Ranking the top public golf courses you can play in every state, as judged by Golfweek’s nationwide group of experts.
Not a member somewhere? Not a problem.
With this list of Golfweek’s Best Courses You Can Play, we present the best public-access courses in each state, as judged by our nationwide network of raters.
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. Each course is then ranked against other courses in its state to produce the final rankings.
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.
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.
(Pictured atop this story is Sweetens Cove in Tennessee.)
Sweetens Cove headlines the list of Golfweek’s Best Courses You Can Play 2020: Tennessee.
Don’t expect to play a traditional 18 holes at either of the best two public-access golf courses in Tennessee – they’re both nine-holers.
That in no way means Sweetens Cove or The Course at Sewanee should be missed by any golfers who find themselves about a two-hour drive south of Nashville.
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.
Sweetens Cove in South Pittsburg is No. 1 on the Best Courses You Can Play list in the Volunteer State, and it also is No. 60 on Golfweek’s Best Modern Courses list for all tracks built in or after 1960 in the United States – not too shabby for a course with no back nine.
Sweetens Cove in Tennessee (Courtesy of Sweetens Cove)
Designed by King-Collins Golf Course Design and opened in 2014, Sweetens Cove has since had investments come in from a group that includes celebrities and athletes such as Andy Roddick and Peyton Manning. Built on the site of another nine-holer, the layout has drawn widespread attention as a social-media darling in recent years for offering various all-day packages and by creating a fun, welcoming vibe with none of the over-the-top accoutrements found at many courses on Golfweek’s Best lists. The clubhouse is a shed, the parking lot is tiny and the golf is a riot. And it’s all about the course.
Rob Collins and business partner Tad King wanted something different – the course had to stand out to attract business to the remote flood plain on which it sits. But they also wanted their course to be grounded in tradition, and they came up with a modernist take on traditional holes. Take a Biarritz green and turn it almost sideways? Why not? Build a 90-yard-deep Himalayas-style green full of humps and bumps? Go ahead, give it a try.
It definitely takes a few loops around the nine holes to appreciate the vast range and scale of creativity that turned a less-than-perfect piece of land into one of the most-talked-about courses of the past decade. And Sweetens Cove is more than happy to accommodate with its welcome, do-as-you-please vibe.
The Course at Sewanee in Tennessee (Courtesy of the Course at Sewanee)
The Course at Sewanee, No. 2 on Golfweek’s Best Courses You Can Play list in Tennessee, is just a 30-minute drive north of Sweetens Cove through the Appalachian Mountains. Operated by the University of the South, an Episcopal college commonly known as Sewanee, this nine-holer sits at a higher elevation than Sweetens Cove and offers several views across a lush valley. The original layout was built by a priest, a football team and a pack of mules in 1915, and architects Gil Hanse and Jim Wagner redesigned it for a 2013 reopening.
Sewanee features plenty of width and naturalistic bunkers, while multiple tee boxes allow the rolling layout to play very differently for second loops. Hanse has said he and Wagner didn’t want to completely tear apart a course that was a favored amenity at the college, so they worked to enhance the layout without necessarily abandoning its palpable sense of timelessness.
The Course at Sewanee in Tennessee (Courtesy of the Course at Sewanee)
The rest of the Best Courses You Can Play in Tennessee return to 18-hole layouts. Stonehenge in Fairfield Glade is No. 3 on that list, followed by No. 4 Mirimichi in Millington and No. 5 Hermitage Golf Course’s President’s Reserve in Old Hickory.
The private side of golf is also strong in Tennessee, as reflected in Golfweek’s Best list for non-public access layouts. The Honors Course in Ooltewah – designed by Pete Dye and opened in 1983 – is No. 1 on the private list for the state and also is No. 23 on Golfweek’s Best Modern list for the entire United States.
Holston Hills in Knoxville is No. 2 on Tennessee’s private list and is No. 100 on Golfweek’s Best list for Classic Courses built before 1960 in the United States. Next up is No. 3 Golf Club of Tennessee in Kingston Springs, followed by No. 4 Spring Creek Ranch in Collierville and No. 5 Black Creek Club in Chattanooga.
Golfweek’s Best Courses You Can Play in Tennessee
1. Sweetens Cove
South Pittsburg (No. 60 m)
2. Course at Sewanee
Sewanee (m)
3. Stonehenge
Fairfield Glade (m)
4. Mirimichi
Millington (m)
5. *Hermitage (President’s Reserve)
Old Hickory (m)
*New to the list in 2020 (m): modern
(c): classic
Golfweek’s Best Private Courses 2020 in Tennessee
1. Honors Course
Ooltewah (No. 23 m)
2. Holston Hills
Knoxville (No. 100 c)
3. GC of Tennessee
Kingston Springs (m)
4. Spring Creek Ranch
Collierville (m)
5. *Black Creek Club
Chattanooga (m)
Golfweek’s Best 2020: Top 30 Campus Courses
The rankings below reflect where these courses fall among the top 30 Campus Courses in the United States.
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.
Peyton Manning and his partners hope to stake a claim as Tennessee’s signature premium bourbon, building off their successful golf course.
Andy Roddick has a bottle-and-a half of Sweetens Cove Tennessee Bourbon Whiskey left in his pantry.
The former world No. 1 tennis player and partner in the new premium spirit brand often fields requests from friends looking to get a bottle.
“Sure,” Roddick tells them. “Just as soon as I can.”
It might be a tall order. The third of five batches will hit retail shelves next week, but Sweetens Cove Spirits CEO Mark Rivers estimates the 14,000 bottles in its inaugural release will be sold out by October.
With a limited release strategy, Sweetens Cove’s partners — including Tennessee Vols and NFL legend Peyton Manning — hope to stake a claim as Tennessee’s signature premium bourbon, rather than a celebrity brand.
“(Roddick and Manning) really want to put their shoulders behind the process and the product and the business more than put their faces in front of it,” Rivers said.
From golf course to bourbon
The Sweetens Cove story began with a treasure hunt, Roddick and Rivers said in an interview with Knox News, when they discovered and purchased Sweetens Cove Golf Club, a nine-hole golf course in South Pittsburg, just west of Chattanooga, in May 2019.
Manning joined the ownership team of the golf club, which was in need of long-term investment and, among other things, indoor plumbing.
The new owners have also added “the heckle deck,” an observation area at the par-3 9th green; a covered pavilion and firepit for events; The Honey Barrel, a 20,000-square-foot Himalayan-style putting green with lighting for evening events; and general improvements like new irrigation, flood control and landscaping.
The “heckledeck” overlooks the 9th green at Sweetens Cove. (Photo courtesy Sweetens Cove)
But they drew on the history of the club for the connection when it came to the new line of spirits.
“The course had a great ritual that preceded us, where golf guests would take a shot of whiskey on the first tee, before their first golf swing,” Manning said in an email to Knox News. “It became fundamental to the experience. People would bring a bottle, leave a bottle, share a bottle. All of us were so struck by that unique legend and so we said, ‘We need our own whiskey’ and the journey to create Sweetens Cove Spirits was born then and there.”
After more treasure hunting, Rivers discovered 100 barrels of 13-year-aged Tennessee bourbon available for purchase.
“We teased that it was being held hostage in a warehouse in Kentucky, and the first thing we did was buy it and the second thing we did was bring it back to Tennessee,” Rivers said.
The Sweetens Cove partners brought on Marianne Eaves, a Tennessee native, to serve as master blender to the brand, which is blended in Columbia, Tennessee.
Sweetens Cove Tennessee Bourbon Whiskey owners include Tom Nolan, from left, Andy Roddick, Rob Collins, Mark Rivers and Peyton Manning. The owners who are not pictured are Skip Bronson and Drew Holcomb. SUBMITTED PHOTOS
Known as Kentucky’s first female master distiller since Prohibition, Eaves spent time at Castle & Key and Brown-Forman and was named one of America’s Top 40 under 40 Tastemakers by Wine Enthusiast Magazine.
Rather than embrace the traditional role of a blender — to make batch after batch of a product taste the same year after year — the Sweetens Cove team gave Eaves more creative license to craft five distinct blends under the same label and distinguished only by proof.
“Basically, they were like you are the artist and these are the different colors on your palette and you’re here to create something that you believe is beautiful and delicious,” Eaves said.
Eaves initially spent at least 15 minutes nosing, tasting and writing extensive notes on each of the 100 barrels.
“(It’s) very rare to have someone with her skill and stature to do that deep dive of craftsmanship,” Manning said. “And so far, the reviews have really met our expectations.”
Across the barrels, Eaves found traditional oaky flavors, but also burnt marshmallow, tropical fruit, floral, herbal, black pepper and leather notes.
“(It was) fun to pull in different proportions of these different flavor characteristics to make these five unique batches,” Eaves said. “Overall I hope that people will find that it’s really approachable and then you get this really wonderful, creamy, smooth mouthfeel, but from batch to batch you’re going to get different flavors.”
Of the 100, she reserved four for single- barrel release later this year. The 14-year limited release 375-milliliter bottles will retail for $125.
‘We’ll start to look at some other markets in 2021’
Eaves will be involved in the barrel selection for the second and third releases, which will hit Tennessee shelves in 2021.
“We’ll go very slowly, very methodically, quality over speed, but we will start to ramp up the production volume and we’ll start to look at some other markets in 2021,” Rivers said.
When in stock, Knoxville fans of the brand can find Sweetens Cove bourbon at Green Meadow Wine and Spirits, Good Times Wine and Spirits and Bob’s Package Store.
Manning, a self-described “whiskey rookie,” said he’s enjoyed learning more about the process and was thrilled to back a Tennessee product. He enjoys his Sweetens Cove with an ice cube or two.
The bourbon is on the menu at Manning’s one-of-a-kind “watering hole” Saloon 16, which opened in August inside the new Graduate Hotel in Knoxville.
Seeing an opening in the Tennessee whiskey market
Rivers realized there was an opportunity in the Tennessee whiskey market after visiting a well-known Nashville bar about 18 months ago. The extensive spirits menu featured four pages of Kentucky bourbons. There were only six Tennessee bourbons listed.
“We believe 100% there is an opening to be the flagship premium Tennessee bourbon,” Rivers said. “Whiskey, bourbon from Tennessee has a great history and a great legacy and a long story of terrific craftsmanship, often overwhelmed by Kentucky’s story.”
More than 6.3 million visitors participated in the Tennessee Whiskey Trail in 2018.
Created by the Tennessee Distillers Guild, the trail is comprised of 26 distilleries across the state including George Dickel Distillery, Prichard’s Distillery, Corsair Artisan Distillery, Heaven’s Door, Nelson’s Green Brier Distillery and Uncle Nearest.
There are plenty of celebrity-backed spirits on the market, but Roddick said the brand has tried to focus on the quality of the product rather than rolling out marketing featuring famous faces.
“I enjoy the process of being involved in the day-to-day as opposed to just showing up and spouting off taglines and then leaving,” said Roddick.
Email Knoxville News Sentinel business reporter Brenna McDermott at brenna.mcdermott@knoxnews.com and follow her on Twitter @_BrennaMcD.
The 9-hole layout has become a cult favorite and led Golfweek’s Adam Schupak to drive 411 miles to play it on Adamski’s record-setting day.
SOUTH PITTSBURG, Tenn. – Fireworks greeted my arrival at Sweetens Cove Golf Club. Best. Welcome. Ever. I mean, I know I’m a big deal but that was a little much. I kid. But seriously, as I pulled into the parking lot, the sky lit up like the Fourth of July.
Spoiler alert: They weren’t for me. It turned out Sweeten Cove’s general manager, Matthew Adamski, had just completed his 200th hole of the day – and he wasn’t done yet – as part of a fundraiser for Folds of Honor, which was as good a reason as any to shoot off some Roman candles.
Sweetens Cove was my pit stop on the way to Memphis for this week’s WGC-FedEx St. Jude Invitational, a 411-mile, one-stop drive from the Avis car rental shop in Jacksonville, Florida. Yes, much like the Blues Brothers, I was on a mission from God to play the much-hyped nine-hole course that ranks No. 49 in Golfweek’s Best list of modern courses. I had a full tank of gas plus a six-pack of bottled water, and I was wearing sunglasses. Hit it!
No. 4 at Sweetens Cove
Patrick Boyd, the course’s former general manager, told me I wasn’t alone in making a long drive to Sweetens. He estimated that 70 percent of the golfers drive at least 90 minutes to two hours to get there. In the winter the parking lot is packed with license plates from Northeast and Midwest golfers looking to escape the cold.
I’ve written before – as has my colleague Jason Lusk and many others – about Sweetens Cove being golf’s Little Engine that Could, a King-Collins design with an ownership group that includes Hall of Famers of football and tennis, respectively Peyton Manning and Andy Roddick.
“When it first opened, there would be more planes in the sky than there were golfers,” Boyd recalled. “Those who knew about it had it to themselves.”
I got a taste of what that must have been like as the course was closed Monday, which allowed Adamski to attempt to break the course record of 252 holes played in one day on this year’s Summer Solstice, the longest day of the year. (The world record for most holes played in a cart in a 24-hour period is 851, set by Canadian Robb James in 2004 at Victoria Golf Course.)
There was steam rising off the mountains in the distance as I teed off, remnants of a storm that had just blown through the valley. Between the time I crossed the Tennessee state line and the time I pulled into the unpaved parking lot, the clock flipped to the Central time zone. In other words, more daylight for Adamski (in a Peyton Manning-decked-out cart with a Tennessee Vols flag) and me (hoofing it) to get in some holes.
I wasn’t going to catch him, so what I did to save a few steps was hit one drive (or occasionally two) and then two approach shots – one to a white flag and one to a blue flag on each green, so I could get the full experience before hightailing it to Memphis.
Sweetens Cove lived up to the hype. Boyd – who is now the business mind behind National Custom Works, a boutique maker of handcrafted custom-forged irons, putters and persimmon drivers – calls it a playground, and that’s an apropos description. There are endless possibilities to approaching these wildly imaginative greens, which total over 100,000 square feet.
I made a rookie mistake when I overshot the par-5 third green with my second shot. I thought I had hit a nifty chip to set up a short birdie putt, but as I stepped closer to the green I watched my ball trickle past the hole, down the false front and off the green into a collection area. I made six. It wouldn’t be the last time I chipped off the green.
At the par-3 fourth, I let Adamski play through for the first time. He was running on fumes. “I’m going to crawl into a ball when this is over,” he said.
But just like the little engine that could in the children’s book, Adamski pressed on when I shot him some words of encouragement. “I got this,” he said. And he did – he finished in the gloaming having played 254 holes and making an impressive 46 birdies. (That has to be some sort of record for most birdies in one day, right?) For the record, that is 28 spins around the nine-hole layout plus two holes more for good measure.
The view of the fifth hole at Sweetens Cove Golf Club (Adam Schupak/Golfweek)
The 293-yard, par-4 fifth joins the list of my favorite short holes. Boyd prefers the seventh, a 313-yard par 4 that is also all about angles. It’s the smallest green on the course at about 5,500 square feet.
“It looks like it came out of Prairie Dunes,” Boyd said of the Perry Maxwell gem in Kansas. “It’s got huge movement and fall off.”
The par-3 ninth at Sweetens Cove (Adam Schupak/Golfweek)
My pitch-shot approach didn’t hold the green, and I chipped off it trying a bump and run to the front pin placement there, too.
No. 6 is a cape-style green along the water, and No. 8 is modeled after a Biarritz. I loved the variety. If I had one complaint, it is that there’s no yardage markers and my laser gun didn’t pick up the reflectors on the flags and kept giving me wildly inaccurate numbers. But once I accepted that the device was useless, I really enjoyed the old-school challenge of eyeballing what club to use.
My 9-iron at the par-3 ninth hole sailed into the back bunker, which ended a rare bunker-free round – I’m glad I avoided the crevice in front of the fifth green, an homage to Pine Valley’s Devil’s Asshole if I’ve ever seen one. From the bunker I aimed a good 20 feet left of the blue flag on the upper tier and let the slope works its magic to within 5 feet of the hole. Best sandy I’ve made all year and a shot I will long remember.
The slope of the green can be your friend if you hit into the back bunker at the ninth hole at Sweetens Cove. (Adam Schupak/Golfweek)
Sweetens Cove is everything you’d want in a nine-hole course – especially for as little as $35 to play it, and $150 for an all-day (weekend) cart pass. There’s little out of bounds, it’s generous off the tee and the greens have so much movement and slope that they are bound to give you fits if you’re out of position or don’t execute your intended shot.
“If there ever was a second-shot golf course, this is it,” Boyd said.
I left anticipating the chance to play it again – or maybe 255 holes in one day. Sweetens Cove is sweet.
Peyton Manning is a partner in a 9-hole public course in southeast Tennessee that has become a cult favorite and ranked in Golfweek’s Best.
The thing about a truly great sports rivalry is that it makes you pick sides. No one roots for the New York Yankees and the Boston Red Sox or the Boston Celtics and the Los Angeles Lakers.
In golf, during their heyday, you were either an Arnie guy or a Jack guy. And that’s perhaps the most appealing part of The Match II: Are you for Tiger or Phil? Both have loyal followers. But for many, the rooting interest is muddied this go-round by the addition of Tom Brady and Peyton Manning.
Manning is in many ways the Phil Mickelson of the NFL, who must stay up late at night wondering how many Super Bowl rings he might have if not for Brady (and his New England Patriots) standing in his way. Mickelson and Manning would seem to be a natural partnership, but the organizers thought otherwise and paired Manning with Woods. It may make for some strange bedfellows if you’re a Tiger guy but also a Brady lover, or Mickelson and Manning supporter. There are few more polarizing athletes than this foursome.
10 day countdown has begun. Tune in to TNT at 3 p.m. ET next Sunday, May 24th, to watch Peyton and I win. pic.twitter.com/KFYObvBguD
How to break the tie? I’m basing my rooting interest during Sunday’s match on the simple fact that Manning is the more legit golf guy in my book. Which is not to say that Brady, who lives off The Country Club in Brookline, Massachusetts, where he is a member and recently joined Seminole Golf Club after signing on with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, and has competed in the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am, lacks street cred in the golf community. Manning isn’t lacking in having memberships at some posh private clubs either: Castle Pines and Cherry Hills in Colorado; The Honors Club in Tennessee; and a little old club in Georgia you may have heard of, Augusta National. But it is his ownership stake in Sweetens Cove in South Pittsburg, Tennessee — population 3,000 — that sways my allegiance.
Sweetens Cove, a quirky, strategic, nine-hole course is arguably golf’s greatest success story of the last decade. Since opening in 2015, it has climbed to No. 49 on Golfweek’s Best Modern List and you can read about it here. As for Manning’s ties to the place, architect Rob Collins of King-Collins Design & Golf Construction, tells it best. He recalls how when Sweetens Cove first opened, he and Patrick Boyd, the original course general manager, always would say the one investor they’d really love to get on board is Manning. “No one better to be involved in a golf enterprise in the state of Tennessee,” Collins said. “We’d laugh and say, ‘Maybe one day, who knows? How cool would that be?’ ”
Fast-forward to Oct. 21, 2018. By that time, Collins had met and partnered with Mark Rivers, a real estate developer, who put together a group of partners that included Tom Nolan, then of Polo Golf and now CEO of Kendra Scott, and tennis Hall of Famer Andy Roddick. Rivers suggested dinner at Ruth’s Chris Steakhouse in Chattanooga so Collins could meet Nolan, the newest partner.
Arriving a few minutes early, Collins waited at the bar with Rivers and his back to the door.
“Mark said, ‘They’re here.’ I thought, They? Did Andy come to? I turn around and Peyton is walking towards me and sticks out his hand and says, ‘Hey, I’m Peyton Manning’ and I said, ‘Hey, I’m Rob Collins.’ Over my shoulder, Mark says, “And there’s your fifth partner.’ ”
[vertical-gallery id=778045062]
Collins played with Manning during his first trip around Sweetens Cove, which has become a cult favorite and social media darling, and Manning has been back often, including on May 23, 2019, when he took a video of himself playing the eighth hole and declared what should be a slogan printed on a T-shirt: “Carrying my bag, playing nine holes, God bless America.”
“It’s got great character to it,” Manning says of Sweetens Cove. “Love The Shed. You can drop your money in a bucket. It’s just short and sweet. You’ve got to play it and then everybody understands.”
Even now, Collins marvels at his good fortune that Manning loves the game of golf and the state of Tennessee enough to invest in his and original partner Tad King’s little engine that could. Collins laughs as he recounts the tale before adding, “How the hell did this even happen, you know?”
“It turns out that Tom (Nolan) called Brad Faxon to see if he knew Peyton,” Collins said. “He didn’t, But Brad said, ‘I know Tom Brady and I’ll call him.’ Brad called Brady and then Brady called Manning. Isn’t that crazy?”
Does that mean the Manning partnership is all Brady’s doing? Should Collins really be rooting for Brady and Mickelson on Sunday?
“We’re very grateful to Tom for making that phone call, but I’m a total homer for Peyton,” Collins said.
