The best courses around $100 among our list of the top public options
Courtesy of the club/Levi Shinn
The cost of golf can feel out of hand. The average green fee for the top 10 on America’s 100 Greatest Public Courses is about $650. We love the best resorts, but the price point isn’t for everybody.
This is a list for the everyman. These courses are high quality—they all rank inside our top-100 public. You can tack them onto a larger trip or make them the focus of your next one. It’s tough to beat the feeling you have after playing a great value course. Just like walking out of Goodwill with an incredible find, you’ll be smiling on the way to the 19th hole after playing these value courses, which are all close to $100 during peak times. That’s hard to find these days.
Courtesy of the club/Levi Shinn
Brian Oar
Our Ron Whitten calls Wild Horse the “best low-cost golf course in the nation.” It’s tough to argue. Dan Proctor and Dave Axland helped build courses around the world for Bill Coore and Ben Crenshaw, including Sand Hills, the minimalist gem that helped usher in the modern era of course design. Proctor and Axland created a little brother to Sand Hills just an hour and a half away, moving only 5,000 cubic yards of earth to build a course for less than $1 million when it opened in 1999. The designers returned to design a short par-3 course, The Pony, which is free to juniors or those playing the main course and costs just $10 (including range balls) for other guests. A new on-site cabin and renovated clubhouse add extra reasons to include Wild Horse on any prairie golf trip.
Courtesy of the club
Courtesy of the club
Courtesy of the club
NO. 95 Escapist golf doesn’t have to cost a lot: Fees at Black Mesa in New Mexico are frequently less than $80. Photograph by Patrick Koeing
Patrick Koenig
Black Mesa re-entered our ranking of America’s 100 Greatest Public Courses in our last edition and has improved its position this time. Though located not far from the town of Española, there is no development on or near the vast, high-desert property. The Baxter Spann design feels worlds away, flowing through a Martian landscape of buttes, sagebrush-dotted ridges and dry arroyos. If the idea of hitting shots through canyons, along bluffs and over rock outcroppings to blind targets isn’t enticing enough, the price for the round of golf should be.
Courtesy of the club
Wisconsin is the best state for public golf, and the Links course at Lawsonia Links is less than an hour and a half from the state’s great larger destinations: Sand Valley, Whistling Straits and Erin Hills. Nowhere are the talents of William Langford and Theodore Moreau, two unheralded Golden Age designers, better displayed than at Lawsonia Links. The routing is full of surprises, including a 3-5-3-5-3 sequence on the back nine. The course utilizes undulating terrain and rewards strategic thinking over power and distance. The reveal of the green at the par-3 seventh hole, nicknamed the Box Car, is an almost theatrical experience. Lawsonia is vintage, thoughtful and well-preserved, a true hidden gem for those who want to experience the quiet audacity of classic architecture.
Courtesy of the club
Evan Schiller/Courtesy of Giants Ridge
Evan Schiller/Courtesy of Giants Ridge
Evan Schiller/Courtesy of Giants Ridge
Evan Schiller/Courtesy of Giants Ridge
Evan Schiller/Courtesy of Giants Ridge
Visit Bloomington
Visit Bloomington
Visit Bloomington
Visit Bloomington
Visit Bloomington
Visit Bloomington
Visit Bloomington
Steve Smyers, along with Fuzzy Zoeller, an Indiana native, created the Pfau (pronounced Fow) Course at Indiana University in 2019—and the course debuted at No. 5 on our list of the Best College Courses. Smyers, an accomplished player who has played in USGA championships across six decades, designed a layout that tests the IU golf teams with length and subtly angled fairways but with generous playing corridors for average players. One of our panelists notes: “The variety of green shapes and contouring is some of the best I’ve played.” That’s rarely seen at this price point.
