The best golf courses in Iowa for 2024-25

As part of GOLF’s rigorous assessment process for our newcomers Top 100 courses in the USA AND The best 100 courses you can play ranking, our fleet of 100-plus expert panelists identified the best golf courses in each state.

You can check out the links below to browse all of our course rankings, or scroll down to see the best courses in Iowa. And if you’re looking to create your future ride, you’d be wise to let the new GOLF Course finder the tool helps you. Here, you can edit all of our lists—top 100 publics, best munis, best short courses, best par-3s, and more—or filter by price to create your own itinerary. perfect for your next trip.

Ranking of other GOLF courses: Top 100 courses in the world | Top 100 courses in the USA | The best 100 courses you can play | The 100 most valuable courses in the USA | America’s Best Municipal Courses | The 100 best short courses in the world

Check out our new travel podcast Destination GOLF. Listen and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts: APPLE | SPOTIFY | HEART | AMAZON

Explore our brand new Course Finder

Golf course near you? Search here!

Start Browsing

Best Golf Courses in Iowa (2024/2025)

SYMBOL GUIDE
# = Top 100 courses in the USA
Y = Top 100 you can play in USA
V = The 100 most valuable courses in the USA
P = Public/Resort

Ed. Note: Some subjects were removed from our ranking because they did not receive enough votes.

1. Davenport CC (Pleasant Valley) (#)

Colt & Alison is a legendary name in golf course design, but most golfers don’t realize that Harry Colt never returned to North America after 1914. Therefore, many Colt & Alison courses in the US are actually Alison’s designs, like this one. which opened in 1924. Similar to Milwaukee Country Club and Kirtland outside of Cleveland, this river valley property was blessed with a creek (a tributary of the Mississippi River) running through it. Alison made the most of the water feature on holes such as the par-5 9th, where the stream runs the length of the hole; the dramatic one-stroke 10th, which plays diagonally across the river valley; and the famous downhill 16, in which you cross the creek from the elevated tee. Although set on higher ground, the course’s best hole may be the 440-yard par 7, a showcase for how to cover a hole over interesting landforms.

2. Cedar Rapids CC

3. Wakonda Club (Des Moines)

4. Reapers Club (Rhodes)

5. Des Moines Golf and Country Club – South (West Des Moines)

How we rank our courses

For our newly released US Top 100 and Top 100 Playable lists—a process that helped us create the top 50 rankings in the country—each panelist was given a ballot consisting of 609 courses. . Alongside the list of courses were 11 “buckets” or groupings. If our panelists deemed a course to be among the top three in the US, they marked the first column. If they believed the rate was between numbers 4-10, they checked that column, followed by 11-25, 26-50 and so on up to 250+ and even a column for “remove”. Panelists were also free to write in courses they felt should have been included on the ballot.

Points were assigned to each bucket; to arrive at an average score for each course, we divide its overall score by the number of votes. From these point totals, courses are then ranked accordingly. It’s an intentionally simple and straightforward process. Why? Because it has historically produced results that are widely praised. Like the game itself, there’s no need to overcomplicate things or try to fix something that already works so well.

The key to the process is the experience and expertise of our panel. Hailing from 15 nations and all the golfing meccas around the world, each of our 127 hand-picked panelists has a keen eye for architecture, both regionally and globally. Many of our panelists have played more than 1000 courses in over 20 countries, some over 2000. Their handicaps range from +5 to +15.

Because the nature of course evaluation is so intensely subjective, no opinion counts. The only way, then, to build meaningful consensus is to incorporate this diversity of panelists and experiences into a ranking.

Need help taming the greens on your home course? Get an order The Green Book to 8 a.m. Golf affiliate GolfLogix.