Identifying golf courses with the most value isn't simply finding the cheapest rounds. For most golfers, rounds of golf that scream value are ones we can't wait to tell others about. To us, there's an unwritten formula including some combination of price, amount of fun, level of intrigue with the design, conditioning, overall experience and history. We all have our own barometers of what makes a valued round of golf. Here are our choices, nominated by readers, our course-ranking panelists and our editors. (Note: All listed prices represent the peak-season 18-hole fee.)
Courses We Like
25 Courses That Offer the Most Bang for Your Buck
October 09, 2017
The Golf Courses at Lawsonia (Links), Green Lake, Wis. Price: $95
The dramatic landforms at Lawsonia were built by William Langford and Theodore Moreau, two Golden Age architects who might be lesser-known than those like C.B. Macdonald and Seth Raynor, but appreciated by those with a passion for course design. The Links course has risen to No. 59 on Golf Digest's latest 100 Greatest Public ranking, its highest position ever. --Stephen Hennessey
Pacific Grove Golf Links, Pacific Grove, Calif. Price: $71
Located on the Monterey Peninsula, just north of the beautiful 17-Mile Drive and amidst such top-tier courses as Cypress Point and Spanish Bay, Pacific Grove is often described as the “poor man’s Pebble Beach.” The front nine, designed by H. Chandler Egan, rolls through Monterey and Cypress pines, the back nine, designed by Jack Neville, sits right on the Pacific Ocean and offers gorgeous views. --Ashley Mayo
Sweetens Cove Golf Course, South Pittsburg, Tenn. Price: $35 (walking), for 18 holes
Located a half-hour west of Chattanooga, Sweetens Cove is guaranteed to distract you from worldly concerns and worries using a combination of charm, character and railroad ties. Hand-built from the remains of a forgettable nine-holer called Sequatchie Valley, Sweetens Cove was designed and constructed in 2013 by architect Rob Collins and construction partner Tad King. As their debut project, they went all out to make a big impression -- with enormous fairways (the seventh and eighth holes share one that's a hundred yards wide), distinctive greens (the one on the par-3 fourth seems to go on forever, with wings, swales, knobs and corner pockets), and varied bunkering (massive waste bunkers on the third and ninth, tiny pot bunkers on the second and fifth). --Ron Whitten
Photo By: Photo by Rob Collins
Wild Horse Golf Club, Gothenburg, Neb. Price: $68
Built in the likeness of Coore & Crenshaw's Sand Hills, No. 10 on our most recent 100 Greatest, two of C&C's builders, Dan Proctor and Dave Axland built this enjoyable and affordable layout on the southern edge of Nebraska. Wild Horse was ranked 70th on our latest 100 Greatest Public ranking. --SH
Coronado Golf Course, Coronado, Calif. Price: $42 (walking)/$62 (with cart)
Located on a peninsula just across the bay from San Diego, this muny hosts 110,000 rounds a year -- and a diverse clientele. You might find Phil Mickelson here if he's in town, and Bill Clinton claims to have broken 80 for the first time at Coronado in 1996. But mostly, you'll find everyday golfers, taking advantage of a great municipal course for the price. --SH
The Quarry at Giants Ridge, Bibawik, Minn. Price: $97
Though it's No. 30 on our most recent 100 Greatest Public rankings, the Quarry at Giants Ridge doesn't get the press of other high-caliber public facilities in its region such as Whistling Straits or Arcadia Bluffs, most likely because of its location. But the Bibwaik, Minn., layout, which has been ranked as high as No. 16 on our ranking of best publics, offers an incredible value for an architecturally interesting design that includes an 100-yard-wide green with three alternative routes on its drivable par-4 13th hole. --SH and RW
CommonGround Golf Club, Aurora, Colo. Price: $60 for 18 holes; $2,200 for unlimited golf and range balls per year
Tom Doak and his team designed this course to be fun and playable for a wide range of golfers. Generous fairways, four sets of tees (with combo sets also rated for both men and women) and strategically placed features ensure that scratch golfers and raw beginners alike enjoy playing CommonGround. Also, the course offers generous nine-hole rates, affordable unlimited-golf annual rates, and great deals for Colorado Golf Association members. --AM
Spring Creek Golf Club, Gordonsville, Va. Price: $125
Spring Creek was an upset winner of Golf Digest's 2007 award for America's Best New Public Course Under $75 and now sits at No. 66 on our most recent 100 Greatest Public ranking. With its sprawling bent-grass fairways and greens framed by a dense forest of hardwoods and massive sculpted bunkers, the course looks like a Tom Fazio design, for good reason. Designer Ed Carton learned the business working for Fazio, but he achieved Spring Creek at a fraction of a Fazio budget. --RW
Gold Mountain Golf Club (Olympic), Bremerton, Wash. Price: $70
Site of the 2011 U.S. Junior Amateur, where Jordan Spieth took the title with a local caddie named Michael Greller on the bag, this 36-hole facility includes the rolling Olympic course, carved out of the woods with natural vegetation and outcroppings that offer dramatic views, including this one from the par-3 16th hole (shown), and a memorable, drivable par-4 finishing hole. --SH
Rustic Canyon Golf Course, Moorpark, Calif. Price: $67
It's hard to find a bargain anywhere in Southern California, let alone for a well-designed golf course. But with Gil Hanse, Geoff Shackelford and Jim Wagner's Rustic Canyon, you get both. --SH
Goat Hill Park, Oceanside, Calif. Price: $32 for 18 holes
Originally built as a nine-hole par-36 track in 1952, Goat Hill was reimagined in the early 1990s as an 18-hole short course and was loved by locals. In the early 2000s, Goat Hill struggled under mismanagement and was revived in 2014 by local residents John Ashworth, David Emerick and Geoff Cunningham. Since then, it’s quickly becoming known as a go-to spot in Southern California for fun, challenging golf, recreation and socializing. It’s a par-65, 4,454-yard layout that features 9 par 4s, eight par 3s and one par 5. Most of these holes roll up and down hills and offer beautiful water views. --AM
George Wright Golf Course, Hyde Park, Mass. Price: $50
Residents play for as little as $39 during the week at this Donald Ross-designed course with a clubhouse that could be disguised as a fortress. Boston residents can purchase a yearly membership for $1,300 that includes unlimited rounds at George Wright and its sister course, William Devine in Franklin Park, where Bobby Jones would often play when he was an undergraduate at Harvard. As our David Owen once wrote, that might be the best deal in American golf. --SH
Photo By: David Owen
Tobacco Road, Sanford, N.C. Price: $130
The late Mike Strantz was the game's most unconventional course designer, and Tobacco Road was perhaps the best example of his unorthodoxy. In the horse-drawn-carriage neighborhood of Pinehurst No. 2, he created a landscape more suitable for motocross racing, with mammoth hills and deep craters. Each hole looks intimidating from the tee but reveals plenty of elbow room for tee shots and approaches, as well as spin-outs and crash landings. --R.W.
Old Works, Anaconda, Mont. Price: $99 (includes all-day play)
On the site of a former copper-mining operation, Old Works, designed by Jack Nicklaus, has the feel and conditioning of a high-end course but is priced more affordably. An old smelter smoke stack, touted as the largest free-standing masonic structure in the United States—at 585 feet—towers in the distance. (Hint: Most putts break toward it.) As a nod to the area's mining history, Nicklaus used black slag—a byproduct of smeltering ore—instead of sand in the course's bunkers. --SH
World Woods (Pine Barrens), Brooksville, Fla. Price: $119 (and under $80 from April to December)
Always making our list of best values in golf, World Woods' Pine Barrens Course, designed by Tom Fazio, made Golf Digest's 100 Greatest ranking from 1999 through 2003, and has been ranked among our 100 Greatest Public courses since 2003. --SH
Brackenridge Park Golf Course, San Antonio. Price: $60
Old Brack, as regulars refer to it, is indeed an old gem designed by A.W. Tillinghast that opened in 1916. The San Antonio muny hosted the Texas Open for many years with Walter Hagen, Byron Nelson and Sam Snead all hoisting trophies here. In 2008, the city spent $4.5 million to upgrade the 6,200-yard layout. The course today remains just 6,200 yards from the longest tees—about the same as in Tillinghast's plan—and 5,800 yards from the regular men's tees, but the lack of distance doesn't diminish the fun. --SH
Mount Prospect Golf Club, Mount Prospect, Ill. Price: $54
Following a $9 million renovation project that was completed in 2015, this classic design (dating back to 1929) offers public golfers a chance to enjoy old-school design elements like canted fairways and multi-level greens at a heck of a bargain. --SH
Keller Golf Course, Maplewood, Minn. Price: $45
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. 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." --SH
Photo By: Courtesy of Ramsey County
Winter Park Golf Course, Orlando. Price: $19 for nine holes
A par 35 that stretches out to 2,480 yards, what Winter Park lacks in distance it makes up for in dramatic green contours, steep bunkers and moss-covered oaks. As Golf Digest’s Architecture Editor Ron Whitten wrote on Winter Park this winter: "Keith Rhebb, longtime course builder for the firm of Coore and Crenshaw, and Riley Johns, winner of the 2014 Lido Design Contest, teamed up to rip apart and restitch WP9, as it is now called, providing it with much-needed character and sterling turf." --AM
Jeffersonville Golf Course, Jeffersonville, Pa. Price: $58
Designed by Donald Ross in the late 1920s on an old steeplechase horse-racing loop, this rolling piece of land was restored in the 2000s and is known as one of the better public courses in Pennsylvania. --SH
Photo By: Courtesy of Jeffersonville
The Links at Crowbush Cove, Morell, Prince Edward Island, Canada. Price: $100
No. 12 on our most recent Best in Canada rankings, this is quite a bargain for a scenic, seaside links course in Prince Edward Island. --SH
Wailua Golf Club, Lihue, Kauai, Hawaii Price: $60
One of the best deals for golf in all of Hawaii, this muny hosted three U.S. Amateur Public Links Championships. The par-3 17th photographed here features an elevated green to a green carved out near the water. --SH
Photo By: Marco Garcia
Four Mile Ranch Golf Club, Canon City, Colo. Price: $65
There are no bunkers on this Jim Engh design that is framed by mountains all around. Shale mounds take the place of sand on many holes, including many other unique Engh design features, such as several punchbowl greens, blind shot and wild green slopes. As one of our panelists put it: "vastly underrated among the state's public courses." --SH
Osprey Valley Golf Courses (Heathlands, Hoot and Toot), Caledon, Ontario. Price: $150 (Canadian, unlimited play)
For $150 (Canadian), one can purchase an unlimited pass to these three courses, all of which are perennially in the top 50 in Canada on Score Magazine's list of top Canadian courses. --SH
Photo By: Jerry Huminek
Diamond Springs Golf Course, Hamilton, Mich. Price: $30
Tucked just west of Highway 131 that you take from Grand Rapids to Kalamazoo is a little gem of a public course that you might not have heard about. But locals know the deal, just $30 on a weekend with a cart, is as good of a value as you'll find in the country for a quality, fun golf course. --SH