Hop into that time machine, folks. We’re going back 25 years, to 1999.
That Tiger Woods kid sure can play. Hopefully Y2K doesn’t screw up the tee time system. Did you see the latest ranking from GOLF Magazine?
The impetus for our time travel is the latest ranking of Top 100 Courses You Can Play from GOLF Mag. Because that same list 25 years ago, before this very website even existed, was a sight to behold. Pebble Beach was No. 1, and still is! Pinehurst No. 2 was … no. 2. It still is! But the weirdness of time travel shows itself at no. 3: Blackwolf Run’s River Course, in Sheboygan, Wisc., created in 1988.
Blackwolf Run is a lovely, demanding course and absolutely deserving of praise. But it was the third-best public course in America 25 years ago and it’s barely the third-best course in its own county these days. That’s not meant as disparagement to Blackwolf, either. It’s a nod to the fact that in 25 years, there’s been an epic movement of golf in Wisconsin. And not just golf, but public golf.
No state has seen a greater rise in its public golf offerings than Wisconsin has over the last three decades. Granted, great golf’s arrival in western Oregon is impressive — Bandon’s five courses all rank in the top 30. But Wisconsin now has eight in the top third of the ranking.
What’s the ‘best’ course in the U.S.? Here’s what you said
Importantly, and even improbably, they’re not owned by the same company, driving genuine competition (and even cooperation) among the group of elite courses. Whistling Straits totally understands your golf trip might start at Erin Hills and is bound to head to Sand Valley, Lawsonia and maybe even up to SentryWorld. They just want to be included on the itinerary, too.
In total, Wisconsin has nine courses on this newest Top 100 Courses You Can Play list, ranking it in a tie for second-most with Florida and North Carolina. Sure, California has 11 courses on the list, but only one of those was built in the 21st century. North Carolina has nine on the list, but only two of those courses are recent builds. Wisconsin has rightly earned the label of most underrated golf state over the years because, unless you’re blessed with a big-money endowment for annual golf travel, you likely still need to play a lot of them. Every few years a new one is added to the list.
The Lido up at Sand Valley arrived on this year’s list with a ton of fanfare, but it’s not even the newest Wisconsin must-play. That’s Sedge Valley, just down the street, which opened in 2024. (The empire being built at Sand Valley isn’t exactly done growing, either. The land up there seems to go on forever.)
The proliferation of new courses in the Badger State has been such a steady stream that it’s even become cliché to suggest it as your next golf trip destination. In this case, we’ll allow for clichés. Because don’t forget that time machine exercise up top. That list from 1999 had just three Wisconsin courses on it. It now has nine. And those three from 25 years ago deserved to be there, and haven’t gone away. Blackwolf Run is down at No. 29, thanks to 17 courses that have arrived since. Its sister course, the Meadows, makes your trip to Blackwolf a little juicier.
Then there’s University Ridge, which was 97th back in 1999. U-Ridge has never been better; it annually hosts the Champions Tour and was on our debut list of Best Value courses back in 2021. When that list was updated in September, it came with a shoutout for an unheralded muni called Washington County. That sits up the road from Erin Hills, costs just $65, and is a perfect appetizer for the big resort course nearby. Did it exist 25 years ago? It was just a toddler then, like a lot of the ideas for the courses that would follow it.
We could go on and on, but the bottom line should be clear. If there’s a list to be made of courses you can actually get on, Wisconsin is all over it.
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