The best golf courses in South Dakota

Dakota Dunes Country Club in Dakota Dunes is one of the best courses in South Dakota. Discover our experts’ reviews and where Dakota Dunes Country Club sits in our rankings.

Elkhorn Ridge Course in Spearfish is one of the best courses in South Dakota. Discover our experts’ reviews and where Elkhorn Ridge Golf Club sits in our rankings.

From Golf Digest Architecture Editor emeritus Ron Whitten:

This may sound curious, but a graphic example of the polarization that defines the extremes of golf course architecture—minimalist versus scorched earth—can be found in the Black Hills of South Dakota. There exists a beautiful, natural, pine-covered mountain range, containing (did you know?) the highest peaks between the Rockies and the Pyrenees of western Europe, and yet some audacious individuals felt they could improve the Black Hills by cutting down the trees, blasting away the rock and creating something totally artificial.

The results were the late Gutzon Borglum’s half-finished Mount Rushmore and the late Korczak Ziolkowski’s barely-started sculpture of Crazy Horse. If you’re a purist, both are scars upon the landscape, a slap in the face of Mother Nature by men gone mad in their arrogance.

If you’re a tourist, they’re the main reason you come to the Black Hills. Without them, you’d just as soon go skiing in the Rockies. It’s that way in golf architecture, too. One faction seems duty-bound to follow, almost exclusively, the flow of the land in the creation of a golf course, adapting the ground only slightly to accommodate the demands of the game. Another faction feels no such duty whatsoever, and will bulldoze away mountains if need be to fashion a beautiful, playable, maintainable golf course that will attract customers far and wide.

Golf architect Ron Farris, who has lived for decades in Rapid City, in the heart of the Black Hills, has worked both ends of the spectrum. While an associate of Perry Dye, handling projects in Japan in the 1980s, Farris moved his share of mountains. But when he got the opportunity in the early 2000s to create a course in his adopted hometown, he decided to go the lay-of-the-land route. That would have been fairly simple, if the land had been down on the flood plain of Rapid City, where most of the city’s courses, including Arrowhead Country Club and Meadowbrook Golf Course, are located. But Farris found land high on the hogback ridge that divides Rapid City and gives the city its unique character. A minimalist course design in mountainous terrain can be a tricky proposition, but Farris pulled it off at The Golf Club at Red Rock. It is perhaps the best ground-hugging golf course laid out on a mountain slope that I've played this side of Coore and Crenshaw’s Plantation Course at Kapalua in Hawaii. 

Explore our complete review here—including bonus photography and ratings from our expert panelists.

Like Bandon Dunes and Sand Hills before it, Sutton Bay is a continuation in the modern trend of great golf courses being built in remote locations. Situated 40 miles northwest of Pierre, S.D., Sutton Bay was created by South Dakota native Mark Amundson, who wanted to create a retreat with golf, hunting and fishing. He found his spot on a piece of land on Lake Oahe, perfect for all three. Amundson hired Graham Marsh, who wrote in the course’s yardage book, “The brief for the golf course was simple. The course should be playable yet challenging, keep earthworks to a minimum, and preserve the natural landscape.” Marsh certainly achieved his goal, the course feels placed within—not on top of the land, with unique landforms, sprawling bunker complexes and beautiful views, the course well earns the top spot in South Dakota.