# The Best Golf Courses in Clark County, Nevada

Source: https://thecourserankings.com/blog/the-best-golf-courses-in-clark-county-nv/

[The Course Rankings](/)

County Rankings / Nevada


A deep sand bunker guarding a green. Photo: Santeri Viinamäki, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Clark County has 54 courses in our count, which is another way of saying Las Vegas built a golf economy on desert that had no business growing grass. Ranking this county means ranking two different sports: the ultra private desert clubs most golfers will never see, and the public and resort courses that actually carry the valley's golf tourism. We score the golf first, so the private giants lead. But the most useful names on this list for a visiting golfer start around No. 5, and we will say so as we go. One housekeeping note: Badlands Golf Club, the old Johnny Miller 27 in Summerlin, closed permanently in 2016. It appears in county listings. It does not appear in this ranking, because you cannot play it.

## 1Shadow Creek

The standard for manufactured desert golf and still the county's ceiling. Access is the story as much as the golf: this is invitation level private golf tied to the high end of the Strip, and the vast majority of golfers will know it only from television and reputation. It leads this list on reputation in broad strokes, and we give it a short movement deliberately, because a ranking should not invent hole by hole detail it cannot back. If you get the call, you go. Everyone else should read the rest of this list.

## 2Cascata

The resort era's prestige name in Boulder City's orbit, built to give high end visitors a private club day without a membership. It sits in the tier just below Shadow Creek in every serious Las Vegas conversation, private in feel, resort in access, priced accordingly. Short movement, same reason: reputation and access tier carry it here, and the public courses below carry the detail.

## 3Wolf Creek Golf Club

Mesquite's famous one, and the county's most dramatic public argument. Wolf Creek is the course visiting golfers describe in the airport on the way home, canyon golf at a scale no other public course in the county attempts. It ranks this high on setting and memorability alone. Play it once and you will have an opinion. That is more than most resort courses manage in a lifetime.

## 4Southern Highlands Golf Club

The private south valley anchor, members golf in the hills above the city, consistently named among the state's best private clubs. Along with The Summit Club, SouthShore, and TPC Summerlin, it forms the private bench that keeps Clark County's top tier honest. TPC Summerlin carries the PGA Tour's Las Vegas stop and a strong claim to swap places here. On a given panel, it might. We give Southern Highlands the spot on member course reputation, and concede the argument is live.

## 5Bali Hai Golf Club

Now the detail starts, because Bali Hai is the best located serious round in the county: a Lee Schmidt and Brian Curley design opened in 2000, public, at the south end of the Strip across Las Vegas Boulevard from the airport, no car needed from Strip hotels. It was built on 145 acres with thousands of imported palm trees and Augusta white sand in the bunkers, and its island green par 3 16th often plays to an audience from the nearby restaurant patio. Golfweek ranked it tied 48th among casino courses with a 5.41 rating, with $349 morning rates in 2026 coverage, so nobody should call it cheap. It is not cheap. It is the premium Strip round, ranked No. 7 in our Las Vegas local ranking, and for a golfer with one morning and no rental car it is the correct splurge.

## 6Bear's Best Las Vegas

A public Summerlin course built from Jack Nicklaus favorite replica holes drawn from his western designs, including PGA West, Desert Mountain, Desert Highlands, and his Cabo courses. Par 72 at 7,194 yards, rating 74.0. The details sell it: the downhill par 3 4th and short par 4 11th use black bunker sand copied from Old Works in Montana, and the par 5 8th is lined with pines in tribute to Castle Pines. One honest flag: Bear's Best closed to the public in June 2025 for a major renovation, with plans to reopen as a private club in late 2026 or early 2027. It holds this ranking on the golf that was, and its future ranking depends on what comes back.

## 7Arroyo Golf Club

The public half of Red Rock Country Club in Summerlin, an Arnold Palmer design with Ed Seay, opened in 2003, par 72 at 6,883 yards with a 73.0 rating and a steep 148 slope from the back tees. The signature 10th is a 414 yard par 4 playing past a three tiered water feature. Arroyo is the locals and visitors sweet spot in the west valley: a Palmer routing, Red Rock scenery, public tee times, while the Mountain Course at the same club stays members only. For most visiting golfers this, not No. 1, is the best ratio of golf to hassle in the county.

## 8Boulder Creek Golf Club, Desert Hawk and Coyote Run

Boulder City's 27 hole municipal facility is the value story of this ranking. Desert Hawk and Coyote Run, the original 18 opened in January 2003 to a Mark Rathert design, stretch to 7,628 yards from the black tees at 75.8 rating and 142 slope, municipal numbers that embarrass resort scorecards. Desert Hawk is the most dramatic of the three nines, its closing long par 4 to a green surrounded by water called the most memorable hole of the 27. The third nine, Eldorado Valley, keeps the facility at 27 and the member, sorry, the resident, rotation fresh.

## 9Angel Park Mountain Course

Angel Park in Summerlin is a 36 hole public facility, and the Mountain Course, Palmer and Seay lineage from the 1990 opening, is the better of its two 18s: par 71 at 6,722 yards, 71.6 rating and 132 slope, reaching almost 3,000 feet elevation with Red Rock and Strip views. We ranked it No. 10 locally as the best value public day in the valley, and it stays in this county top 10 on exactly that basis. Do not skip the Cloud Nine while you are there, a 12 hole lighted par 3 course, par 36 at 1,290 yards, whose holes borrow the character of the Sawgrass island green, the Troon Postage Stamp, and a Riviera green with a bunker in its middle. Nine of the 12 are lighted for night play. It might be the most fun hour in Clark County golf.

## 10Boulder City Golf Course

The original Boulder City municipal, Billy Casper and David Rainville, opened in 1973, par 72 at 6,542 yards, water on seven holes, voted Best Bargain Course in Southern Nevada three years running by Vegas Golfer Magazine. It closes this list because every great county ranking needs its honest muni, and Boulder City, a town that also hosts Boulder Creek, has two. Anthem Country Club, a private 7,373 yard test in Henderson, and the Angel Park Palm Course are the first names out, and either could argue its way in.

The full state picture is in [the 5 best golf courses in Nevada](/blog/the-5-best-golf-courses-in-nevada/). Clark County's truth is simple: the top of this list is golf you admire, the middle is golf you play, and the bottom is golf you can afford every week. A county that gives you all three, in the desert, at 54 courses deep, has earned its ranking the hard way.

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