Best golf courses near Blaine, MN

As if destined to be a golf course, TPC Twin Cities was built on the site of a former sod farm. The Arnold Palmer design 15 miles north of Minneapolis/St. Paul has hosted the PGA Tour’s 3M Open since 2019. A past member of our Best in Minnesota list, TPC Twin Cities plays among native prairie grasses and includes 27 bodies of water, notably at the par-5 18th, where a large lake guards the right side of the fairway and the front of the green.

While Tom Fazio is best known for creating massive landscapes for his designs, Spring Hill required little manipulation of earth. Fazio utilized the existing rolling topography to form what is one of his most natural designs. Holes are isolated from one another by thick forests of evergreens and, in one section of the property, acres of maple trees that provide a brilliant color display each fall. With several tight fairways, marshland along some edges, many uphill approach shots into elevated greens and subtle movements in the putting surfaces, Spring Hill is also one of Fazio’s most challenging designs.

University of Minnesota’s Les Bolstad Golf Course plays tougher than you might expect from a course that’s just 6,300 yards from the tips, as its narrow fairways and small greens require accuracy. The course, host of the 1958 U.S. Junior Amateur, offers weekday rates under $40.

Before he moved to California, where he laid the foundation of many of that state's best courses from the pre-Depression era, William Watson was a pioneer of golf in Minnesota. He arranged the first nine holes at White Bear Yacht Club in 1912 near the shore of White Bear Lake on some of the most roly-poly land imaginable. Several years later, Watson added another nine holes and proceeded to remodel the entire course. Donald Ross has long been rumored to have done the remodel work, but the club doesn't have evidence of this and is now of the mind that the course is entirely Watson's creation. The site's wildly rumpled, unmodified land is the heart and soul of White Bear Yacht Club. Modern architects would likely have leveled and softened the slopes and ravines, but here they bring the golf to life visually and psychologically, offering nary a level stance and asking the player to drive to high sides of the tilted fairways and hit approaches with extreme control. Over the last two decades, under the guidance of Jim Urbina, the surrounding canopy of forest has been pared back to better reveal the massive, enthralling undulations of the course, and several holes, including the par-3s at six and 11, as well as the 12th and 18th green complex, are currently being restored.

Midland Hills always suspected their course was designed by Seth Raynor in the early 1920s, but they had no records of what that course looked like. They could intuit what some of Raynor's original holes were, but the overall architecture had dulled and shrunk over the years. That changed in 2018 when superintendent Mike Manthey discovered a 1921 irrigation map hidden above the ceiling in his office. The drawing showed Raynor's vision for the course, including individual holes and bunkers, a roadmap that designer Jim Urbina used to recreate and sharpen the old templates like the Biarritz, Road and Eden. The improvements have helped vault the course into the Best in State rankings for the first time.

For most of its history, Golden Valley has been in a state of flux. Tom Bendelow designed the club’s first course before A.W. Tillinghast was hired in the 1920s to construct a new course. A number of his bunkers were removed in the 1930s to reduce maintenance costs (Tillinghast, by this time, was traveling the country on behalf of the PGA of America, advising clubs on ways to cut costs during tight economic times), and others were tinkered with and modified in one way or another. A series of mid-century renovations took the design further from the one Tillinghast put in the ground, but recent work, first by Ron Forse and, in 2023, by Kevin Norby, has gradually restored much of the architect’s ideology. Greens have been expanded to add new hole locations, trees have been thinned and Tillie’s lost bunkers have returned with their shapes redefined. This is a classic parkland expression of golf on a graceful property that demands drives be placed in the fairway and approach shots left below the hole.

In 1920, Donald Ross was invited to remodel this 1916 Willie Park Jr. design. For some unknown reason, Ross did not include Minneapolis GC in his resume. His work here wasn’t insignificant: Ross moved the clubhouse and reconfigured the routing, making it mostly his own, and the course was deemed strong enough to host the 1959 PGA Championship, won by Bob Rosburg. A recent renovation by Jeff Mingay altered the bunkering and recaptured many original green contours. It is well known in the Twin Cities as the “Player’s Club” because of the number of single-digit handicappers.

Town & Country Club in St. Paul is one of the best courses in Minnesota. Discover our experts’ reviews and where Town & Country Club sits in our rankings.

A quality public track just west of the Twin Cities, Rush Creek has plenty of design variety, with elevation changes, deep bunkers and well-placed hazards creating a challenging yet enjoyable round. The scenic layout hosted an LPGA Tour event in the late 1990s and was the site of Ryan Moore’s second U.S. Amateur Public Links title in 2004.

A muny packed with history, Keller hosted the 1932 and 1954 PGA Championships, a Western Open, and for nearly 40 years, from 1930 to 1968, hosted the PGA Tour's annual St. Paul Open. On top of all that, it also hosted the 1931 U.S. Amateur Public Links. As one of our Minnesota course-ranking panelists described: "Holes 11 through 16 are as good of a stretch of holes as anywhere in the state."

Wayzata Country Club is one of the best courses in Minnesota. Discover our experts’ reviews and where Wayzata Country Club sits in our rankings.

Just north of downtown Minneapolis, Edinburgh USA is a Robert Trent Jones Jr. design that hosted an LPGA Tour event from 1990-1996. An aerial game is required at this muny, as numerous lakes and bunkers guarding the front of greens often take away the option of running the ball up. The course, which hosted the 1992 U.S. Amateur Public Links, features a massive double green shared by the ninth and 18th holes.

Bunker Hills is a 36-hole facility with three nine-hole layouts and an additional par-31 executive course. The North, West and East nines are all similar designs, with rolling, tree-lined fairways opening to large greens. The course has hosted numerous Minnesota Opens as well as the 1976 U.S. Amateur Public Links.