Top Mountain Courses in 10 American West States

Mountain golf is different. It’s three-dimensional chess, with elevation changes that factor into the way you approach just about every shot. America’s western states are blessed with dozens of superb mountain tracks, from hillside bucking-bronco rides to others that are gentler canters through quiet valleys surrounded by towering peaks.

Many of the west’s more impressive mountain courses are private—clubs like Idaho’s Gozzer Ranch, Colorado Golf Club, and Rock Creek Cattle Company in Montana. But there are strong, publicly accessible mountain courses in each state, too—places where you can experience the high plains drama of mountain golf without ponying up a six-figure membership fee or buying a multimillion-dollar home on the range.

Here are my top picks for public mountain golf in 10 American West states. You won’t need a 10-gallon hat to play them, but you will need to use your noggin. Balls fly farther at 7,000 feet above sea level, which can be a great thing off the tee but not so great if you overshoot a green and your ball winds up in varmint country.

 

Colorado—Red Sky Golf Club, Fazio Course (Vail)

Red Sky is a private club with two courses that guests at one of its Vail or Beaver Creek partner properties are invited to play on alternate days. The (Tom) Fazio Course winds through sage-covered hills, dense aspen forests, and around a highland lake—offering dizzying views of Vail’s Back Bowl at every turn. Pair it with a second round on the club’s (Greg) Norman Course for a Rocky Mountain two-step that’s hard to beat.

fazio
Red Sky Golf Club

Wyoming—Jackson Hole Golf & Tennis (Jackson Hole)

The course at Jackson Hole dates to the 1960s, but the course you’ll play today was redesigned later by Robert Trent Jones II. Sited on a mostly flat piece of land at 6,000 feet, you’ll enjoy spectacular views of the Tetons, with the Gros Venture River coming into play on several holes, including the long par-four 10th and even longer par-five 11th. The 1988 U.S. Amateur Public Links was played here (won by Ralph Howell Jr.), and while it wouldn’t be considered a championship course today, its setting makes it a terrific place to tee it up if you’re in the Jackson Hole area.

jackson
Jackson Hole Golf & Tennis

Montana—The Reserve at Moonlight Basin (Big Sky)

The Reserve at Moonlight Basin is a Jack Nicklaus Signature course that plays to 8,000 yards from the tips at an elevation of 7,500 feet. Located just northwest of Yellowstone National Park, it’s like playing golf in a national park itself, with dramatic views that stretch on for miles, fairways like ski slopes, and vexing greens where putts can seem to break uphill due to the mountain effect. The downhill-then-uphill, risk/reward, par-five 6th hole is a standout on a course that’s full of them. The 17th, another par five, plays to 777 yards and is certain to expose any players who are all hat and no cattle.

Idaho—Canyon Springs Golf Club (Twin Falls)

Canyon Springs is located literally in the Snake River Canyon, so you’re surrounded by towering canyon walls as you play it, with views of the twin waterfalls and 500-foot-high Perrine Bridge from many holes. The long, downhill, par-three 8th hole, where your tee shot has to carry water to reach the green, and the dogleg-left 18th, a par four whose green is guarded by a creek, are just two of the holes that will stay in your memory after playing this modestly priced course.

Canyon Springs Golf Club
Canyon Springs Golf Club

New Mexico—Paako Ridge Golf Club (Sandia Park)

Paako Ridge is just a short drive from downtown Albuquerque, but for much of that journey you’ll be traveling uphill to reach this Ken Dye-designed Sandia Mountains foothills course sited at 6,500 feet. The club offers three nines (Nos. 2 and 3 being the best, in my opinion), framed by piñon and cottonwood trees, arroyos, and native scrub from which balls seldom return. Its most famous hole, called “Dye-abolical,” calls for a tee shot over a gulch to a three-tiered green that’s 100 yards deep. It’s gimmicky, but fun.

new mexico golf
Paako Ridge (photo by Evan Schiller)

Utah—Sand Hollow Resort, Championship Course (Hurricane)

Located just a stone’s throw from Zion National Park in the St. George area, the Championship course at Sand Hollow features the kind of expansive vistas and elevation changes that define mountain golf in the American West. The rolling fairways of the front nine are situated on flatter ground, while those of the brawnier back nine traipse up and down mountainsides. Both nines offer challenging, strategic golf—with the cliffside holes between holes 12 and 15 being particularly memorable.

Nevada—Wolf Creek Golf Club (Mesquite)

Wolf Creek is a course that probably shouldn’t exist. It looks and feels like it’s been transported to Earth from another planet. And maybe that’s fitting, given that it’s located just 75 miles from all the over-the-top attractions of Las Vegas. But for sheer scenery, for sheer audacity, it has no equal. It’s like it sprung from the pages of a fantasy golf course calendar. And it’s tough, in the unforgiving way that rugged mountain courses often are. But Wolf Creek was featured on golf video games for a reason: it’s spectacular. And if you choose the right tees, and accept what the course gives you, you’ll appreciate this improbable course for what it is. A singular experience.

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Wolf Creek (photo by Brian Oar)

Arizona—We-Ko-Pa Golf Club, Saguaro Course (Fort McDowell)

The Bill Coore and Ben Crenshaw-designed Saguaro course at We-Ko-Pa, just northeast of Scottsdale, is more a desert course than a mountain course, but there are enough mountains on the horizon to make you think otherwise—along with enough elevation change to make you think twice about walking (though you could). The course gives players options off the tee, and wide enough fairways on most holes that they don’t feel claustrophobic the way some target-golf desert courses do. The well-guarded greens run slippery, and many are undulating, so your flat stick will get a good workout here. The Club’s Scott Miller-designed Cholla course is also worth a visit and is just as visually stunning; no homes are visible from either layout.

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Saguaro Course at We-Ko-Pa (photo by Lonna Tucker)

California—Tahoe Mountain Club, Old Greenwood Course (Truckee)

The Jack Nicklaus-designed Old Greenwood course at Tahoe Mountain Club is set on 600 acres of pine-covered hills in ski country just above Lake Tahoe—so it’s a wholly natural experience from start to finish. The course will host a DP World Tour event in 2024, and fittingly, it’s no pushover. Expect to encounter greens set at diagonals, par threes calling for accurate shots over water, risk/reward opportunities that come with high risk, and tiered greens that will make you pay if you’re on the wrong tier. The long, uphill finishing hole, which features bunkers both left and right off the tee—and more bunkers in front of and behind the undulating green—is a proper conclusion to a mountain course that will test every aspect of your game.

old greenwood
Old Greenwood course at Tahoe Mountain Club

Oregon—Tetherow (Bend)

We’ll end our western tour with another toughie—the David McLay Kidd-designed course at Tetherow, sited on tumbling land that stretches out in the shadow of the Cascade Mountains. Tetherow plays more like a heathland course than a true mountain course, with firm, fast-running, fescue fairways and greens that are an adventure unto themselves. But the mountains never leave the horizon. Sandy waste areas, pot bunkers, tall pines, and chaparral scrub add to the list of challenges. As with all of Kidd’s designs, you need to think your way around this course, as exemplified by the split-fairway, par-four 6th hole, where you can play aggressively or cautiously depending on your level of bravery. If you go, plan to play the course twice, as local knowledge will benefit you the second time around.

tetherow
Tetherow (photo by Evan Schiller)

 

Have you played any of these mountain courses in the American West?

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