Courses
Best golf courses near Des Moines, IA
Below, you’ll find a list of courses near Des Moines, IA. There are 30 courses within a 15-mile radius of Des Moines, 18 of which are public courses and 12 are private courses. There are 18 18-hole courses and 11 nine-hole layouts.
The above has been curated through Golf Digest’s Places to Play course database, where we have collected star ratings and reviews from our 1,900 course-ranking panelists. Join our community by signing up for Golf Digest+ and rate the courses you’ve visited recently.
Located on a beautiful property cut with ravines and depressions in south Des Moines, Wakonda is a textbook example of what happens when golf courses age: they tend to get dulled and more narrow, overgrown, restricted by trees and contracting grass lines, and lose the character that made them exemplary in their day. Wakonda was built by William Langford, one of the most distinctive architects of the Classical Era of the 1920s, but by the 2000s little of his architectural expression remained. A major renovation by Tyler Rae in 2023, however, reversed the aging effect. Rae was able to reestablish Langford’s principles and trademark style, defined by large plateau greens, steep faced bunkers cut into their bases and more spacious fairways that set up strategic driving lines off the tee. Rae considers Wakonda one of the country’s greatest hidden gems, and while the course has always been respected (it ranks fifth in Iowa), the sharpening of the dramatic architecture could push it toward the top of the state list.
View Course
Located on a beautiful property cut with ravines and depressions in south Des Moines, Wakonda is a textbook example of what happens when golf courses age: they tend to get dulled and more narrow, overgrown, restricted by trees and contracting grass lines, and lose the character that made them exemplary in their day. Wakonda was built by William Langford, one of the most distinctive architects of the Classical Era of the 1920s, but by the 2000s little of his architectural expression remained. A major renovation by Tyler Rae in 2023, however, reversed the aging effect. Rae was able to reestablish Langford’s principles and trademark style, defined by large plateau greens, steep faced bunkers cut into their bases and more spacious fairways that set up strategic driving lines off the tee. Rae considers Wakonda one of the country’s greatest hidden gems, and while the course has always been respected (it ranks fifth in Iowa), the sharpening of the dramatic architecture could push it toward the top of the state list.
View Course
Find more courses near Des Moines, IA