Best golf courses near Tulsa, OK

A product of the Great Depression and constructed by hundreds of workers who stood at the gate each morning hoping for a 25-cents-per-hour job that day, Southern Hills is architect Perry Maxwell’s great achievement. Nearly every hole bends left or right, posing critical tee shots that must risk something. The putting surfaces have the classic “Maxwell Rolls,” and most are guarded by simple yet effective bunkers. During the summer of 2018, architect Gil Hanse and crew rebuilt much of the course, in the process re-establishing Maxwell’s distinctive, gnarly-edged bunkering and reconstructing the green shoulders that had been built up over the years. Hanse's changes were on display at the 2022 PGA Championship, and the club will host the event for a sixth time in 2032.

One of just two courses in Oklahoma to bear the imprimatur of A.W. Tillinghast (he remodeled it around 1925), Oaks Country Club was renovated again by Bill Bergin in 2015 with an eye toward preserving the Tilly character. The holes are laid out over a spacious property south of the city, and unlike Tulsa C.C., Tillinghast's other Oklahoma design, Oaks feels old and rich with character, with small, sloping greens and simple bunkers that match the scale of the site.

Tulsa Country Club was designed in the late 1910s by famed architect A.W. Tillinghast, one of just two courses in Oklahoma with this pedigree. Now located in a neighborhood not far northwest of downtown (it was countryside when first built), the design doesn't have much Tillinghast left in it after years of remodels, including one in the 1980s by the late Jay Morrish and another in 2010 by Rees Jones. Though more modern in appearance today than its vintage might indicate and in need of continued tree removal, Tulsa is a finely conditioned course full of mild doglegs and elevated greens set above inset bunkers.

Coming on the heels of their acclaimed Chambers Bay in Washington State, The Patriot was a major changeup for architects Robert Trent Jones II and Bruce Charlton. Rather than molding a course from sand on a rectangular gravel mine next to Puget Sound, The Patriot was cut from a massive and heavily forested property northeast of Tulsa. The eclectic topography sliding up and down over ravines and wetlands offered an enticing opportunity to employ it in bold ways, and the design evolved into an aggressive engagement of land and turf. Creeks are used to bisect numerous fairways, landing zones expand and contract between 30 and 80 yards, bunkers and streambeds buffet greens and there are even alternate par-3 sixth holes, a tactic Jones also used at The Raven at Sandestin in Florida.

The Golf Club of Oklahoma in Broken Arrow is ranked as one of the best golf courses in Oklahoma. Discover our experts' reviews and tee time information.

Built in the late 1960s by Texas-based architect Joe Finger, Cedar Ridge was a member of America's 100 Greatest Courses from 1977 until 1985. It's a smartly routed course that efficiently works into and out of the property's corners, moving up and down gentle slopes. Over time, many of the bunkers had softened and taken on circular and oval shapes, not unlike those at nearby Southern Hills before that course's restoration in 2019. University of Oklahoma graduate Tripp Davis gave Cedar Ridge a similar treatment in 2016 and 2017, restyling the bunkers with more shapely edges, rebuilding tees and greens and removing dozens of unnecessarily planted trees. Now in its seventh decade, the design feels fresh, purposeful and engaging.

Page Belcher is a 36-hole public facility in Tulsa with two championship layouts. Olde Page was the original course and opened in 1977, with the U.S. Women’s Amateur Public Links being played on it a decade later in 1988. The challenging layout tips out at over 6,800 yards and plays over rolling terrain with subtle greens.