The shocking rise of 1 state has rocked our ranking of the top 100 courses

Get in that time machine, folks. We are going back 25 years, to 1999.

That kid Tiger Woods sure can play. Hopefully Y2K doesn’t screw up the tee time system. Have you seen the latest rankings from GOLF Magazine?

The impetus for our time travel is the last ranking of the top 100 courses to play from GOLF Mag. Because that same list 25 years ago, before this website existed, was a sight to behold. Pebble Beach was no. 1, and still is! Pinehurst no. 2 was … no. 2. It still is! But the strangeness of time travel appears in no. 3: Blackwolf Run’s River Course, in Sheboygan, Wisc., established in 1988.

Run Blackwolf it is a beautiful course, demanding and absolutely worthy of praise. But it was the third-best public course in America 25 years ago, and it’s barely the third-best in its own right. County these days. That’s no understatement for Blackwolf either. It’s a nod to the fact that in 25 years, there has been an epic golf movement in Wisconsin. And not just golf, but PUBLIC golf.

No state has seen a greater growth in its public golf offerings than Wisconsin over the past three decades. True, the arrival of great golf in western Oregon is impressive—Bandon’s five courses all rank in the top 30. But Wisconsin now has eight in the top third of the rankings.

Importantly, and even improbably, they are not owned by the same company, fostering real competition (and even cooperation) among the elite set of courses. Whistling Straits fully understands that your golf journey can begin at Erin Hills and is bound to go to Sand Valley, Lawsonia and possibly even to SentryWorld. They just want to be included in the itinerary, too.

In total, Wisconsin has nine courses for this The newest list of the top 100 courses you can playranking it in a tie for second most with Florida and North Carolina. Sure, California has 11 courses on the list, but only A of them was built in the 21st century. North Carolina has nine on the list, but only two of those courses are recently built. Wisconsin has rightfully earned the tag of the most underrated golf state over the years because, unless you’re blessed with a large gift of money for your annual golf trip, you likely still aren’t. need to play many of them. Every few years a new one is added to the list.

Lido up at Sand Valley arrived on this year’s list with much fanfare, but it’s not even the newest must-play in Wisconsin. This is Sedge Valley, just down the road, which opened in 2024. (The empire being built in Sand Valley isn’t exactly growing either. The land up there seems to go on forever.)

The proliferation of new courses in the Badger State has been such a steady stream that it’s even become cliché to suggest it as the next golf travel destination. In this case, we will allow clichés. Because do not forget that exercise time machine up. That list from 1999 had just three courses in Wisconsin. Now there are nine. And those three from 25 years ago deserved to be there and haven’t left. Blackwolf Run is down to number 29, thanks to the 17 courses that have arrived since then. Its sister course, the Meadows, makes your trip to Blackwolf a little more fluid.

Then there’s University Ridge, which was 97th in 1999. U-Ridge has never been better; it hosts the Tournament of Champions every year and was on our debut list of best value courses in 2021. When that list was updated in September, came with a shout for an unannounced muni called Washington County. Located just down the road from Erin Hills, it’s only $65 and is a perfect appetizer for the nearby resort’s great course. Did it exist 25 years ago? He was just a kid then, like many ideas about the courses he would follow.

We can go on and on, but the end must be clear. If there’s a bucket list of courses you can actually take, Wisconsin tops it all.