The Best Public Golf Courses in the United States

One of the longest courses in the world and a stop on Alabama's Robert Trent Jones Golf Trail.

The loudest week in golf plays here. The rest of the year it is a polished desert resort course.

Hosts the WM Phoenix Open every year, home of the rowdy stadium 16th hole.

High Sonoran desert golf threading between boulders and saguaros north of Scottsdale.

A Coore and Crenshaw desert course with no homes in sight, on tribal land east of Scottsdale.

A scrappy, hilly muni saved by the community. Cheap, fun, and the opposite of stuffy.

Clifftop closing holes over the Pacific, fog and all, forty minutes south of San Francisco.

Pete Dye desert brutality, including the island-green 17th known as Alcatraz.

Part of the American Express rotation on the PGA Tour.

Alister MacKenzie's home course and one of the few of his designs anyone can book a tee time at.

The most famous public course in America. Cliffside holes on Carmel Bay and a closing stretch that decides majors.

Has hosted the U.S. Open multiple times, most recently 2019, and the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am every year.

A Gil Hanse minimalist design that proves great architecture does not require a big green fee.

Five holes in the dunes, then a hard turn into the Del Monte forest. Many locals call it tougher than Pebble.

Part of the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am rotation.

A true seaside links on the Monterey Peninsula, with a bagpiper who plays the course closed at dusk.

A city-owned muni on the cliffs north of San Diego that regularly tests the best players in the world.

Hosted the U.S. Open in 2008 and 2021 and the Farmers Insurance Open every year on the PGA Tour.

Donald Ross mountain golf at 6,200 feet, where the ball flies far and the putts break toward the city.

A restored Devereux Emmet and Donald Ross muni that shows how good a city course can be.

A sandy, rolling rebuild of the old World Woods, an hour north of Tampa, with two championship courses.

Three modern courses carved from old phosphate mines in central Florida. A links experience an hour from Tampa.

Home of the island-green 17th, the most nerve-shredding short par 3 in golf.

Hosts THE PLAYERS Championship every year on the PGA Tour.

A breezy seaside course on the Georgia coast, part of a Forbes five-star resort.

Hosts the RSM Classic every year on the PGA Tour.

Big, bouncy, downhill golf above the Pacific on Maui's northwest coast. The Tour starts its year here.

Hosts The Sentry, the PGA Tour season opener, every January.

A Robert Trent Jones Sr. oceanfront classic with one of the most photographed par 3s in the world.

Cliffside holes over the Pacific on Kauai's lush north shore, with whales offshore in winter.

Home of the world's only floating, movable island green, reached by boat on a mountain lake.

A brawny public parkland course outside Chicago that has tested Tour fields for decades.

Hosted the Western Open and BMW Championship on the PGA Tour for years.

Built on the highest point in the region, with 40-mile views and Dye's usual mind games.

A Pete Dye bayou course outside New Orleans, flat on the card and tricky in the water and wind.

Hosts the Zurich Classic of New Orleans on the PGA Tour.

A Robert Trent Jones Jr. mountain course famous for the String of Pearls along the Carrabassett River.

Towering bluffs over Lake Michigan that feel transplanted from Ireland. Public, with lodging on site.

Twenty-seven holes along Lake Michigan bluffs and an old quarry near Petoskey.

A Tom Doak reversible course that plays clockwise one day and counterclockwise the next. Two courses on one piece of land.

Northwoods golf on an old mine site in the Iron Range, routinely ranked Minnesota's best public course.

A Jack Nicklaus muni built on a reclaimed copper-smelter site, with black slag filling the bunkers.

Remote Sandhills golf in north-central Nebraska, with a canyon-edge bonus short course.

A windswept prairie links off Interstate 80 that punches a hundred times above its green fee.

A Tom Fazio fantasy in the desert, hidden behind walls and open to MGM resort guests for a steep fee.

Holes carved into red-rock canyons an hour from Vegas. The most dramatic photos in public golf.

Donald Ross golf beneath the White Mountains at a grand 1902 resort hotel.

A Baxter Spann desert design in the high country near Santa Fe. Dramatic and shockingly cheap.

High-desert mountain golf in the pines above Albuquerque, consistently rated New Mexico's best public course.

A state-park muni with a warning sign on the first tee. Walking only, brutally long, and bookable by anyone.

Hosted the U.S. Open in 2002 and 2009, the PGA Championship in 2019, and the Ryder Cup in 2025.

Donald Ross's masterpiece, defined by crowned greens that reject anything but a perfect shot.

Hosted the U.S. Open in 1999, 2005, 2014, and 2024, and is a designated anchor site for future Opens.

Mike Strantz's wild, polarizing sandhills design. You will love it or hate it, never shrug.

Three holes drop into the Badlands buttes in the middle of an otherwise gentle prairie round.

Five true links courses on the wild southern Oregon coast. Walking only, caddie culture, no carts.

Tight, tree-lined Pete Dye holes that end at the candy-striped lighthouse on Calibogue Sound.

Hosts the RBC Heritage every year on the PGA Tour.

Pete Dye built ten holes hard against the Atlantic, with the wind doing most of the defending.

Hosted the PGA Championship in 2012 and 2021 and the Ryder Cup in 1991.

Nine holes in rural Tennessee that became a cult pilgrimage. Wild greens, no clubhouse, all charm.

A Tom Doak and Brooks Koepka muni redo that proved a city course can hold a Tour event.

Hosts the Houston Open on the PGA Tour after a 2019 redesign.

Red Navajo sandstone and a cliff-edge stretch near Zion that looks unreal in person.

A Donald Steel design on a Blue Ridge plateau, with holes along the ridgeline and a stargazing observatory back at the lodge.

A county-owned links on a reclaimed sand and gravel quarry above Puget Sound. Walking only.

Hosted the U.S. Open in 2015.

A David McLay Kidd sand course in eastern Washington with huge greens and wide, fun, walkable fairways.

A city-owned course west of Seattle that has hosted national public-links championships.

A C.B. Macdonald template course in the Allegheny Mountains at a historic 1778 resort.

Big, rolling, treeless glacial terrain northwest of Milwaukee. Walking only, with caddies and on-site lodging.

Hosted the U.S. Open in 2017.

A 1930s links with bold, geometric bunkering and elevated greens. Maybe the best value in the Midwest.

A Coore and Crenshaw sand-belt destination in central Wisconsin, built for walking and firm, fast golf.

A faux-Irish links on the Lake Michigan shore with a thousand bunkers and grazing sheep.

Hosted the PGA Championship in 2004, 2010, and 2015, and the Ryder Cup in 2021.