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Golf Digest Logo | 2025-2026 ranking

The best golf courses in Arkansas

By Derek Duncan and Stephen Hennessey
May 29, 2025

Many clubs can boast that their designs were inspired by Augusta National, but few have as direct a link to the Masters host as The Alotian Club, the crown jewel of Arkansas since 2004 when Warren Stephens, son of former Masters chairman Jackson Stephens, commissioned Tom Fazio to create an oasis for him and his buddies. Fazio moved more than 1.5 million cubic yards of earth, and topsoil was trucked in on this incredibly steep and undulating land that features 100 feet of elevation change, including on the par-3 sixth hole. The club made one of the highest debuts in our ranking’s history when it entered our America’s 100 Greatest Courses ranking at No. 14 in 2011-2012. (It now sits at 37th on our rankings.) A top-level collegiate event, the Stephens Cup, was held at The Alotian Club, offering elite amateur players a chance to see this gloriously private club.

Another fast-rising course on our Best in Arkansas list, the Blessings Golf Club, also hosted the best players in college golf for the 2019 NCAA golf championships and is the venue for other collegiate events. Following an extensive renovation by Kyle Phillips, Blessings entered our national rankings for the first time in 2023 and now sits at No. 156 on our America’s Second 100 Greatest courses.

We hope these events continue to shine a spotlight on a golf state that offers a depth of solid golf elsewhere in its borders.

Below you'll find our 2025-'26 ranking of the Best Golf Courses in Arkansas.

Scroll on for the complete list of the best courses in Arkansas. Be sure to click through to each individual course page for bonus photography and reviews from our course panelists. We also encourage you to leave your own ratings … so you can make your case for (or against) any course that you've played.

10. Chenal Country Club: Bear Den
Private
10. Chenal Country Club: Bear Den
Little Rock, AR
3.9
4 Panelists
Previous rank: 10
The Bear Den course at Chenal Country Club in Little Rock is one of the best courses in Arkansas. Discover our experts' reviews and where Chenal Country Club ranks in our rankings
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9. Pinnacle Country Club
Private
9. Pinnacle Country Club
Rogers, AR
4.1
6 Panelists
Previous rank: 8
Pinnacle Country Club in Rogers is one of the best courses in Arkansas. Discover our experts' reviews and where Pinnacle Country Club ranks in our rankings
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8. Chenal Country Club: Founders
Private
8. Chenal Country Club: Founders
Little Rock, AR
3.5
6 Panelists
Previous rank: 9
The Founders course at Chenal Country Club in Little Rock is one of the best courses in Arkansas. Discover our experts' reviews and where Chenal Country Club ranks in our rankings
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7. Pleasant Valley Country Club
Private
7. Pleasant Valley Country Club
Little Rock, AR
Previous rank: 6
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6. The Country Club of Little Rock
Private
6. The Country Club of Little Rock
Little Rock, AR
3.9
3 Panelists
Previous rank: 3
The Country Club of Little Rock is one of the best courses in Arkansas. Discover our experts' reviews and where The C.C. of Little Rock ranks in our rankings
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5. Texarkana Country Club
Private
5. Texarkana Country Club
Texarkana, AR
3.5
3 Panelists
Previous rank: 4
Originally built in 1914, Texarkana was a nine-hole course sitting on 105 acres, but the club hired Langford and Moreau in the ‘20s to build a completely new layout. In the 1950s, the course went under a renovation that removed many of the course’s cross and greenside bunkers. This changed how the course played and removed many of its classic design elements. Ron Prichard was hired at the turn of the century to restore Langford and Moreau’s classic ideas. He brought back many hazards, bunkers and returned the Golden Age feel to the golf course. The course’s quiet elevation changes, subtle contours, lakes and creeks, on the front and back respectively, make the course incredibly fun yet challenging.
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More From Golf Digest

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America's 100 Greatest Golf Courses
4. Diamante Country Club
Private
4. Diamante Country Club
Hot Springs Village, AR
Previous rank: 5
Diamante Country Club in Hot Springs Village is one of the best courses in Arkansas. Discover our experts' reviews and where Diamante ranks in our rankings
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3. Mystic Creek Golf Club
Public
3. Mystic Creek Golf Club
El Dorado, AR
4.4
6 Panelists
Previous rank: NR
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2. Blessings Golf Club
Walt Beazley
Private
2. Blessings Golf Club
Fayetteville, AR
4.4
14 Panelists
Previous rank: 2
George Thomas conceived of the idea of a “course within a course” when designing Los Angeles Country Club in the early 1920s, creating various tees for different holes that changed the angles of play and even the par values on different days. That’s part of the concept of Blessings in northwest Arkansas, where Robert Trent Jones II built a multifaceted routing that can be played in a variety of lengths and combinations intended to challenge the game’s best collegiate players (Blessings regularly hosts NCAA tournaments and was the site of the 2019 National Championships), including one setup with a USGA course rating of 80.9 and a 155 slope. Several holes cross over each other in the manner of old links courses, though there’s nothing linksy about the rural, wooded and sloping property bisected by Clear Creek. When you build a course for an individual owner—in this case John Tyson of Tyson Foods—you get to break the rules. In 2018, architect Kyle Phillips remodeled Blessings to make it more walkable, creating a new first hole, relocating several greens, and shifitng and rebuilding bunkers to increase strategic diversity.
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1. The Alotian Club
Evan Schiller/Courtesy of the club
Private
1. The Alotian Club
Roland, AR
4.5
11 Panelists
Previous rank: 1
The Alotian Club gives us a hint of what Augusta National would have looked like had Bobby Jones established his dream course on even hillier terrain than Augusta. The first tee shot drops 70 feet to a fairway below with the approach playing back uphill. The tee on the 205-yard par-3 sixth sits 85 feet above the green. The Alotian Club, founded by Warren Stephens, son of former Masters chairman Jackson Stephens, is the first (and still only) course in Arkansas ever to make our list of America’s 100 Greatest Golf Courses. The Alotian name comes from the annual golf trips Stephens once took with his buddies. He called it the America’s Lights Out Tour, and participants called themselves The Alotians. In recent years, The Alotian Club has opened its doors to collegiate players—first for the 2019 Palmer Cup and since 2020, annually for the Stephens Cup.
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