County Rankings / Minnesota
The Best Golf Courses in Hennepin County, Minnesota
Seventeen courses, one county, and the best of them hosted the third leg of Bobby Jones's Grand Slam. Hennepin County is the Twin Cities' golf core: Donald Ross, Seth Raynor templates, a Jack Nicklaus signature, two John Fought courses at one young club, and a municipal system that started with sand greens in 1917. The top of this list is private, as top lists usually are. The depth is the story. We score the golf first, then the day, then access. The state context sits in the full Minnesota state ranking.
1Interlachen Country Club
Donald Ross completely redesigned Willie Watson's original at Interlachen in Edina, reopening in 1921, and the course is largely unchanged since. In 1930 Bobby Jones won the U.S. Open here as the third leg of his Grand Slam. It later added the 2002 Solheim Cup, won by the United States, and the 2008 U.S. Women's Open, won by Inbee Park. Andrew Green's restoration, based on Ross's 1922 plans, was Golf Digest's Best Renovation of 2024. Par 72 at about 7,201 yards, ranked No. 1 in Minnesota by Golf Digest. There is no argument at the top of this county. There is only the size of the gap.
2Spring Hill Golf Club
Tom Fazio's Spring Hill in Wayzata, opened 1999, is one of his most natural designs, built with little earthmoving on rolling topography, holes isolated by thick forest. Golf Digest rated it the fifth best new private course in the country in 2000 and ranks it No. 2 in Minnesota. Par 72 at about 7,020 yards, slope 150, rating 74.3. It concedes history to Interlachen and nothing else.
3Minneapolis Golf Club
Founded in 1916 in St. Louis Park, laid out by Willie Park Jr. with first play in May 1917 and a revised Donald Ross routing in 1920. It hosted the 1950 U.S. Amateur and the 1959 PGA Championship, won by Bob Rosburg. Known as the regional players' club, with a classic returning loops routing.
4The Club at Golden Valley
Tom Bendelow opened nine holes here in 1914. A.W. Tillinghast then built the 18 hole course, work beginning in 1926 with the first full season in 1929. The bunkers were so deep and grass faced that ladders were built to help golfers climb out. Only the par 3 eighth has been altered since Tillinghast conceived the design. Many bunkers were removed in the 1930s to cut maintenance costs, and restoration by Ron Forse and then Kevin Norby in 2023 has brought them back and expanded the greens.
5Minnesota Valley Country Club
The county's template golf sleeper. Opened in 1924 in Bloomington as Bloomington Golf Club, laid out by William D. Clark, with the club believing Seth Raynor drafted plans during a Minneapolis visit. The layout is full of Raynor and C.B. Macdonald ideas: a Short, a Redan, Raynor's Prize Dogleg and a rare Biarritz green on a par 4. Par 73, 6,732 yards, with greens regarded among the best maintained in Minnesota.
6Windsong Farm South Course
John Fought and Minnesota native Tom Lehman built the South on 243 acres of rolling pasture, a former horse farm about 25 miles west of Minneapolis, opened 2003. It tips out around 7,380 to 7,550 yards, a big players' course with fescue lined corridors, and Fought later returned to widen fairways and open better angles. It hosted the 2008 Minnesota State Amateur and the 2010 Big Ten Men's Championship, and Golfweek named it one of the Top 100 Modern Courses in 2010.
7Bearpath Golf and Country Club
The only Jack Nicklaus Signature course in the Upper Midwest and his lone Minnesota design, opened August 1996 with Nicklaus playing the inaugural round. Built around wetlands, Middle Riley Creek and the Lake Riley shoreline on 465 acres in Eden Prairie, inside a gated community. Five tee sets run from 4,965 yards to over 7,000. Signature polish in a residential setting ranks it below the classics, but the design credit is singular in this state.
8Rush Creek Golf Club
The county's best public course, and the proof this list is not only a private directory. Bob Cupp and John Fought designed it, opened June 1996 in Maple Grove, developed by W. Duncan MacMillan of the Cargill family to give Minnesota a first class public facility. It hosted the 2004 U.S. Amateur Public Links and three LPGA Tour events. Scottish inspired, par 72 through wetlands, up to 7,125 yards. Its Mac Nine, opened 2012, feeds a junior program of about 1,200 kids.
The rest of the county
Edina Country Club, a 1924 Tom Bendelow layout where Arnold Palmer played a 1970 exhibition against Governor Wendell Anderson, and host to the Trans-Mississippi, Minnesota State Open and Western Junior, sits just outside the top eight on the strength of its Lehman and Brands redesign keeping the Bendelow routing. Windsong's North Course, a John Fought design opened in summer 2024, made its club the first private club in Minnesota with two 18 hole courses: par 70, about 6,500 yards, channeling Raynor with Eden, Biarritz, Dell, Redan and Cape templates and a boomerang double green shared by the 13th and 16th. Olympic Hills in Eden Prairie, reconstructed by Ron Prichard from 2013 to 2015, lists at 7,400 yards and par 72. Braemar in Edina is the municipal flagship: the metro's first municipal course, opened 1964, rebuilt by Richard Mandell into a championship course that opened in May 2019. Columbia Golf Club is the system's elder: begun in 1917 as six sand green holes, with William Clark's elevated greens at the 2nd and 16th. The Minikahda Club, Theodore Wirth Golf Club and Woodhill Country Club complete the seventeen on the county list, named here without invented specifics, as our records for them sit outside this ranking's file. From Jones at Interlachen to sand greens at Columbia, one county holds the full history of American golf.