# The Asheville Golf Guide

Source: https://thecourserankings.com/blog/asheville-nc-golf-guide/

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Town Guides / North Carolina


A leading golf course in North Carolina. Photo: Dan Perry from Atlanta, USA, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Four anchor courses in one mountain town, and Donald Ross drew all of them. That is Asheville's claim, and it is not a slogan, it is a routing map. Ross in the Blue Ridge does not look like Ross at Pinehurst. The land tilts, the sites tighten, and the greens sit on shelves the mountains allowed. A golfer who likes an architect's work across different country could build a whole trip on this town alone, and plenty of the golf is bookable without knowing a single member.

Start at the Grove Park Inn course. Ross designed it, it opened in 1926 below the inn, whose stone terraces have looked over the course since the inn opened in 1913, and the round still feels like the resort's front yard: compact, hilly, tight for a Ross, with Blue Ridge and city views doing the scenery work. It hosted PGA Tour golf in Asheville in the 1940s era, when Ben Hogan won in town, in the local telling of that period. Resort and public access makes it the easiest anchor in this guide to book, so book it first and build the rest of the week around it. Play it in the morning before the inn's day guests fill the terraces, because the walk below that building in early light is half the experience.

## The municipal Ross is the conscience of the trip

Asheville Municipal is the round that explains the town. Ross designed it in 1927, the city owns it, and municipal access means the price and the crowd look like Asheville itself rather than a resort brochure. The city nearly lost this course, and Hurricane Helene's flooding damaged it in 2024, with recovery ongoing since. Check its current status before you build a day around it, and if it is open, play it. Supporting a Ross muni in the mountains with your green fee is the most useful thing a visiting golfer can do here, and the golf justifies the sentiment. Public Ross, on a river plain in the hills, asks the same questions the expensive courses ask. It just asks them without a gatehouse.

The private pair comes next, if you have a way in. Biltmore Forest Country Club, a Ross design opened in 1922 beside the Biltmore Estate area, was founded by the Vanderbilt circle and has hosted top Carolinas amateur golf. It is classic Ross parkland in the mountains, private, with estimates putting membership in the high tier. The Country Club of Asheville, in the Beaverdam area, carries Ross lineage from the same era, with Richard Mandell renovation work, a mountain valley layout, Carolinas event history, and estimates in the mid to high tier. Both are members' clubs, not tee time inventory. If an invitation comes, Biltmore Forest is the first yes, on age, setting, and the Vanderbilt story. If both come, you are having a better week than this guide can plan.

There is a walking point worth making in a Ross town. These are pre cart era routings on mountain ground, which means the walks are characterful rather than flat, and the transitions between holes are part of the design. Bring shoes you trust on slopes. A group that rides everything will still enjoy Asheville, but it will miss the way Ross used a climb to clear your head after a bad green, and a descent to make the next tee shot look braver than it is.

## Order, season, and the mistake

Play Grove Park first because it is bookable and it sets the Ross theme on resort ground. Play the muni second, while the trip still has unscheduled goodwill in it, because that round is the one travelers cut when the week gets busy, and cutting it is the error this whole guide exists to prevent. Fit the private clubs around whatever access you actually have, never the reverse.

Asheville's elevation takes the edge off summer, which makes it the rare southern golf town where July mornings are a pleasure rather than a negotiation. Fall is the premium season, with color on the ridges and everyone in the Carolinas having the same idea. Winter golf is weather dependent and should be booked loose. Whatever the season, confirm the municipal course's condition and open status close to the trip, a habit Helene made necessary for this whole region.

End at Grove Park if you can, late in the day, coming up toward the inn with the terraces lit and the mountains going blue behind the city. Ross drew the holes. The town kept them, one flood and one recovery at a time.

**Reader responses are open.** Please cite a specific hole, a price, or a round you have played.