the (m) or (c), that is where the course ranks on Golfweek’s Best lists for top 200 modern and classic courses in the U.S.

* indicates new or returning to the rankings

Editor’s note: The Golfweek’s Best 2023 rankings of top private courses in each state will be published Monday, June 12. More lists, such as the top 200 Modern and top 200 Classic Courses lists for 2023, will be published in the following weeks.

More Golfweek’s Best for 2023:

The Super Bowl, the WM Phoenix Open and you: Check out the top 10 public-access courses near Phoenix-Scottsdale

The Valley of the Sun offers plenty of great public-access golf courses.

Headed to the Phoenix/Scottsdale area for the annual giant party that is the WM Phoenix Open on the PGA Tour? Maybe you scored a ticket to watch the Eagles square off against the Chiefs in Super Bowl 57 at State Farm Stadium in nearby Glendale? Perhaps you’re one of the truly lucky ones planning to attend both?

Then pack your golf clubs because the Valley of the Sun offers plenty of great public-access golf courses. For most of the year, we recommend you start with these top 10 in the area. Of course, only nine are really options for the week of the Super Bowl and WM Phoenix Open, as TPC Scottsdale’s Stadium Course is booked to host the pros, but you get the idea.

Golfweek’s Best ranks courses around the world, utilizing a pool of more than 800 course raters. The most popular rankings list in the program is the Best Courses You Can Play list for public-access layouts in each state. To analyze the top 10 public-access courses around the Phoenix and Scottsdale area, we started with those rankings for all of Arizona. Then we included only those courses within a 90-minute drive of Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport, which sits about halfway between TPC Scottsdale and State Farm Stadium.

But don’t consider these your only options. Check out even more great courses in Arizona on the state-by-state public-access list. But be ready to pay a premium for a tee time the week of the Super Bowl and PGA Tour event, as many courses in the valley utilize fluctuating on-demand pricing all year, and all the courses will see a spike in demand on what will be the busiest week of the year.

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

Wyoming’s top golf courses offer the opportunity to elevate your golf game.

If you’re looking to elevate your golf game, Wyoming – with its thin air and mountainous terrain – might be just the spot.

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 Wyoming’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