The Senator Course at the RTJ Golf Course on Capitol Hill.
Courtesy photo
The latest collection of GOLF courses that belong on your must-play list has arrived.
On Wednesday, we released our first list of America’s best golf courses for $100 or lesswhich doesn’t include bucket list gems like Whistling Straits and Bandon Dunes, but boasts dozens of nice and affordable spots more accessible to the larger player population. To qualify for the list, courses had to be (1) accessible to the public, (2) the type of golf experience you’d recommend to a friend, and (3) offer weekend walk-in rates during peak season . does not exceed $100.
You can see the full list herebut for a quick rundown of what you need to know about it, scroll down.
1. Legendary architect Donald Ross has the most course design credits on the list with 10, among them George Wright, Jeffersonville and Triggs Memorial. Other architects who featured more were Robert Trent Jones Sr. (nine courses), AW Tillinghast (five courses), Pete Dye (five courses) and Robert Trent Jones Jr. (four courses).
2. The limit for this list was $100, so any course that came in at that number is definitely the highest priced among the bunch. Six fit that description, and four of them are on the popular RTJ Golf course in Alabama: Capitol Hill (Senator), Highland Oaks (Highlands/Magnolia nines) and both Lake 18 and Links 18 at Grand National. The other two $100 courses are Bethpage Red in Farmingdale, NY and Wailua in Lihue, Hawaii.
3. There are eight more subjects in the list that can be played for under $40. Less expensive are Buffalo Dunes in Garden City, Kansas, and Fort Myers County Club in Fort Myers, Fla., both of which you can play for just $30 max walk-in rates. The other six are Palatka ($34, Palatka, Fla.), Aiken ($35, Aiken, SC), Pines Crossing ($35, Auburn, Ala.), Cedar Crest ($35, Dallas, Texas), Wolf River Golf Park ($37, Bear Lake, Mich.) and Kearney Hill ($38, Lexington, Ky.).
4. Quick plug: If you are looking for an affordable golf course near you, visit our new one Course finder and search for all options in your area. You can also filter by things like price and course type.
5. Wild Horse Golf Club in Gothenburg, Neb., made the list, which should come as no surprise. It is also one of the few (and highest ranked, at 49th) in GOLF’s last The best 100 courses you can play ranking.
Courtesy photo
6. While some of these courses hosted diplomas decades ago, one of which was recently used for the 2024 marquee amateur event. The course of the city of Časka in Chaska, Minn., co-hosted the stroke play (along with Hazeltine National) for 2024 US Amateur last month.
7. You may or may not know it, but you helped create this list. To shape it, we’ve taken input from GOLF reviewers, editors, industry experts and, yes, you too.
8. Approximately 40 percent of courses in this list are owned by municipalities, and many of them appear in our ranking of America’s 30 Best Municipal Golf Courses that we published three years ago. George Wright in Hyde Park, Mass., was an easy choice for this recent list, and was also third in that aforementioned top-30 muni ranking.
9. California has the most courses represented with seven, and Alabama and North Carolina have six each. Michigan, Florida, Ohio and New York all have five. Thirty-five states were represented.
