Best golf courses near Plymouth, MN

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.

When Bobby Jones won the 1930 U.S. Open at Interlachen (completing the second leg of what would become the game’s first Grand Slam), fellow competitor Gene Sarazen insisted the course was tougher than everything but Oakmont. These days, the hilly, tree-lined design with small greens and plenty of bunkers has been the showcase of women’s professional golf, hosting the 2002 Solheim Cup, won by the American team, and the 2008 U.S. Women’s Open, won by Inbee Park. In 2023, Andrew Green will begin a major restoration of the Willie Watson design that Donald Ross revamped in 1922, possibly giving the course a similar ranking jolt that similar work at Inverness and Congressioinal delivered.

Hazeltine might be the most controversial championship course of the modern era, designed by Robert Trent Jones for former USGA president Totten Heffelfinger, who used his considerable clout to bring the 1966 U.S. Women’s Open and 1970 U.S. Open to the then-very immature layout. Criticisms were so extreme that Trent Jones spent the next two decades remodeling it, straightening doglegs, relocating holes and rebuilding greens. In the past two decades his younger son, Rees Jones, assumed the reconstruction, with even greater success—and today the layout, like many in the old man's portfolio, is more Rees than Trent. Hazeltine hosted the 2009 PGA and 2016 Ryder Cup, the latter a bright spot for the American team, which perhaps is why the PGA of America has already awarded the 2028 Ryder Cup to this Minnesota site.

Architect Ron Prichard took an existing layout by Charles Maddox and completed transformed it—with an brand-new course reopening in 2015 that is one of the best in Minnesota. Tyler Rae has done some renovation work in recent years to clear out a significant number of trees to open up sightlines and tweak green complexes to make some less severe. Still, Olympic Hills features intriguing greensites built in all shapes and sizes with a good variety of holes.

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.

Braemar is a player-friendly public track just south of Minneapolis that offers wide, forgiving fairways. One of our panelists notes that the two nines play quite different, with the most compelling holes on the back side. In 1979, Braemar hosted the third edition of the since-discontinued U.S. Women’s Amateur Public Links.

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.