3 new, affordable public courses prove golf’s building boom can expand beyond private clubs

The golf development business thrived in 2025 and appears to be accelerating into 2026. Architects are flush with work, resorts are expanding, remodel budgets break barriers and new courses are being constructed in all corners of the country. However, the same resources dedicated to private clubs and resorts have yet to find their way to municipal and affordable public courses, at least in a meaningful way. The economics of these courses, the courses that most golfers play, remain challenging.

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Investment in affordable golf lags far behind private projects, but it’s not absent. Three courses qualified for our 2025 Best New or Remodeled Affordable Course prize this year. Our highest scoring course, Bella Ridge, a Troon Golf property located on Colorado’s Front Range north of Denver, is more expensive than the other two nominees but at certain times can be played for around $75, the cutoff line for affordability—especially compared to what most courses on our America’s 100 Greatest Public Courses cost. The other two nominees, the North Course at Corica Park in Alameda, Calif., which combines with the South Course there to make one of the country’s most outstanding 36-hole public facilities, and Old Fort outside Nashville, qualify as more traditionally affordable.

As the health of the entire golf industry continues to be robust, we remain hopeful that more investment will make its way into non-luxury public courses, in 2026 and beyond.

BEST NEW AFFORDABLE PUBLIC COURSE WINNER BELLA RIDGE GOLF CLUB

Johnstown, Colo. 7,315 yards, par 72 Architect: Art Schaupeter

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Previous Next Pause Playfalse Public Bella Ridge Golf Course Johnstown, CO 4.2 10Panelists Architect Art Schaupeter, a University of Colorado graduate, has carved out a niche in the Front Range golf scene north of Denver. After previously designing Highland Meadows and TPC Colorado, he opened Bella Ridge in 2025, a public course between Johnstown and Berthoud and within miles of his other two courses. The holes ride across the site’s open plains with panoramas of the Rocky Mountains. Long, ribbon tees flow directly into the fairways shaped with ripples and hollows to get the tee shots moving in different directions and to set up curious angles into the generally small greens. Ravines and riverbeds intersect the site and are used as frontal and lateral obstacles, and three par 4s ranging from 276 to 310 yards offer plenty of gambling opportunity. View Course More from Golf Digest

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SECOND PLACE CORICA PARK G. CSE. (NORTH)

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Alameda, Calif. 6,382 yards, par 72 Architect: Robert Trent Jones II

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Previous Next Pause Play false Public Corica Park: North Alameda, CA The North Course at Corica Park, one of the best affordable 36-hole public facilities in the U.S., has had an interesting decade. It was built in the late 1920s by the great California architect Billy Bell. In the 1950s, the southern part of the property was converted into a second course that was remodeled in the late 1960s by Desmond Muirhead. The two courses experienced the typical ups and downs of city golf (they were known as the Alameda Municipal courses) until 2018 when Rees Jones remodeled the South Course and elevated it into a stylish venue with tight, fast fairways worthy of out-of-town attention. The success of the rejuvenated South Course convinced the course operators to turn their attention to the shorter, run-down North Course. They hired Australian designer and construction specialist Marc Logan, who had assisted Jones with the South Course, to initiate the renovation with consultation from Golf Digest architecture emeritus Ron Whitten. Logan secured a stream of affordable bulk sand to be hauled in from a project in San Francisco that he used to cap the entire site, enabling him and Whitten to shape faux, wind-blown dunes and exaggerated fairway and green contour onto the flat site, along with other cost-saving innovations like using old field turf from football stadiums as bunker liners. They completed and temporarily opened the first nine of the North Course (the second nine was still unshaped) until a messy legal dispute within the management company and with the city of Alameda paused construction for over two years. When the lawsuits were finally untangled, the city looked to start fresh and hired Robert Trent Jones II and his firm to complete the construction of the second nine. Jones and company honored the themes established on the first nine, creating wavy fairways and greens , allowing the ground contour to be the defining characteristic. The North Course, completed in 2025, is a fascinating design at less than 6,400 yards and with only 20 bunkers, showing that ingenuity and good ideas can overcome politics and economics. View Course

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THIRD PLACE OLD FORT GOLF CLUB

Murfreesboro, Tenn. 7,214 yards, par 72 Architect: Nathan Crace

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Previous Next Pause Play false Public Old Fort G.C. Murfreesboro, TN 3.7 10 Panelists This municipal course southeast of Nashville received a beautiful, economical renovation in 2024 from architect Nathan Crace. The efficiently routed course, first opened in 1985, plays primarily within a lovely horseshoe bend of the West Fork Stones River with holes bordered by mature hardwoods and natural native areas. Par fours at four and seven set up with tee shots over the river, and the 12th and 16th holes share a St. Andrews-like double green. Crace’s work included the reconstruction and relocation of bunkers along with the installation of Better Billy Bunker liners. He expanded and recontoured the green surfaces to capture more hole locations and regressed them with PRIZM zoysia. He also added new back tees to take the yardage over 7,200 yards and revamped the practice area creating more teeing space and a private lessons area. Best of all, the work was completed for less than $2 million, a fraction of what most private clubs spend for similar work. View Course

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