Parkland golf—on a tree-lined and manicured inland course—is the most common type of American golf. Less common, but surprisingly widespread, is championship golf played within a municipally owned park, or at a privately owned park that benefits the townspeople. As Houston’s Memorial Park has successfully shown at the Houston Open, golf at a city-owned greensward can test the PGA Tour’s best in a historical setting, as well as provide an affordable amenity for the community. Whether under the auspices of city, county, state, or private control, golf in a park can soar to rarefied air when in the hands of those who cherish the game.
For challenge, scenery, design, and history, here are the 12 best “park” courses you can play in the U.S.
Bethpage State Park (Black)—Farmingdale, N.Y.
At the height of the Great Depression in the mid-1930s, the State of New York decided that the public should have its own U.S. Open-worthy course. Blending equal parts Pine Valley and Winged Foot, architect A.W. Tillinghast delivered the goods, with help from Joseph Purbeck. Located on Long Island, about an hour’s drive east of New York City, the walking-only Black scares golfers with a sign at the first tee: “Warning—The Black Course is an extremely difficult course which we recommend only for highly skilled golfers.” Among the highly skilled? Tiger Woods, Lucas Glover, and Brooks Koepka, who have captured majors here. The game’s best will get reacquainted with the Black in September 2025, when Bethpage hosts the Ryder Cup. Massive bunkers, wrist-fracturing rough, glassy greens, and uphill climbs combine to send scores soaring, especially on the set of brutish par fours. Bethpage Black is lasting proof that public park golf courses needn’t be dumbed down merely to move players through.
Memorial Park—Houston, Texas
Venerable muni Memorial Park re-emerged as a formidable PGA Tour test for the 2020 Houston Open, following a massive makeover from Tom Doak and consultant Brooks Koepka. Three-over-par made the cut and only 10 players finished better than six-under-par for the duration. “It’s one of those courses where you can walk off shaking your head even though you played some good golf,” said Jason Day. “You’ve just got to be patient.”
The Park—West Palm Beach, Fla.
In April 2023, a new golf course from Gil Hanse and Jim Wagner appeared on a South Florida site with a rich but checkered past. Named The Park, it occupied ground that once housed West Palm Beach Country Club, a 1947 public Dick Wilson design owned and operated by the city of West Palm Beach. That course hosted multiple PGA Tour events, including the 1959 West Palm Beach Open Invitational, won by Arnold Palmer, and ranked among the nation’s best public spreads through the early 1980s. Eventually, following several redesigns and downturns, the course closed for good in 2018—only to be revived by businessman Dirk Ziff and then-PGA of America CEO Seth Waugh, leaders of the West Palm Golf Park Trust. They enlisted Hanse’s firm to provide a new, walkable, par-71 layout of 7,145 yards on the rolling, sandy terrain with an emphasis on strategy. The public-private partnership succeeded in elevating a golf course on this spot once again into the ranks of the nation’s top public courses.
TPC Harding Park—San Francisco, Calif.
This venerable 1925 muni sports fairways hemmed in by frequent fog and cypress trees, lush rough, and a wild closer, a 475-yard par four that opens with a bite-off-as-much-as-you-can-chew drive over a lake, followed by an uphill smash to a rollicking three-tier green. At the hotly contested 2020 PGA Championship, eventual winner Collin Morikawa hit the shot of the year, driving the green at the 336-yard par-four 16th, when bunkers, trees, and Lake Merced lurking to the left could have wrecked his chances. There’s a bit of sameness to the holes at this William Watson/Sam Whiting design—the same duo that created the Olympic Club’s courses next door—but it’s all challenging and it’s all beautiful.
Tanglewood Park (Championship)—Clemmons, N.C.
This abundantly trapped, 1957 Robert Trent Jones Sr. design sits eight miles west of Winston-Salem in the heart of tobacco country. Lee Trevino smoked the field to win the 1974 PGA Championship, easing past Jack Nicklaus and a 62-year-old named Sam Snead. Trevino, Gary Player, and Hale Irwin were among those who captured Senior Tour titles here between 1987 and 2002. In 2018, Trent Jones’s son Bobby collaborated with architect Richard Mandell to improve playability. They did so by redesigning bunkers, converting the greens from bentgrass to Champion Bermuda, and adding emphasis on angles and strategic options.
Brown Deer Park—Milwaukee, Wis.
More consistently solid than memorable, this venerable, 1929 muni played host to the PGA Tour from 1994 through 2009, where winners included shotmakers Jeff Sluman, Corey Pavin, and Kenny Perry. Located 19 miles north of Milwaukee’s General Mitchell Airport, the county-owned, 6,759-yard layout tests players with mature trees and lush rough. Perhaps Brown Deer Park is best remembered as the venue for Tiger Woods’s “Hello, World” professional debut in 1996. He could do no better than 60th but he stunned golf fans by acing the 202-yard par-three 14th hole in the final round with a 6-iron. Hello, world, indeed.
Omni Grove Park Inn—Asheville, N.C.
Known as “the Father of Modern Asheville,” pharmaceutical titan Edward Wiley Grove built a legendary hotel and developed the Grove Park neighborhood next door to the Inn. Another titan, Donald Ross, completely redesigned the Grove Park Inn golf course in 1926. Now in the capable hands of Omni, the mountainous, par-70 test of precision doesn’t stretch much more than 6,000 yards, but it confounds first timers with a variety of downhill and sidehill lies. A fistful of U.S. Presidents and the likes of Bobby Jones, Ben Hogan, and Jack Nicklaus have sampled these fairways.
Richter Park—Danbury, Conn.
The 6,547-yard, par-71 spread at Fairfield County’s Richter Park has matured in fine fashion since 1970, considering the heavy play it receives. Unheralded Edward Ryder successfully designed the layout to emphasize variety. He achieved this via the rolling terrain and by incorporating West Lake Reservoir into four holes on the front nine and Boggs Pond on the back nine, notably at Richter Park’s best hole, the par-five 12th, which features a peninsula green.
Rancho Park—Los Angeles, Calif.
Situated in the busy heart of West Los Angeles, the king of L.A.’s city-owned munis sits next to tony Hillcrest Country Club on Pico Boulevard and shares the same superb terrain, gently rolling with wonderful stately trees. The 6,839-yard par-71 layout played host to 17 Los Angeles Opens on the PGA Tour, the last one in 1983. Arnold Palmer won three times at Rancho, but he also suffered badly during the 1961 event, when he made a 12 on what is now the par-five 18th. Jack Nicklaus cashed his first professional check here the very next year, taking home the princely sum of $33.33 for his tie for 50th.
Brackenridge Park—San Antonio, Texas
Byron Nelson downed Ben Hogan in a playoff here to win the 1940 Texas Open on a layout designed in 1916 by A.W. Tillinghast. How’s that for history? Although Brackenridge Park hosted 21 Texas Opens in all, it eventually deteriorated from Tillinghast’s conception. In 2008, architects John Colligan and Trey Kemp restored the flat-bottom bunkers and rerouted the back nine to bring oaks, pecans, and the San Antonio River more into play. It’s just 6,243 yards, but it’s a memorable municipal journey. Remember the Alamo—but go play “The Brack.”
Bryan Park (Champions)—Greensboro, N.C.
Runner-up in Golf Digest’s 1990 Best New Public Courses listing, this brawny Rees Jones design in suburban Greensboro has matured beautifully since that time. At 7,255 yards, par 72, Bryan Park’s Champions layout was sufficiently brawny enough (and character-filled) to host the 2010 U.S. Public Links Championship, where the winner, Lion Kim, earned a coveted Masters invitation. What he and fellow competitors Patrick Reed, Harris English, Talor Gooch, Nick Taylor, and others discovered was a rolling modern layout with fairways handsomely framed by mounds and trees—mainly oaks, pines, cedars, poplars, and dogwoods—paired with a variety of deep freeform and pot bunkers and a fistful of holes that border Lake Townsend.
Van Cortlandt Park—Bronx, N.Y.
The American mecca of municipally owned public links, Van Cortlandt opened as a 9-hole layout of 2,561 yards in July 1895. There were no green fees charged. In 1899, Tom Bendelow expanded the course to 18 holes, stretching the new and revised holes to 5,960 yards. The current routing’s holes 1, 2, 3, 6, 7, 12, 13, and 14 occupy the ground that housed the original nine. Today, this north Bronx shrine measures 6,002 highway-bisected yards and plays to a par 70. Somehow, they squeezed in two massive par fives, the parallel 619-yard 2nd and the 572-yard 12th.
