Best golf courses near Minneapolis, MN (2024)

The Minikahda Club in Minneapolis is one of the best courses in Minnesota. Discover our experts’ reviews and where The Minikahda Club sits in our rankings.

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When Bobby Jones won the 1930 U.S. Open at Interlachen (completing the second leg of what would become the game’s first Grand Slam), fellow competitor Gene Sarazen insisted the course was tougher than everything but Oakmont. These days, the hilly, tree-lined design with small greens and plenty of bunkers has been the showcase of women’s professional golf, hosting the 2002 Solheim Cup, won by the American team, and the 2008 U.S. Women’s Open, won by Inbee Park. In 2023, Andrew Green will begin a major restoration of the Willie Watson design that Donald Ross revamped in 1922, possibly giving the course a similar ranking jolt that similar work at Inverness and Congressioinal delivered.

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While Tom Fazio is best known for creating massive landscapes for his designs, Spring Hill required little manipulation of earth. Fazio utilized the existing rolling topography to form what is one of his most natural designs. Holes are isolated from one another by thick forests of evergreens and, in one section of the property, acres of maple trees that provide a brilliant color display each fall. With several tight fairways, marshland along some edges, many uphill approach shots into elevated greens and subtle movements in the putting surfaces, Spring Hill is also one of Fazio’s most challenging designs.

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Midland Hills always suspected their course was designed by Seth Raynor in the early 1920s, but they had no records of what that course looked. They could intuit what some of Raynor's original holes were, but the overall architecture had dulled and shrunk over the years. That changed in 2018 when superintendent Mike Manthey discovered a 1921 irrigation map hidden above the ceiling in his office. The drawing showed Raynor's vision for the course including individual holes and bunkers, a roadmap that designer Jim Urbina used to recreate and sharpen the old templates like the Biarritz, Road and Eden. The improvements have help vault the course into the Best in State rankings for the first time.

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Before he moved to California where he laid the foundation of many of that state's best courses from the pre-Depression era, William Watson was a pioneer of golf in Minnesota. He arranged the first nine holes at White Bear Yacht Club in 1912 near the shore of White Bear Lake on some of the most roly-poly land imaginable. Several years later, Donald Ross, it is believed, added nine holes and remodeled the course. That rumpled, unmodified land is the heart and soul of White Bear Yacht Club. Modern architects would likely have leveled and softened the slopes and ravines, but here they bring the golf to life visually and psychologically, offering nary a level stance and asking the player to hit approaches with extreme control. Over the last two decades under the guidance of Jim Urbina the surrounding canopy of forest has been pared back to better reveal the massive, enthralling undulations of the course.

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Somerset Country Club in Mendota Heights is one of the best courses in Minnesota. Discover our experts’ reviews and where Somerset Country Club sits in our rankings.

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Minneapolis Golf Club is one of the best courses in Minnesota. Discover our experts’ reviews and where Minneapolis Golf Club sits in our rankings.

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Architect Ron Prichard took an existing layout by Charles Maddox and completed transformed it—with an brand-new course reopening in 2015 that is one of the best in Minnesota. Tyler Rae has done some renovation work in recent years to clear out a significant number of trees to open up sightlines and tweak green complexes to make some less severe. Still, Olympic Hills features intriguing greensites built in all shapes and sizes with a good variety of holes.

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As if destined to be a golf course, TPC Twin Cities was built on the site of a former sod farm. The Arnold Palmer design 15 miles north of Minneapolis/St. Paul has hosted the PGA Tour’s 3M Open since 2019. A past member of our Best in Minnesota list, TPC Twin Cities plays among native prairie grasses and includes 27 bodies of water, notably at the par-5 18th, where a large lake guards the right side of the fairway and the front of the green.

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Minnesota Valley Country Club in Bloomington is one of the best courses in Minnesota. Discover our experts’ reviews and where Minnesota Valley Country Club sits in our rankings.

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A quality public track just west of the Twin Cities, Rush Creek has plenty of design variety, with elevation changes, deep bunkers and well-placed hazards creating a challenging yet enjoyable round. The scenic layout hosted an LPGA Tour event in the late 1990s and was the site of Ryan Moore’s second U.S. Amateur Public Links title in 2004.

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Town & Country Club in St. Paul is one of the best courses in Minnesota. Discover our experts’ reviews and where Town & Country Club sits in our rankings.

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A muny packed with history, Keller hosted the 1932 and 1954 PGA Championships, a Western Open, and for nearly 40 years, from 1930 to 1968, hosted the PGA Tour's annual St. Paul Open. On top of all that, it also hosted the 1931 U.S. Amateur Public Links. As one of our Minnesota course-ranking panelists described: "Holes 11 through 16 are as good of a stretch of holes as anywhere in the state."

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Braemar is a player-friendly public track just south of Minneapolis that offers wide, forgiving fairways. One of our panelists notes that the two nines play quite different, with the most compelling holes on the back side. In 1979, Braemar hosted the third edition of the since-discontinued U.S. Women’s Amateur Public Links.

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For most of its history, Golden Valley has been in a state of flux. The club’s first course was designed by Tom Bendelow. Golden Valley later hired A.W. Tillinghast in the 1920s to construct a new course. A number of his bunkers were removed in the 1930s to reduce maintenance costs (Tillinghast, by this time, was traveling the country on behalf of the PGA of America advising clubs on ways to cut costs during tight economic times), and others were tinkered with and modified in one way or another. A series of mid-century renovations took the design further from the one Tillinghast put in the ground, but recent work-first by Ron Forse, and, in 2023, by Kevin Norby-has gradually restored much of the architect’s ideology. Greens have been expanded to add new hole locations, trees have been thinned and Tillie’s lost bunkers have returned with their shapes redefined. This is a classic parkland expression of golf on a graceful property that demands drives be placed in the fairway and approach shots left below the hole.

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This Minneapolis muny opened in the mid-1920s and hosted the 1964 U.S. Amateur Public Links. Conveniently located just outside the city center, the par-71 parkland course—an Audubon Cooperative Sanctuary—is a relatively flat and enjoyable walk.

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