Bella Ridge Golf Course
Bella Ridge Golf Course
Weld County Rd 44
Johnstown, CO 80534
United States
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Overview
Architect Art Schaupeter, a University of Colorado graduate, has carved out a niche in the Front Range golf scene north of Denver. After previously designing Highland Meadows and TPC Colorado, he opened Bella Ridge in 2025, a public course between Johnstown and Berthoud and within miles of his other two courses. The holes ride across the site’s open plains with panoramas of the Rocky Mountains. Long, ribbon tees flow directly into the fairways shaped with ripples and hollows to get the tee shots moving in different directions and to set up curious angles into the generally small greens. Ravines and riverbeds intersect the site and are used as frontal and lateral obstacles, and three par 4s ranging from 276 to 310 yards offer plenty of gambling opportunity.
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Ratings from our panel of 1,900 course-ranking panelists
100 GREATEST/BEST IN STATE SCORES
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Reviews
Review
“Bella Ridge is a strong new entrant to the Colorado golf course scene. The Art Schaupeter design reflects his experience with northern Colorado topography (as with TPC of Colorado), including the Colorado Rockies backdrops, which he uses skillfully. Broad fairways make for comfortable driving, but the hilly terrain and well bunkered greensites with severe falloffs to chipping areas around many of the greens may present challenges to the average player. Quite unique and worth visiting if you are in the area."
Read More2025
Review
“Bella Ridge sits on a rolling piece of land in Northern Colorado with prominent features including strong elevation changes and a large valley filled with streams and lakes on the back 9. The green complexes define the experience here. They are large, bold, heavily contoured, and with lots of tightly mown areas jutting out in all directions. The course features a trio of short par 4's (all less than 300 yards from the 6,800 blue tees) that each carry their own drama and intrigue. Variety is also on display on the par-'3s, highlighted by the the sweeping right to left fallaway green on the 230-yard 12th hole, followed by a drop shot to a 70-yard wide but only 18 yard deep green at the 15th."
Read More2025
Review
“Bella Ridge sits on a rolling piece of land in Northern Colorado with prominent features including strong elevation changes and a large valley filled with streams and lakes on the back 9. The green complexes define the experience here. They are large, bold, heavily contoured, and with lots of tightly mown areas jutting out in all directions. The course features a trio of short par 4's (all less than 300 yards from the 6,800 blue tees) that each carry their own drama and intrigue. Variety is also on display on the par-'3s, highlighted by the the sweeping right to left fallaway green on the 230-yard 12th hole, followed by a drop shot to a 70-yard wide but only 18 yard deep green at the 15th."
Read More2025
Review
“Bella Ridge Golf Course is a new link style course on and old dairy farm. The terrain has copious amounts of elevation change, humps, hollows and mounds that will challenge your commitment to your line and target distance. No two holes look alike as wide and generous fairways lead to well guarded green complexes with closely cut recovery areas that offer you options for shots missing the putting surfaces. From the proper tees you can have four drivable par fours and three reachable par fives for the brave at heart. Well conditioned, beautiful and fun, get there soon."
Read More2025
Review
“Bella Ridge Golf Course is a new links style course sited on an old dairy farm in the eastern plains with excellent views of the continental divide to the west and the surrounding area. The terrain is rolling, sloping with excellent elevation changes and vistas, large mounds and swales protect the holes, can hide your target and create interest; the course seems to move in harmony with its surroundings. There is excellent layout variety as no hole looks alike. Tee shots and approach shots can be challenging and a number of them are blind or partially obscured from view, creating intrigue, suspense and a little too much luck. The blind or semi blind shots can also be a little dangerous for the groups in front of you hidden from view by the terrain, and often a good guess or prior course knowledge is required to properly direct tee and approach shots. Green complexes are varied, well guarded and challenging but offer options in the close cut recovery areas for shots that missed the putting surface; most higher handicaps will struggle a bit as they might lack the variety of wedge shots needed to score well or experience with bump and run shots with different clubs. There are four short par fours that might be considered drivable but most of them, other than hole 14, lack an obvious entrance to the green or clear bailout areas, a shot finding the putting surface would seem to be more luck or good fortune rather than well struck. The first three par fives are similar in strategy playing straight uphill with a driver, fairway wood approach and a short chip or pitch to position for a birdie; only hole 18 plays as a true three-shot par five requiring direction and distance control to score. The Layout Variety score would be higher if the the first three short par fours and the first three par fives presented more variety of looks and challenges. The first three par threes are long but have good bailout areas recovery options to score. Most fairways and landing areas have generous width; the challenge at Bella Ridge is primarily the approach shots to the well guarded green complexes and the recovery shots for those shots that miss the putting surface. The course is fun and scenic and will be challenging to most average players around the greens; pace of play may be an issue but you won't care."
Read More2025
Review
“Another new course worth checking out in Colorado. The courses offers quite a few challenging holes and some birdie opportunities. So grateful Colorado has another good one!!"
Read More2025
Review
“Colorado is becoming a destination because of new courses like this one. An absolute blast to play and challenging as well. A good mix of birdie potential holes and really challenging holes."
Read More2025
Review
“Excellent condition for a new course. Fun and affordable. $75 green fee including cart. Two holes on each nine were drivable par fours with risk and reward."
Read More2025
Review
“Brand new golf course. Fairways and greens were in excellent condition. Green fees were $75 including cart. Two holes on each nine were drivable par fours with lots of risk and reward."
Read More2025
Review
“I played Bella Ridge a few weeks after opening, and the conditioning and overall presentation was very pleasant. This course will garner a lot of comparison with nearby Raindance National - and I tend to slightly favor Raindance National for its ruggedness and better playability. Bella Ridge is a demanding golf course with steep run-offs and difficult recovery shots around virtually every green. I struggle to see how this course is reasonably playable for bogey golfers... or even very good players in higher wind conditioning. I did appreciate, to a degree, the course variety with the 260 and 150 yards par 3s on the back a great yin and yang. I did find the short par 4s fun but also a bit gimmicky and repetitive (4th and 9th being very similar; 14th being overly gimmicky). Overall, glad the course exists. This would be a fantastic four ball championship course but not necessarily a fan of day to day play."
Read More2025
