Boothbay · Mid-Coast Maine · 18 holes · Par 71
Pitch:Slope 140 from the back tees, 6,655 yards par 71 across 18 holes on the coast of Maine. Voted Best Golf Course in Maine by Down East magazine (2018) and Golf Digest's Best in State #1 for 2025-26. Architectural Digest has listed the clubhouse among the Most Beautiful in America.
Kennebunkport · Southern Maine Coast · 18 holes · Par 69
Pitch:Par 69, short by modern standards, but slope and shot-shaping demands run deep. Water in play on 13 holes between two tidal branches of the Kennebunk River. Listed on the National Register of Historic Places (2009). Phil Mickelson set the course record with a 9-under 60 on October 2, 2006. Bruce Hepner has consulted on restoration work for the better part of two decades.
Hyde Park (Boston) · Boston · 18 holes · Par 70
Pitch:GOLF calls it the best municipal course Donald Ross ever built, and the wild part is they built it by blasting Boston bedrock with dynamite, a Depression-era WPA crew turning a swamp and a ledge into one of the last fifteen courses of Ross's life. You feel it on every blind drive heaving over granite to a tiny green wedged in the rock. Golf.com ranked it the third-best muni in America; GOLF's panel puts it on the Top 100 You Can Play and calls it better than most private clubs in this state. The tee sheet is nearly impossible to crack. Crack it.
Bretton Woods · White Mountains · 18 holes · Par 72
Pitch:7,004 yards par 72, the championship 18 at Omni Mount Washington Resort. Golfweek's Best Course You Can Play in New Hampshire from 2009 through 2015. Host of four New Hampshire Opens, the New England Open Championship, and the New England Senior Amateur. The 9-hole companion Mount Pleasant Course (Alex Findlay, 1895) is one of the oldest layouts in America. Brian Silva restored the course to Ross's original plans in 2008.
La Quinta · Coachella Valley · 18 holes · Par 72
Pitch:Pete Dye built this in 1986 with the brief to make 'the toughest golf course in the world.' The 17th is an island green called Alcatraz where Lee Trevino made his hole-in-one in the 1987 Skins Game. The course co-hosts the PGA Tour's American Express tournament every January, and Golf Digest currently ranks it the 62nd best public-access course in America.
Pinehurst · Sandhills · 18 holes · Par 72
Pitch:7,565 yards par 70 from the championship tees, slope 141. Four U.S. Opens hosted: 1999 (Payne Stewart over Mickelson by a stroke), 2005 (Michael Campbell), 2014 (Martin Kaymer), and 2024 (Bryson DeChambeau over Rory McIlroy on the final hole). Also the 2014 U.S. Women's Open (Michelle Wie won the week after Kaymer), the unprecedented back-to-back men's and women's championship on the same course. Golf.com Top 100 Courses in the World, ranked 13th (2024).
Pinehurst · Sandhills · 18 holes · Par 72
Pitch:Gil Hanse and Jim Wagner completely rebuilt No. 4 in 2018, stripping a 1999 Tom Fazio design and the parkland features that had accumulated through decades of redesigns to expose the pine barrens landscape Donald Ross found in 1919. The USGA selected the new course to host the 2019 US Amateur alongside No. 2, an unprecedented endorsement of a year-old redesign. Some golfers swear it's better than No. 2.
Moorpark · Greater LA · 18 holes · Par 72
Pitch:Par 72, 6,628 yards from the back, slope 128. 2002 Golf Digest Best New Affordable Public Course in America. Golf Magazine's #45 best public you can play in America. Ventura County leased the land in 1999 with deed restrictions that kept the course moderately priced and prohibited substantial earthmoving on the ecologically sensitive site. Hanse himself called it 'the most lay-of-the-land course we have built to date.'
Carrabassett Valley · Western Maine Mountains · 18 holes · Par 72
Pitch:Slope 150 from the Black tees, 6,910 yards par 72, among the most demanding public-access courses in New England. Three-time Golf Digest 100 Greatest Public Course (2003, 2005, 2007). Three-time Golfweek America's 100 Best Resort Courses (2007, 2009, 2016). Golfweek #1 Course in Maine in both 2017 and 2018. Golf Digest has named it #1 in Maine 28 times since the course opened.
Williamstown · Western Mass · 18 holes · Par 71
Pitch:It is the best work Stiles and Van Kleek ever did, and it is so good that visitors keep insisting Donald Ross must have built it. Tucked in the Berkshires behind Williams College, it has perched, hard-pitched greens where staying below the hole is the only thing that keeps a card alive. Gil Hanse restored it in 2009, the year he was named Architect of the Year, and Golf Digest has had it among America's 100 Greatest Public Courses ever since, and it is the #1 public course on the magazine's Massachusetts list. Three USGA championships have come through. Find a reason to be in northwest Massachusetts.
New Haven · Connecticut Shoreline · 18 holes · Par 70
Pitch:Charles Blair Macdonald and Seth Raynor's 1926 masterpiece, just restored by Gil Hanse for $25 million. Reopened to the public April 28, 2026. Template holes including one of the world's best Biarritz greens. Worth the trip from anywhere.
Manchester Village · Southern Vermont · 18 holes · Par 71
Pitch:Par 71, 6,423 yards, slope 129. Golfweek Top 3 in Vermont, Golf Digest historically Top 75 in the US. Set on the grounds of the Equinox Golf Resort & Spa, which traces its hospitality history to Marsh Tavern in 1769 and is Vermont's oldest still-operating hotel. Listed on the National Register of Historic Places (1972). Head golf professional Joan McDonald is an LPGA veteran and three-time U.S. Women's Open qualifier.
Sanford · Sandhills · 18 holes · Par 71
Pitch:Mike Strantz built Tobacco Road in 1998 on a former sand quarry north of Pinehurst. The course averages 37,000 rounds a year on a layout some reviewers call the fifth-toughest public course in America. Golf Digest ranks it 49th best public in America. Slope 145 from regular tees, 150 from the tips. You will hate at least one hole. You will remember every hole.
La Jolla (San Diego) · San Diego · 18 holes · Par 72
Pitch:7,804 yards from the back tees after the latest Rees Jones renovation. Host of the PGA Tour's Farmers Insurance Open every January since 1968. Two U.S. Opens hosted (2008, 2021), with a third in conversation for the next decade. The most-played PGA Tour venue accessible to the public in America. Original 1957 design by William F. 'Billy' Bell Jr., who took over the project after his father William P. Bell's death in 1953.
Belgrade Lakes · Central Maine Lakes · 18 holes · Par 71
Pitch:6,723 yards par 71, slope 135, bentgrass tee to green. On Golf Digest's 100 Greatest Public list for twelve years (2003-2010 and 2015-2018). Walking permitted; caddies available with advance booking. Open Mar 1 to Nov 1.
Greenland · Seacoast New Hampshire · 18 holes · Par 71
Pitch:6,493 yards par 71, bentgrass tee to green, slope 130. Medium-sized greens averaging 4,000 square feet, with four sets of tees for any handicap. Golfweek top-five Best Daily Fee Course in America since 2005. Golf Digest four-star 'Best Places to Play' in 2008, 2009, and 2019. Golf Advisor top-three in New Hampshire every year from 2018 through 2024. Fifty miles north of Boston, six miles southwest of Portsmouth.
Keene · Southern New Hampshire · 18 holes · Par 72
Pitch:Slope 139 from the gold tees, one of the most demanding public courses in southern New Hampshire. GolfPass Golfers' Choice 2026 #1 in New Hampshire. The North runs along the Ashuelot River, with the river coming into play on seven holes.
Brewster · Cape Cod · 18 holes · Par 72
Pitch:Here is what nobody tells you: of all the Massachusetts greats, only about two are public, and this is one. Brian Silva moved three quarters of a million tons of dirt to fake a course that looks like it has sat on this kettle-pond Cape ground since the 1930s, and you never catch the trick. Golfweek calls it the #1 public course in Massachusetts, and it is #2 public on Golf Digest's state list. The greens are lightning and they tilt; the 13th takes a great round and hands it back in two putts. You have to book a Wequassett room to get on. Book it.
Cape Neddick · Southern Maine Coast · 18 holes · Par 70
Pitch:One of just a handful of Donald Ross courses in Maine. Among the most accessible Maine destination courses for New England day-trippers: 45 minutes south of Portland, 20 minutes north of Portsmouth, just over an hour from Boston.
Putnam · Eastern Connecticut · 18 holes · Par 71
Pitch:Mark Mungeam completely redesigned and expanded the original 1994 Putnam Country Club in 2007, adding 700 yards, 33 tee decks, and 44 bunkers. Golf Advisor's #1 best public course in Connecticut in 2021. Top 4-6 in Connecticut every year since.
Plainfield · Central Vermont · 18 holes · Par 71
Pitch:Central Vermont's must-play public course. Wayne Stiles 1924 design with Graham Cooke modernization, Golf Magazine's #5 in Vermont (2024-25), host of the Vermont Men's and Women's State Amateur Championships.
Francestown · Southern New Hampshire · 18 holes · Par 71
Pitch:Par 71, 6,111 yards from the championship tees, slope 138. The original Ross nine appears on every authoritative timeline of his 1929 commissions, alongside Mountain Ridge CC in New Jersey and Forsyth CC's third nine in North Carolina that same year. Open March 29 through November, weather permitting.
Bernardston · Western Mass · 18 holes · Par 72
Pitch:The stiffest public test in New England, a hidden Pine Valley buried up by the Vermont line where the slope reads a brutal 147 from the Black tees. Roger Rulewich routed it as Robert Trent Jones Sr.'s right hand, and it plays like it: 7,023 yards of forced carries and demanded shotmaking, conditioned so immaculately that players talk about the fairways like carpet. Golf Advisor ranked it the 23rd-best public course in America going into 2024, the only New England course on the list, and the 33rd toughest anywhere. The USGA made it the permanent home of the New England Junior Amateur. You will hit every club in the bag.
Palm Desert · Coachella Valley · 18 holes · Par 72
Pitch:The City of Palm Desert hired Michael Hurdzan and Dana Fry with PGA Tour pro John Cook consulting to build two public golf courses in 1997 and 1998. Firecliff is the harder of the two, with 100+ bunkers and a slope of 141. Golf Digest gave it 4 stars in Places to Play. No housing intrudes on the routing, which puts it in a small minority of valley courses.
Oak Bluffs · Cape Cod · 18 holes · Par 72
Pitch:This is the one you take the ferry for. Farm Neck sits on an Oak Bluffs peninsula the island took to the state Supreme Court to save from a developer, then built into a course on purpose to protect the land, and you feel that restraint on every hole that meets the salt marsh and Nantucket Sound. Cornish routed it through meadow, marsh, and water, the wind arguing with every swing. Golfweek calls it the third-best public course in the state; Golf Digest gives it four and a half stars. Two presidents spent their island summers here. You will understand why on the walk to the first tee.
Auburn · Southern Maine Coast · 18 holes · Par 72
Pitch:C. Lennie Myshrall designed the course in 2000-2002 with Geoffrey Cornish as consulting architect. 6,814 yards par 72, slope 132. Golf Digest Top-10 in Maine (6th overall, public plus private combined). Same superintendent (Ed Michaud) since opening, more than two decades of single-superintendent management.
Ludlow · Central Vermont · 18 holes · Par 70
Pitch:Operated as Okemo Valley Golf Club originally and under Vail Resorts from 2018 to 2021. Troy Caruso bought the property in April 2021 and restored the original Fox Run name with significant capital reinvestment. Golfweek's #2 best public in Vermont (2024) and #198 on its top 200 resort courses in America.
Bloomfield · Hartford / Central Connecticut · 18 holes · Par 72
Pitch:7,191 yards par 72, slope 140 from the Black tees, course rating 74.5. Designed by Arnold Palmer and his longtime partner Ed Seay. Opened to the public on July 30, 2004. Cigna (the insurance giant) owns the property; Arnold Palmer Golf Management runs the operations. GolfPass Golfers' Choice 2026 #4 in Connecticut.
Quincy · South Shore · 27 holes · Par 71
Pitch:Stand on a tee here and the Boston skyline is your backdrop, and the hill you are standing on did not exist twenty-five years ago. John Sanford built these twenty-seven holes out of the Big Dig itself, roughly 900,000 truckloads of dirt that Boston pulled from under its own downtown, packed over old quarries and landfills into a course with skyline views from half the tees. Golfweek ranks it ninth-best public in Massachusetts, 6,873 yards and a stout 142 slope from the Black, and The Tavern up top made Golf Digest's best 19th holes. The wind up here is relentless. Bring a camera and more golf balls than usual.
Milford · Fairfield County · 18 holes · Par 72
Pitch:Water comes into play on 12 of 18 holes, with six holes bordering the river directly. Golfweek's #3 best public in Connecticut (2025). Golf Digest #14 in Connecticut (2025). Top 50 collegiate course (Golfweek, 2022).
Killington · Central Vermont · 18 holes · Par 71
Pitch:Gene Bates and Steve Durkee designed the routing across two valleys of the Green Mountains. Featured in Travel + Leisure Golf's Top 100 Public Under $100. Historically named Vermont's #1 Public Course by both Golf Digest and Golf Magazine.
Truro · Cape Cod · 9 holes · Par 36
Pitch:There is nothing else like it on the eastern seaboard: nine holes of true links on the Truro bluffs, the only golf course inside the Cape Cod National Seashore, played here since the 1890s with the Highland Light turning over your shoulder. The Park Service calls it the oldest links course in America and as close to the Scottish tradition as the eastern United States gets. Deep fescue, Scotch broom, firm unirrigated turf the wind runs across, and twenty-mile ocean views from nearly every tee. One of only two courses inside any U.S. national park. Play it in a stiff wind and you will swear you are in Scotland.
Indian Wells · Coachella Valley · 18 holes · Par 72
Pitch:The City of Indian Wells tore down a tired 1986 Ted Robinson design in 2006 and brought in Clive Clark to build something new. The Celebrity Course was the result. It hosted the PGA Tour Skins Game twice, has ranked in the Golfweek Top 30 California public courses every year since, and offers the best municipal deal in the valley for Indian Wells residents. Sister course Players is right next door.
Indian Wells · Coachella Valley · 18 holes · Par 71
Pitch:John Fought designed the Players Course in 2007 as the more traditional companion to the theatrical Celebrity Course next door. He came back in 2025 for a nine-month renovation that rebuilt seven-plus holes plus every tee, green, and bunker. Reviewers giving it five stars on reopening day. Golfweek Top 30 California public.
Jay · Northeast Kingdom · 18 holes · Par 72
Pitch:Vermont's most northerly destination golf, five miles from the Canadian border. Graham Cooke 2006 design through dense Northern Vermont forest with Jay Brook running through several holes. Slope 138 from the tips. Golfweek's #3 best public in Vermont (2024).
Bar Harbor · Mid-Coast Maine · 18 holes · Par 70
Pitch:Donald Ross consulted on the 3rd hole rebuild in 1926. President Taft, Walter Hagen, and Harry Vardon all played here. Golfweek #4 Best Public-Access in Maine 2025-26.
Hartford · Hartford / Central Connecticut · 18 holes · Par 70
Pitch:The $5.8 million restoration grew to closer to $10 million including the brick clubhouse. Reopened to win Golf Inc.'s tied-for-first Best Classic Restoration award. Golfweek's #1 best public course in Connecticut (2025).
North Stonington · Connecticut Shoreline · 18 holes · Par 72
Pitch:Reviewers who have played both consistently rate the North as the more interesting and varied course. A fixture at the top of Connecticut public-course rankings since opening. Golf Digest #19 in the combined Massachusetts/Connecticut ranking, 2025-26.
Middlefield · Hartford / Central Connecticut · 18 holes · Par 72
Pitch:Companion to the Gary Player Course (1994) on the same property, sharing the clubhouse and practice facility. More than 40 strategically placed bunkers along severely sloped greens. GolfPass Golfers' Choice 2026 #3 in Connecticut. CSGA 2019 Distinguished Club.
Poway · San Diego · 18 holes · Par 72
Pitch:Johnny Miller and Robert Muir Graves carved the course into the hills of Poway in 2000. Slope 143 from the back tees, with 240 feet of elevation change. 40 acres of native wildflowers preserved through the routing. #1 golf course in San Diego County by the Zagat Survey for five consecutive years (2003-2007).
Manchester · Hartford / Central Connecticut · 18 holes · Par 71
Pitch:Tom Bendelow and Devereux Emmet (Congressional Country Club, Leatherstocking, Keney Park) laid out the original 18 in 1917. A.W. Tillinghast (Winged Foot, Baltusrol, Bethpage Black) redesigned the course in 1935. Member-owned semi-private with public tee times. GolfPass Golfers' Choice has ranked it #1 best public in Connecticut three years running (2024, 2025, 2026).
Nantucket · Cape Cod · 18 holes · Par 72
Pitch:The only public eighteen on Nantucket, a mile off the Atlantic, where the wind treats your scorecard like a personal insult and the greens are the best surfaces on the island. This was a dairy farm in 1956 until the Land Bank bought it out of a subdivision to keep it public forever, and Howard Maurer turned it into a real links: fescue down both sides, fairways that look wide until the crosswind shows up. It is the #3 public course on Golf Digest's Massachusetts list and Golfweek's #2 public in the state. Catch it firm with the wind up and you will not stop talking about it.
Southern Pines · Sandhills · 18 holes · Par 72
Pitch:Funded in 1921 by Roaring Twenties millionaires including James Barber, Horace Rackham, and Henry Ford, Mid Pines opened as a private retreat called Knollwood. Donald Ross designed it. Kyle Franz restored it in 2013 in what became his audition for the Pinehurst No. 2 restoration work he handled later. Sister property to Pine Needles, both owned by the Bell family.
Baltic · Southeastern Connecticut · 18 holes · Par 72
Pitch:6,691 yards par 72 across 156 acres of rolling southeastern Connecticut countryside in Baltic. Golfweek #10 best public course in Connecticut (2025). Top100GolfCourses.com #24 best in the state overall (2024). Golfweek Top 50 Casino Golf Course (2018). Home course for the University of Connecticut. Hosting the CSGA Senior Match Play Championship and Connecticut Mid-Amateur Qualifier in 2026. Pautipaug Pub & Grille in the 20,000-square-foot clubhouse.
Middletown · Aquidneck Island · 18 holes · Par 72
Pitch:7,244 yards from the championship tees with slope 138, a genuine championship test. New England Golf Monthly: 'Number One Public Access Course in New England.' Views toward the Atlantic Ocean and Sakonnet Passage.
Campton · White Mountains · 18 holes · Par 72
Pitch:Mark Mungeam designed this 18-hole layout in 1998 along the Pemigewasset River in the White Mountain National Forest. Nicklaus Design contributed refinements in 2016. The largest growing resort in New England, with Franconia Notch as the dramatic backdrop. Golf Digest top-10 in New Hampshire.
Orono · Central Maine Lakes · 18 holes · Par 72
Pitch:Rebuilt bunkers, restored green footprints, and 1920s-era mowing practices that produce firmer turf. Hosted more than 10 Maine Amateur Championships since 1926. Riverfront setting on the Penobscot River in Orono, just north of Bangor.
La Quinta · Coachella Valley · 18 holes · Par 72
Pitch:Nicklaus designed this in 1987 as the more forgiving complement to Pete Dye's Stadium Course next door. It co-hosts the PGA Tour's American Express tournament alongside the Stadium every January, with tour pros splitting rounds between the two before the final on the Stadium. Golfweek ranks it among the top 200 resort courses in America.
La Quinta · Coachella Valley · 18 holes · Par 72
Pitch:Dye built this in 1980 as his first Palm Springs-area design, six years before the Stadium Course made him famous in the desert. The routing plays into the Santa Rosa Mountains with substantial elevation change and pot bunkers carved into the hillside. Travel + Leisure once named it the top course in Southern California. The State Open of California has been contested here.
Southern Pines · Sandhills · 18 holes · Par 71
Pitch:USGA Women's Open hosts in 1996, 2001, 2007, and 2022. US Senior Women's Open in 2019. Arguably the best set of greens in the Pinehurst area after No. 2. In the regular rotation for future USGA championships.
Plymouth · South Shore · 18 holes · Par 72
Pitch:This is the half of New England's best daily-fee that bites back. Rees Jones, the man the USGA pays to toughen its Open venues, built the tougher of the two Pinehills championship courses in 2001, and he aimed it square at your second shot: 7,175 yards, par 72, slope 137, with forced carries and falloffs lurking past fairways wide enough to lull you. Two decades on GolfPass's best-public-in-Massachusetts lists and a fixture on Golf Digest's state ranking. The fairways are wide enough to swing freely; it is the second shot, with the falloffs waiting, that decides whether you walk off even or bleeding strokes.
Plymouth · South Shore · 18 holes · Par 72
Pitch:A precision-approach test so good that players walk off comparing it to Pinehurst, the higher-rated of the two championship courses at New England's best daily-fee. GolfPass golfers voted it onto the Top 50 public courses in the entire country for 2026, and ahead of its Rees Jones sibling next door. Jack Nicklaus Jr. built it in 2002 to defend itself at the green, not off the tee: 7,243 yards, par 72, slope 141 from the Black, with nearly all the danger waiting in the approach. Land on the wrong shelf and the green hands the ball right back before you have putted.
Danbury · Western Connecticut · 18 holes · Par 71
Pitch:Par 72, slope 139, water on 14 of 18 holes between West Lake Reservoir and Boggs Pond. Golfweek #7 best public course in Connecticut (2025); Top100GolfCourses.com #38 best in the state overall (public or private, 2024). All 49 bunkers rebuilt in 2008. Hosted the American Junior Golf Association championships four times (most recently 2020), the Met Public Links (2013), and the Connecticut Public Links (2009). The 20-bay driving range comes with the round.
Rockport · Mid-Coast Maine · 18 holes · Par 70
Pitch:Robert Elder designed the original 1974 layout on 230 waterfront acres at the edge of the bay. Geoffrey Cornish and William Bradley Booth redesigned the course in 2000 to better exploit the ocean frontage. 6,500 yards, slope 133. Part of the Samoset Resort (1902), one of the oldest grand hotel destinations on the Maine coast.
La Quinta · Coachella Valley · 18 holes · Par 72
Pitch:7,578 yards from the back tees, the longest course in the Palm Springs area. Built on 200 acres at the base of the Santa Rosa Mountains. The trailer that has served as a temporary clubhouse since 2005 is still there; a planned hotel-and-clubhouse complex has been repeatedly delayed.
Southern Pines · Sandhills · 18 holes · Par 70
Pitch:Donald Ross worked on this course in 1910, making it one of the earliest Ross designs in America. The Bell family (Pine Needles and Mid Pines owners) bought it from the Southern Pines Elks Club in 2020 and brought Kyle Franz back for a major restoration. The course debuted on Golf Digest's 100 Greatest Public Courses list at #72 immediately after reopening in 2021.
Stratton Mountain · Southern Vermont · 27 holes · Par 72
Pitch:Mountain + Lake + Forest, played as three rotating 18-hole pairings. Six LPGA tour events hosted from 1990 through 1996, the first professional golf tournament in Vermont's history. Mountain 3 once played the toughest hole on the LPGA Tour. Brian Silva (Cornish's protégé) returned to the firm's home territory to add the Forest nine in 1984. A multi-year restoration completed in 2022 returned fairways, greens, and bunkers to the original Cornish blueprint.
Newry · Western Maine Mountains · 18 holes · Par 72
Pitch:7,130 yards, slope 150 from the championship tees, among the most demanding in New England public golf. Perched at 1,500 feet above sea level with five mountain ranges visible from various tees. Golf Magazine Top 100 Courses You Can Play (2017).
Oxford · Southern Connecticut · 18 holes · Par 72
Pitch:7,186 yards from the tips, slope 135. Bentgrass tee to green, framed by mature hardwood. Golfweek's #3 best public course in Connecticut (2022) and top-10 every year since.
Bethlehem · White Mountains · 18 holes · Par 72
Pitch:6,001 yards par 72. GolfPass Golfers' Choice 2026 #2 best public course in New Hampshire. On-property accommodations available at the Inn at Maplewood, in the stone Casino building that survives from the original resort complex.
Stowe · Northern Vermont / Stowe · 18 holes · Par 72
Pitch:1,000 feet of elevation change across 18 holes. Audubon International Signature Sanctuary, one of only a handful in the country. Access is gated to members of The Club at Spruce Peak and guests with a qualifying stay at The Lodge at Spruce Peak (a Hyatt destination property).
Southwick · Western Mass · 18 holes · Par 72
Pitch:People genuinely argue this is the best public course in New England, and it was a Crane-family dairy farm, the round opening across links-like pasture before it climbs up into the hardwoods. Damian Pascuzzo built it in 2001 to 7,129 yards, par 72, rating 74.8 and slope 142 from the Gold tees, and the conditioning alone is worth the drive west. Golfweek ranks it fifth-best public in the state; GolfPass had it number one in Massachusetts and fifteenth-best public layout in all of America; the New England Journal of Golf called it the region's best new course the year it opened. Go see what the fuss is.
La Jolla (San Diego) · San Diego · 18 holes · Par 72
Pitch:Tom Weiskopf's 2016 redesign of the North Course shifted the holes closer to the coastal cliffs and added ocean views to roughly half the routing. Golf Digest's most recent Top 100 Public list ranks it #9 in America. The PGA Tour plays both courses every January for the Farmers Insurance Open. Greens fees run roughly half of what the South charges.
Providence · Providence Metro · 18 holes · Par 72
Pitch:Built during the Great Depression using Civil Works Administration labor on the former 140-acre Obadiah Brown farm in northwest Providence. Golf.com Top 14 Municipal Courses in America. Links Magazine 'Dream Courses Northeast.' Original hole-by-hole Ross diagrams hang in the clubhouse grill room.
Bloomfield · Hartford / Central Connecticut · 18 holes · Par 70
Pitch:Dye donated his design fee for $1 to the American Society of Golf Course Architects. Tim Liddy collaborated on the routing. Opened 2005. Golfweek's #2 best public course in Connecticut (2025). PGA Tour pro Andrew Svoboda holds the course record at 62.
Windham · Southern New Hampshire · 18 holes · Par 72
Pitch:6,442 yards par 72, slope 137, bentgrass tee to green. Built and operated by Bill Flynn's Golf Course Management Inc. since opening in 1995. Flynn is a member of the New England PGA Hall of Fame and received the 2016 Deacon Palmer Award from the PGA of America for his contributions to the game. Five sets of tees, walkable, 45 minutes north of Boston off I-93.
Sutton · Central Mass · 18 holes · Par 72
Pitch:A Rees Jones daily-fee that plays like a private club, where every hole sits in its own pocket of forest and you go a whole round without seeing another group. Jones walked this Sutton property and chose it himself, then built to the land: 6,909 yards from the tips, par 72, a number most players are smart to step forward from. No tricks and no forced carries, just a championship routing where the contours and the green complexes do the defending. Worth turning off the highway for.
Salem · Southern New Hampshire · 18 holes · Par 71
Pitch:6,249 yards par 71, slope 124, bentgrass greens. Salem sits ten minutes off I-93 just over the Massachusetts line; this is the most-played New Hampshire round by Massachusetts golfers driving north. GolfPass Golfers' Choice 2026 #5 in New Hampshire, driven by sustained reviewer enthusiasm.
Harwich · Cape Cod · 18 holes · Par 72
Pitch:Geoffrey Cornish and Bill Robinson designed Cranberry Valley in 1974 as a Town of Harwich municipal course. Mark Mungeam redesigned the bunkering in the mid-2010s. Golf Advisor ranked it the #12 course in Massachusetts in 2022. Best of Cape Cod 2011. Mass APL qualifier site. Cranberry bogs and marshes work their way into the routing.
Boylston · Central Mass · 27 holes · Par 72
Pitch:The best public round in the Worcester area, a Mark Mungeam championship course carved across 230 rolling acres of an old colonial homestead. Mungeam led it for the Cornish firm in 1997, it won Golf Digest Best New Public that year, and in 2025 it hosted the Massachusetts Amateur Public Links Championship. 6,871 yards, par 72, slope 136, with a 9-hole par-3 alongside that is a real design, not a throwaway. Placement golf to small, mounded greens that punish the careless.
Palm Desert · Coachella Valley · 18 holes · Par 72
Pitch:The second of the two courses at Desert Willow, built by the same Hurdzan-Fry team a year after the Firecliff. Mountain View is shorter and more forgiving than its sibling but uses the same design language: 98 well-placed bunkers, native desert flora, sloping greens, seven water features. Golf Digest 4 stars in Places to Play.
Palm Springs · Coachella Valley · 18 holes · Par 72
Pitch:Nicklaus Design built Escena in 2005 in central Palm Springs, on what used to be the Cathedral City landfill. The course gives you a Nicklaus Design experience at daily-fee pricing, ten minutes from the airport. Better conditioning than most neighborhood desert golf and easier to book than the famous valley courses.
Middlefield · Hartford / Central Connecticut · 18 holes · Par 71
Pitch:Target-focused character with smaller greens, narrower fairways, and 34 bunkers defending elevated targets. 6,725 yards through the orchards. Audubon International Cooperative Sanctuary certified.
Portsmouth · Aquidneck Island · 18 holes · Par 71
Pitch:Golfweek #5 Best Public-Access course in Rhode Island (2025). Year-round operation, one of the few publicly accessible Rhode Island courses for winter golf. Mount Hope Bay views from the signature par-5 16th.
Greensboro · Northeast Kingdom · 9 holes · Par 35
Pitch:Par 35, 2,816 yards, links-style across a hillside above Caspian Lake in the Northeast Kingdom. Views to Mount Mansfield in the distance. Visitors welcome.
Norwich · Eastern Connecticut · 18 holes · Par 71
Pitch:GolfPass Golfers' Choice 2026 #8 in Connecticut. Hosted the Connecticut Senior Amateur Championships in 1981, 1983, and 2008. The Donald Ross attribution that has circulated for decades is debunked by the course's own history.
Pequabuck · Hartford / Central Connecticut · 18 holes · Par 70
Pitch:Founded 1902. Geoffrey Cornish, ASGCA (the most prolific New England architect of the postwar era), shaped the modern course with three new holes added in the 1960s. The original 1902 designer is not documented. Semi-private with regular public tee times. GolfPass Editors' Choice for Connecticut.
La Quinta · Coachella Valley · 18 holes · Par 72
Pitch:Norman opened this in 1999, drawing on Australian Sandbelt principles rather than typical American desert golf. Only 68 acres of maintained turf surrounded by native desert, 102 white crushed-marble bunkers, water on nine holes. Plays differently from anything else at PGA West.
Portland · Hartford / Central Connecticut · 18 holes · Par 71
Pitch:Mark Mungeam designed Quarry Ridge in 1998 on former Portland, Connecticut quarry land. Dramatic elevation changes inherited from the industrial topography. GolfPass Golfers' Choice 2026 #7 in Connecticut.
Devens · Central Mass · 18 holes · Par 72
Pitch:Architecturally one of the best public courses in Massachusetts, a Brian Silva design woven through the woods of the old Fort Devens Army base. Golfweek ranked it the #3 best public course in the state in 2025, and the strategic bones are pure Silva: wide fairways that force angle decisions into big, contoured greens. 7,006 yards, par 72, the military past built into the routing. The catch is conditioning: recent reviews suggest it has slipped from its heyday, so check whether it has returned to championship level before you book.
Harvard · Central Mass · 18 holes · Par 71
Pitch:A hilly, boulder-strewn Brian Silva design that rides its terrain as hard as any public course in central Massachusetts, renovated and revived under owner Fred Curtis. Silva and Mark Mungeam opened it on the Fourth of July, 1991, and Golf Digest tagged it a best new public that year. 6,850 yards, par 71, slope 137, bentgrass, routed up a wooded ridge and back down. The ridge gives you a view at the top and a downhill lie at the bottom, and you will remember both long after the score.
Groton · Connecticut Shoreline · 18 holes · Par 71
Pitch:Par 71, 6,562 yards on Thames River shoreline. Town of Groton has operated the course as a municipal since April 10, 1969. One of only five Donald Ross courses in Connecticut, and the only one accessible to the public. Voted Best Golf Course by The Day's Readers Choice in 2021, 2022, and 2023. Host of the Connecticut Senior Open.
Hingham · South Shore · 18 holes · Par 72
Pitch:A town muni the same firm behind Taconic drew up in 1922, and the regulars vote it the number-one public course in Massachusetts, year after year. It is barely 6,400 yards, so leave the ego in the car: this is precision golf down tight tree-lined corridors to small, perched, fast greens that punish a sloppy approach. The 14th makes you carry a marsh with water stalking the right the whole way. And it moves: off in under four hours. Golden Age bones at a town-course price, fifteen minutes from Boston.
St Johnsbury · Northeast Kingdom · 18 holes · Par 70
Pitch:Park designed the original 9 holes in 1923, working through his final years of ailing health. His brother Mungo completed the green installations. 6,388 yards par 70 today.
Trumbull · Southwestern Connecticut · 18 holes · Par 72
Pitch:Al Zikorus (ASGCA Fellow) designed the 18-hole layout in 1976 for the Town of Trumbull. Slope 139 from the championship tees. Host of the Connecticut Women's Amateur three years running (2022-2024). The companion 9-hole Tashua Glen, designed by Michael Zikorus in 2004, sits on the same property.
Brewster · Cape Cod · 18 holes · Par 72
Pitch:The tougher of the two eighteens at Brewster's town-owned Captains, and the one to book when you want the day that tests you. Cornish and Silva cut both courses out of the pine and kettle-pond terrain near Nickerson State Park, and the Port plays the longer, meaner hand: 6,724 yards, par 72, slope 135 from the Black tees, with greens that look benign and read anything but. It is honest municipal golf with a championship backbone, and the par-5 8th alone is worth the trip.
Mashpee · Cape Cod · 18 holes · Par 72
Pitch:One of the very few New England courses where you play nine holes along the open Atlantic, the Ocean Course runs its outward nine right down to Nantucket Sound. Here is the twist the regulars know: the views are out front, but the golf gets genuinely good when the course turns inland. William Mitchell laid it out in 1962, Rees Jones reworked it in 1988, and Bruce Hepner, a Tom Doak hand, gave it a real strategic renovation in 2019-2020. Come for the Sound; stay for the back nine.
Jefferson · White Mountains · 18 holes · Par 72
Pitch:Three years older than the Mount Pleasant Course at Bretton Woods, which Findlay is more often credited with. Donald Ross is sometimes mentioned in historical documentation but his involvement remains unclear. GolfPass Golfers' Choice 2026 #3 in New Hampshire.
Plymouth · South Shore · 18 holes · Par 72
Pitch:The Brian Silva course Silva himself points to when asked about his best work, a big, rolling Plymouth layout with 150 feet of natural elevation change. It made Golf Magazine's national Top 100 Courses You Can Play in 1999, the year after it opened, and it still draws some of the strongest reviewer marks of any Massachusetts public course. 7,114 yards, par 72, on glacial sand that drains so well it plays firm year-round. The brutal par-3 17th will be the one you remember, and not fondly.
Acushnet · South Coast · 18 holes · Par 72
Pitch:Two completely different nines for the price of one town-course round, and that is the fun of it. Brian Silva built Acushnet River Valley for the town in 1998 and got handed two landscapes: Carolina-style pine corridors on the front, open treeless links on the back. Travel + Leisure Golf named it a top-10 value in Massachusetts, and a season pass makes real Silva architecture genuinely affordable. 6,807 yards, par 72. Play it twice and you have played two courses.
Plymouth · South Shore · 18 holes · Par 72
Pitch:A genuinely good upscale public course south of Boston, with all three Cornish-firm architects, Cornish, Silva, and Mungeam, on one 1994 scorecard, a rare full-trio credit. The Boston Globe once gave it a best-upscale-public billing for the region, and the bentgrass conditioning across 187 acres of Plymouth woodland earns it. 6,728 yards, par 72, with one of the best practice ranges in the region. Worth catching while you can; its future is uncertain.
West Yarmouth · Cape Cod · 18 holes · Par 72
Pitch:Ask Cape regulars for their one must-play public course and a surprising number say this Yarmouth town track, and they are not wrong. Cornish and Silva built it in 1986, and a recent run of bunker and green work has it conditioned as well as anything public on the Cape right now. 7,172 yards from the tips, par 72, wind as the real defense, and a separate links nine if you want a second flavor. Town pricing, championship feel. Go play it.
Beverly · North Shore · 18 holes · Par 70
Pitch:An early Donald Ross design from 1910, and one with a genuinely unusual origin: a shoe-machinery company built it as a welfare perk for its workers. The City of Beverly has run it since 1978, and Ross's routing through the rolling North Shore land is intact, short at 6,105 yards but with the architectural intent you come to a Ross course for. Hosts state public-links qualifying. History and good golf at town pricing.
Uxbridge · Central Mass · 18 holes · Par 72
Pitch:One of the friendliest, most characterful daily-fees in the state, on old Uxbridge farmland near the Rhode Island line. All three Cornish-firm architects touched it, Cornish and Silva the 1991 front, Mungeam the 1993 back, and you check in at a converted 1880s dairy barn. The par-3 13th plays past the mouth of an abandoned 1800s silver mine. Slope 136, family-run, and genuinely fun. Go see it.
Westford · Boston · 18 holes · Par 72
Pitch:Two courses for the price of one, half an hour northwest of Boston. Mark Mungeam built the tight, pine-lined front nine in 2004; Timothy Gerrish opened up the sandy, treeless back in 2007, and the two halves genuinely feel like different courses. Golf Digest has singled it out as a quietly excellent and overlooked public course, and the brook that names it threads right through the round. 6,800 yards, slope 132. A real find.
Monroe · Southwestern Connecticut · 18 holes · Par 71
Pitch:Hal C. Purdy and Malcolm M. Purdy (ASGCA) designed the 18-hole championship layout in 1982 on former Whitney family horse-stable and dairy land. 6,714 yards from the back tees, slope 134. GolfPass Golfers' Choice 2026 ranks it #5 best public course in Connecticut across nearly 700 reviews.
Plymouth · South Shore · 27 holes · Par 72
Pitch:The quiet bargain of the Plymouth golf cluster, and the locals know it. Hurdzan and Fry, the team behind Erin Hills, built these 27 holes in 2006 across rolling pine sandhills, and reviewers keep saying the same thing: as good as Pinehills and Waverly Oaks next door, for noticeably less. The three nines are named for Ouimet, Zaharias, and Jones, so you can mix a different eighteen every visit. The Zaharias-Jones combo tips at 7,017 yards. Quietly one of the best value rounds around Plymouth.
Dennis · Cape Cod · 18 holes · Par 71
Pitch:Here is the fun secret: the same architect who built Erin Hills, where they played the 2017 U.S. Open, also built this Cape Cod town course back in 1984. Michael Hurdzan's early routing intelligence is all over Dennis Highlands, real elevation, kick slopes feeding the greens, wind off one of the highest points in Dennis. The town runs it at private-club maintenance, and GolfPass reviewers keep saying it plays like a six-figure private. At muni pricing. Do not sleep on it.
East Dennis · Cape Cod · 18 holes · Par 72
Pitch:Often called the toughest course on Cape Cod from the tips, and a genuinely thrilling one for it. Henry Mitchell carved it through pine forest in 1966, 7,029 yards of target golf where every fairway is framed by trees that punish a loose tee shot. The real event is holes 10 through 12, the Cape's own Amen Corner around a pond, with a boomerang par-5 12th that locals rate one of the hardest par-5s in Massachusetts. Town-run at private-club condition. Bring your straightest stuff.
Fairfield · Southwestern Connecticut · 18 holes · Par 72
Pitch:Hal Purdy (ASGCA) designed the 18-hole layout in 1972 for the Town of Fairfield, with Stephen Kay handling subsequent refinements. 6,734 yards par 72, slope 126. Town-owned municipal operation in one of the wealthiest concentrations of private golf in America.
Paxton · Central Mass · 18 holes · Par 72
Pitch:Worcester-area golfers will tell you this is the best daily-fee round in central Mass, and they make the drive to Paxton to prove it. Brian Silva built Kettle Brook in 1999 across rolling, elevated terrain, and his fingerprints are all over it: generous fairways, clustered bunkers right where you make your decision, and real movement in the land. 6,912 yards, slope 138, walkable, and reviewers happily make the trip from across the region to play it. Find it.
Newton · Boston · 18 holes · Par 70
Pitch:You can play a real Donald Ross course minutes from downtown Boston for muni money, and that is the whole pitch. Ross redesigned this 1897 layout in 1920, while living right nearby in Newton, and his crowned, crafty greens are still the defense on a course that is short on the card at 5,354 yards. Golfweek once ranked it a top-15 municipal course in America. About as cheap as Ross golf ever gets.
Marstons Mills · Cape Cod · 18 holes · Par 71
Pitch:A genuinely well-liked Cape muni built on the old Barnstable County Fairgrounds, where Mark Mungeam got the whole Cornish firm's name on one scorecard. The Town of Barnstable runs it, it walks in about three hours, and it is one of only three Audubon-certified sanctuary courses on Cape Cod. 6,479 yards, par 71, four sets of tees, big receptive greens behind well-placed bunkers. The reliable, fairly priced local round you are glad is in your back pocket on the mid-Cape.
Bridgewater · South Shore · 18 holes · Par 72
Pitch:A real Brian Silva links design at town-course pricing, which almost never happens in the Boston suburbs. Silva and Mungeam built Olde Scotland Links in 1997 with native fescue, strategy over power, and wind exposure that makes it play differently every single round. 6,790 yards from the Black, five sets of tees, and an Audubon sanctuary certification few courses anywhere hold. With over a thousand GolfPass reviews near a 4.5 average, the locals clearly adore it. So will you.
Pembroke · South Shore · 18 holes · Par 71
Pitch:A burly Philip Wogan parkland course in the South Shore pines, 25 minutes from downtown Boston, with five par-4s stretching past 420 yards that give it real teeth. Former NHL all-star Jeremy Roenick, who grew up playing here, has owned it since 2009 and poured conditioning investment in, and the critics have long rated it near the top of the area's public golf. 6,677 yards, par 71, slope 132. You will use every club in the bag.
West Hartford · Greater Hartford · 18 holes · Par 72
Pitch:Al Zikorus (ASGCA Fellow) design, 6,440 yards from the championship tees. Host of the 2025 Connecticut Public Links Championship (the 40th edition) and previously the 2004 Public Links. Has also hosted the Connecticut PGA Championship and the Hartford Women's Open. Walking rates stay low on weekdays for West Hartford residents.
Wayland · Boston · 18 holes · Par 72
Pitch:A 1923 Donald Ross original with 14 of his greens still intact, public, sixteen miles west of Boston. That preservation rate beats a lot of Ross's more famous courses, and the par-3 5th, Spoon Carry, is the kind of one-shotter you remember. Ouimet and Hagen played an exhibition here in 1926. 6,427 yards, par 72, municipal conditioning on genuinely historic ground. A Ross course you can just go play.
Brewster · Cape Cod · 18 holes · Par 72
Pitch:The friendlier half of Brewster's terrific 36-hole Captains complex, and the one to play when you want to enjoy yourself rather than grind. Cornish and Silva built Starboard in 1999 to pair with their Port Course next door, flatter, broader off the tee, and the more walkable of the two. 6,776 yards, par 72, and kept in the same top Cape condition the whole facility is known for. Play both in a day; few public places on the Cape let you do that.
Mashpee · Cape Cod · 18 holes · Par 70
Pitch:The Dunes is the New Seabury course you can actually enjoy without a single-digit handicap, and after Bruce Hepner got hold of it, it is a lot more than a warm-up. Mitchell and Armstrong built it in 1962; Hepner, a Tom Doak protege, ran a real 2019 renovation that widened the fairways, reshaped the greens, and modernized the bunkering. Par 70, 6,340 yards of friendly, well-designed resort golf, the smart pairing with the Ocean Course for a full day.
South Hadley · Western Mass · 18 holes · Par 72
Pitch:The clear standout of public golf in the Pioneer Valley, with the Mount Holyoke Range as your backdrop for the whole back nine. Bill Phinney routed the South Hadley muni around the granite ledges that name it in 2001, including one thrilling shot played off the top of the rock, and it drew the state's public-links championship here in 2024. 6,981 yards, slope 132, and one of the highest-reviewed public courses in western Mass. Worth the drive west.
Peabody · North Shore · 18 holes · Par 71
Pitch:The North Shore muni that refused to bulldoze its own bedrock, and is better for it. Mark Mungeam and Timothy Gerrish routed the course around the property's granite ledges in 2001 instead of blasting them flat, so the rock is in play, visually and literally, hole after hole. Slope 135 is serious for a town course, and it hosts state public-links qualifying. 6,708 yards, par 71. Distinctive in a way most munis never manage.
Coventry · Eastern Connecticut · 18 holes · Par 71
Pitch:6,275 yards par 71, slope 123. Bentgrass greens, bluegrass fairways. Thirty minutes from both Hartford and the University of Connecticut. GolfPass Golfers' Choice 2026 ranks Twin Hills #10 best public course in Connecticut across 411 reviews.