# The Best Golf Courses in Denver Source: https://thecourserankings.com/blog/the-best-golf-courses-in-denver-co/ [The Course Rankings](/) Town Rankings / Colorado A leading golf course in Colorado. Photo: Jeffrey Beall, CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons The 1960 U.S. Open at Cherry Hills is still the story Denver golf tells about itself. Arnold Palmer, seven shots back to start the final round, asked whether anyone had ever come from that far behind to win, was told no, and went out and did it anyway. That charge happened a few miles south of downtown, on a private course most Denver golfers will never play. Which is the Denver argument in one sentence: the best golf in town sits behind gates, and the public game has to make its own case. Denver makes that case better than most big cities. Alongside two old private clubs with real championship weight, there is a set of city courses with character, cheap by coastal standards, played year round whenever the Front Range winter relents. This list scores the golf first, then the day, then what it takes to get on. The private clubs win the top. The munis win the argument about what Denver golf actually is for the people who live here. ## 1Cherry Hills Country Club Top spot, and it is not close. Cherry Hills carries the Palmer charge from 1960, which is not decoration. A course that could host that Open, on that Sunday, with the lead changing hands in front of it, has the bones that matter: greens that punish the wrong side, rough with opinions, and enough length and angle to make good players think in two shots instead of one. The setting helps too. It plays like an old parkland club that happens to sit at altitude, where the ball flies a club farther and every misjudged carry gets exposed. The concession is access, and it is a large one. This is a private club in the full sense, estimates put the cost of belonging well into six figures, and a visitor's realistic path is a member's invitation. None of that changes the golf. Rank the golf first and Cherry Hills is Denver's No. 1 by a margin the rest of the list never threatens. ## 2Denver Country Club The other old private club, and the one that feels most woven into the city itself. Denver Country Club is the town club in the classic sense: central, established, social as much as sporting, with golf that rewards placement over power. Where Cherry Hills tests you with championship severity, Denver asks a quieter question about whether you can leave the ball in the right section and putt surfaces that do not forgive casual reads. It loses to Cherry Hills on ceiling. There is no Palmer Sunday here, no single round the whole sport remembers. What it has is consistency of quality and a membership that treats the course as a daily club, not a trophy. For a member choosing one Denver club on golf alone, Cherry Hills still wins. For the life around the golf, plenty of reasonable people pick this one, and the gap at No. 2 is respectful, not dismissive. ## 3City Park Golf Course Now the public game, and the best of it. City Park is the muni with the skyline view, downtown Denver framed behind the golf, and a new clubhouse that finally gives the place a front door worthy of how much the city uses it. The golf is straightforward parkland municipal golf, and that is meant as praise with a limit attached: it will not scare a good player, and it is not trying to. It gives the city's golfers a walkable, affordable round in the middle of town, with the mountains one way and the skyline the other. The honest knock is that the test is gentle compared with the two privates above it. Put City Park third anyway, because a town ranking that ignores the course thousands of residents actually play is ranking real estate, not golf culture. On value and access it beats everything else on this list by a mile. On a clear morning, with the skyline lit up, it also makes the best case that Denver's public golf is not an afterthought. ## 4Wellshire Golf Course Wellshire is the connoisseur's pick among the Denver munis, an older city course with a traditional feel that regulars defend with unusual loyalty. The routing has the virtues of its era: short walks between holes, greens with real contour, and a round that feels designed rather than merely laid out. Players who grew up on it tend to rank it above City Park, and the disagreement is genuine. It sits fourth here on the day as a whole. City Park has the view, the new clubhouse, and the more complete municipal package right now. Wellshire has the purer old golf. If your foursome cares only about the shots, swap them. Nobody would call you wrong, which is exactly why Denver's muni bench deserves more respect than it gets nationally. ## 5Overland Park Golf Course Overland is the workhorse. The oldest name in Denver public golf by reputation, a flat, friendly, gettable course that introduces beginners, hosts the casual nine after work, and asks very little of anybody. Every shot here is playable, every mistake recoverable, and that is the point of the place. It finishes last because the golf is the least demanding on the list, full stop. But last on this list is still a functioning city course doing the job city courses exist to do. Denver's depth is that its fifth best option is a real golf course people love, not a field with flags. Palmer's question in 1960 was whether seven back was too far. Denver golf still rewards the player willing to go get it. **Reader responses are open.** Please cite a specific hole, a price, or a round you have played.