Fairways in the foothills of the Rocky Mountains: The best golf courses in Colorado

The best golf courses in Colorado

It’s safe to say that Colorado doesn’t immediately spring to mind when you think of a golf trip, but it’s definitely home to some of the best golf courses in the USA. Though its thirds aren’t quite the same size, Colorado is divided into three distinct sections where the terrain, climate and, consequently, the golf are very different. The Rocky Mountains which run north-south through the Centennial State, create a mountainous central swathe with over 50 14,000ft peaks. To the east, after the mountains stop quite abruptly, an undulating prairie extends for 500 miles while the western extent of the state is characterized by Rocky Mountain foothills and an arid, desert-like portion that moves north into Wyoming and further west into Utah.

Denver, the state’s capital and most populous city, sits at roughly 5,300ft above sea level which means your golf ball should travel about 10% further here than it will in the UK. And the distance boost grows even larger as you climb higher into the Rockies. Here, you’ll find numerous courses that stretch to 7,500 yards or more which may seem intimidating at first but is reasonable given the elevation. The mountain area, and especially the Front Range, possesses most of the state’s residents and, therefore, its golf courses, while the eastern and western extremes are remote and somewhat lacking in courses, good or bad.

The majority of visitors from the UK fly into Denver and immediately move west to the acclaimed ski resorts of Vail, Aspen, Breckenridge, Steamboat and Keystone. Golfers might linger in Denver a while, however, before heading south to Colorado Springs, west into the mountains or even east to the state’s highest-ranked course. Come the end of 2025, though, and golfers will have another major reason to go east as the new Dream Golf location, Rodeo Dunes, will be open. With over 2,000 acres of rolling sand dunes, the Keisers (Mike, of Bandon Dunes fame, and his two sons – Michael Jr and Chris) have plans to build as many as six courses. 

The 10 Best Golf Courses in Colorado

1. Cherry Hills Country Club

Course details: 7,316 yards, par 71
Green fee: Private
Website: chcc.com      
Telephone: 970-854-5900

William Flynn isn’t well-known in the UK and, despite designing a number of the country’s best courses, isn’t particularly famous in the U.S. either The Massachusetts native moved to Philadelphia in 1911 to assist with the design and construction of Merion’s famous East Course and remained there for a while as superintendent. He formed a company with Howard Toomey (construction) after WWI and was very active around Philadelphia. His best-known courses, though, are elsewhere – Lancaster CC (venue for this year’s U.S. Women’s Open) in Pennsylvania, the Cascades Course at the Homestead Resort in Virginia, Shinnecock Hills in New York, and Denver’s Cherry Hills which opened in 1922. The course finished with two par-5s (the 18^th is now a par-4) and the 17^th had an island green. The course is best-known for the 1960 U.S. Open when Arnold palmer drove the then 360-yard 1^st in the final round and shot 65 to win by two from Jack Nicklaus. Palmer renovated the course 16 years after his famous victory, and Tom Doak and Eric Iverson spent ten years renovating the course and re-establishing lost features.

2. Ballyneal

Course details: 7,147 yards, par 71
Green fee: Private
Website: ballyneal.com
Telephone: 970-854-5900

Tom Doak designed his first course at High Pointe in Michigan in 1989. A public facility, it didn’t look much like courses of the era as it adhered to Doak’s Golden Age of Golf Architecture (roughly 1890-1940) sensibilities and minimalist philosophy of moving as little earth as possible, i.e. building whatever the land gave you. This was a period when golf courses tended to be created or manufactured rather than laid out over the natural terrain, and High Pointe bucked the trend. Though it certainly wasn’t unpopular, High Pointe never really caught on and it finally succumbed to financial pressures in 2008. Doak’s thinking was before its time, but a developer named Dick Youngscap had a similar attitude toward course design and hired Bill Coore and Ben Crenshaw to design a lay-of-the-land course on sand dunes in the middle of Nebraska. Sand Hills opened in 1995 and it most definitely caught on. Ranked the 31^st best course in the U.S. by the country’s leading golf publication within five years, it has since risen into the top-ten and currently sits at eighth.

Ballyneal was Doak’s answer to Sand Hills and it too ranks within America’s top 40 courses (36^th) according to that same publication. It opened in 2006 outside the town of Holyoke, 175 miles east of Denver in the far northeast of the state. Ballyneal hugs its site’s contours as closely as any course, and feels like it was found rather than fabricated.

3. Castle Pines Golf Club

Course details: 8,054 yards, par 72
Green fee: Private
Website: castlepinesgolfclub.club
Telephone: 303-688-6000

Jack Vickers was a successful oil executive who built Castle Pines Golf Club hoping it would one day host a major championship. The 8,000+-yard course opened in 1981 and was designed by Jack Nicklaus and, though it has never hosted a major, it did stage the PGA Tour International tournament between 1986 and 2006. The event used a modified Stableford points scoring system, with players earning eight points for an albatross, five for an eagle, two for a birdie, and none for a par, while losing one for a bogey and three for a double-bogey or worse. The record points haul over four rounds was 48 by Phil Mickelson in 1997 and Ernie Els in 2000.

Castle Pines GC is found in one of the most affluent cities in America and sits at 6,300ft above sea-level which explains why two of its par-5s are over 650 yards and six par-4s are more than 470 yards long. It is located 25 miles south of Denver and hosted this year’s BMW Championship, 2024’s second FedEx Cup playoff tournament.

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4. Colorado Golf Club

Course details: 7,571 yards, par 72
Green fee: Private
Website: coloradogolfclub.com      
Telephone: 303.840.5400

Despite the amazing views west to the Rockies and the fact it sat within 1,200 acres of protected land, it’s possible, likely even, most architects would have considered the site at Colorado Golf Club in the Denver satellite town of Parker, 26 miles south of the city center, rather bland and passed up the opportunity of designing a course for the club’s developer, Bill Pauls. It had its moments certainly, but the long slope from the clubhouse down to flat meadows near the southern boundary might not have thrilled them exactly.

Bill Coore and Ben Crenshaw aren’t like ‘most’ architects though, and came up with a number of superb holes, one of which, the par-4 8^th, is among the best short par-4s in the world. It measures just 311 yards but plays uphill. Get close to the small, fast, contoured green with your drive and the second shot is extremely tricky. After the course opened, Crenshaw said that, while there would be many twos, there would also be plenty of sixes.

Colorado GC has hosted a number of prestigious events, most notably the 2013 Solheim Cup which is best remembered for Europe’s convincing 18-10 victory and Anna Nordqvist, who is representing Team Europe in the 2024 Solheim Cup, acing the 17^th hole to win a Saturday foursomes match.

5. Sanctuary

Course details: 7,028 yards, par 72
Green fee: Private
Website: sanctuarygolfcourse.com       
Telephone: 720-259-0984

After returning to the U.S. in 1991 after four years living in London where he had been the Director of Golf Course Design for IMG Developments, Jim Engh moved to Colorado where he had earned a degree in Landscape Architecture and Turfgrass Science during the early ‘80s. In 1997, Dave Liniger, the founder of real estate company REMAX, hired Engh to build a course on 225 acres half-an-hour south of Denver that would have no members and take no green fees but which could be hired for weddings and charity events.

Sanctuary has since been used to raise tens of millions of dollars for worthy causes, and has been a constant fixture among Colorado’s very best courses for over 20 years. Engh’s design features give the course immense interest, but the appeal starts with an amazing site that moves through a ponderosa pine forest and has 850ft of elevation change.

6. Maroon Creek

Course details: 6,957 yards, par 71
Green fee: Private
Website: mccaspen.com      
Telephone: 970-920-1533

Mountain golf can be a bit hit or miss. The views are usually amazing, obviously, but if the site is steep or if the architect relies too heavily on excessively-dramatic holes (a few memorable moments are great, 18 is too many) then it doesn’t really work. Instead of a memorable journey through exciting terrain, the course can become a bit of a slog and its extraordinary features lose their allure.

Tom Fazio, who has worked in 38 U.S. states as well as eight countries, has three designs in Colorado of which the most enjoyable is Aspen’s Maroon Creek which opened in 1996. The opening two holes and closing two on the north/east side of Highway 82 aren’t the most thrilling perhaps, but once you’re over the road, the course quickly becomes indelible. Beautifully-designed and well-routed, the terrain is plenty exciting without ever becoming too extreme. Instead of playing up and down a mountain, you’re traversing relatively level land with views of the surrounding mountains. And it absolutely works.

7. The Broadmoor (East)

Course details: 7,158 yards, par 72
Green fee: $335
Website: broadmoor.com      
Telephone: 844-602-3343

Donald Ross didn’t go west very often. Of the Scot’s roughly 400 courses, only a dozen or so are west of the Mississippi River – four in Minnesota, one in Missouri, one in Kansas, three in Texas, one in California, and three (possibly four) in Colorado. One of his Colorado designs came at the Broadmoor Resort in Colorado Springs where Ross spoke very highly of the site, 6,400ft above sea-level, paying particular attention to the soil. The course opened in 1918, but something very curious happened 34 years later when nine new holes, designed by Robert Trent Jones in 1948, were added to nine of Ross’s original 18 (1-6, 16-18) to form the East Course (Trent Jones returned in 1964 to add nine more holes which, when added to Ross’s other nine, formed the West Course).

That wouldn’t happen today certainly, though it’s unlikely much was made of it in 1952 when the Golden Age of Golf Architecture hadn’t become a thing yet and Trent Jones was the most in-demand architect of the time. Though some modifications have been made to assimilate the two nines, the more quirky, quaint, and subtle Ross holes are still quite distinct from the more systematic, standardized Trent Jones holes. No matter, it’s still a wonderful place to play the game.

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8. Country Club of the Rockies

Course details: 7,337 yards, par 72
Green fee: Private
Website: countrycluboftherockies.com     
Telephone: 970-926-3080

Like Maroon Creek, Jack Nicklaus’s Country Club of the Rockies, a short drive east from the town of Edwards and which opened in 1985, gets mountain golf right. Though there are certainly some changes in elevation, the rises and dips are relatively minor and the golfer gets to enjoy the surrounding mountains instead of struggling up their slopes or hurtling down them. The course sits at 7,200ft meaning your drives are likely going to fly further than they ever have before, and the once strongly-contoured greens have been softened some, so there’s a good chance you’ll shoot a decent score on this beautiful course.

Notable holes include the split-fairway 2^nd, hazard-strewn 5^th, par-4 12^th with a carry over the Eagle River, the gorgeous par-3 14^th and superb par-5 17^th where a creek crosses the fairway twice.

9. Red Sky Golf Club (Fazio)

Course details: 7,116 yards, par 72
Green fee: Private
Website: redskygolfclub.com      
Telephone: 970-754-8400

Just 11 miles further west along Interstate-70 from Country Club of the Rockies is the magnificent 36-hole Red Sky Golf Club whose two courses were designed by Tom Fazio and Greg Norman. Fazio’s course opened in 2002 and is spread over a massive acreage with views east to Vail’s famous Back Bowl’s skiing area. While the fairly open front-nine is dotted with sage and juniper bushes and doesn’t get to a par-3 until the rather intimidating 237-yard 7th, the back-nine rises into an aspen forest, before falling for the final few holes which include another noteworthy short hole at the 17th. To ensure the health of the course’s natural vegetation, Fazio relocated 23,000 plants into nurseries during construction then replanted them once the course was built.

Fazio’s course features considerably more elevation change than Norman’s and, though both compete for spots on national publications’ top-100 lists, Fazio’s course is usually regarded as the more picturesque of the two.

10. Red Sky (Norman)

Course details: 7,580 yards, par 72
Green fee: Private
Website: redskygolfclub.com       
Telephone: 970-754-8400

Greg Norman owned a 13,000-acre ranch 110 miles northwest of Red Sky during construction of the second course which opened in 2003. His layout, separated from Fazio’s by a ridge that is designated as a wildlife corridor, is the more compact of the two though still covers a large acreage and extends beyond 7,500 yards with great views of 14,279ft Castle Peak 95 miles to the south. The Norman Course’s slope rating of 147 makes it a little tougher than Fazio’s course. It was built on an old sheep farm and features large greens that don’t have a great deal of movement in them, and plenty of bunkers. Public golfers can play each course at Red Sky on alternating days when staying at one of Red Sky GC’s partner properties of which there are 27 in Beaver Creek and eight in Vail.

Honourable mention

Frost Creek – A glorious Tom Weiskopf design in the Rockies that opened in 2007 – (private)

TPC Colorado – Korn Ferry Tour venue designed by Art Schaupeter and opened in 2018 – (private)

Denver CC – Oldest course in Colorado, designed by James Foulis and opened in 1901. Renovated by Gil Hanse in 2012 – (private)

Redlands Mesa – Thrilling Jim Engh design opened in 2001 in the far west of the state – (public)

Ridge at Castle Pines North – 1997 Tom Weiskopf course – (public)

About the Author

Tony Dear – Contributing Writer

An Englishman who has lived in the U.S. for longer than he cares to admit (okay, since 2001), Tony played on the University of Liverpool golf team before working as an assistant pro and then choosing to write about the game instead of play it.

Despite calling himself a golfer for 39 years and completing something like 2,000 rounds in 35 countries, the quest for his first ace continues and he has even considered retiring from the game when one of his cursed (his word) tee shots finally drops.

You can follow Tony on X or read more of his thoughts on golf on Substack.