Dick Durrance II
As a part of GOLF’s rigorous scores course of for our newly launched High 100 Programs within the U.S. and High 100 Programs You Can Play rankings, our fleet of 100-plus skilled panelists recognized the perfect golf programs in each state.
You possibly can take a look at the hyperlinks beneath to browse all of our course rankings, or scroll right down to see the perfect programs in Colorado. And for those who’re trying to create your personal journey sooner or later, you’d be clever to let GOLF’s new Course Finder device help you. Right here, you’ll be able to toggle all of our lists — High 100 public, greatest munis, greatest brief programs, greatest par-3s and extra — or filter by worth to create the proper itinerary in your subsequent journey.
GOLF’s different course rankings: High 100 Programs within the World | High 100 Programs within the U.S. | High 100 Programs You Can Play | High 100 Worth Programs within the U.S. | America’s Finest Municipal Programs | The 100 Finest Quick Programs within the World
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The perfect golf programs in Colorado (2024/2025)
SYMBOL GUIDE
# = High 100 Course within the U.S.
Y = High 100 You Can Play within the U.S.
V = High 100 Worth Course within the U.S.
P = Public/Resort
Ed. word: Some programs had been omitted from our rankings as a result of they didn’t obtain sufficient votes.
1. Ballyneal (Holyoke) [#]
Founding a non-public membership in a distant vacation spot just isn’t with out peril and it’s affordable to anticipate a membership to take a while to seek out its footing. Now deep into its second decade, Ballyneal enjoys its best enjoying circumstances since opening. Fescue fairways assist the ground-game choices flourish as balls launch throughout the rumpled floor. Typically on a Tom Doak course, the easiest way to get a ball near the outlet requires each creativeness and creativity. That’s true in spades right here as gamers delight to find artistic methods to make use of banks and punchbowl options on such holes as on the one-shot third, the drivable seventh and the bruising fifteenth.
2. Cherry Hills (Cherry Hills Village) [#]
Whereas a lot of William Flynn’s work is clustered round Philadelphia, this design stands out as one of many few he did west of the Mississippi River. When it opened within the early Nineteen Twenties, Cherry Hills was a ground-breaking design that featured America’s first par-5 island inexperienced. After a decade-plus-long restoration with Renaissance Golf Design’s Eric Iverson, the course as soon as once more showcases Flynn’s penchant for well-placed hazards and subtly crafted greens that demand that you simply keep beneath the outlet. Its ending stretch makes skilled use of a lake in addition to a creek that winds via the property. Standout holes embrace its 14th, seventeenth (that includes newly restored cross bunkers at two totally different junctures) and its well-known 18th the place you must flirt with the lake to take pleasure in a stage stance in your lengthy, uphill method. Nonetheless, for pure appeal, the stretch of the par 5 fifth, par 3 sixth and par 4 seventh are exhausting to beat and deserves to be higher identified.
3. Colorado GC (Parker)
4. Citadel Pines (Citadel Rock)
5. Broadmoor – East (Colorado Springs) [Y]
A mashup of the unique Donald Ross design and work carried out by Robert Trent Jones, Broadmoor’s East course has severe pedigree; when it opened in 1918, it was the highest-elevation course within the nation. The East has been a USGA championship host mainstay, and for good cause: The pinched fairways and quick greens have all the time bred noteworthy champions. Jack Nicklaus received the 1959 U.S. Newbie right here, and the course additionally was the location of Annika Sörenstam’s first U.S. Girls’s Open win, in 1995. The East course will crown one other nationwide champion in 2025, when it performs host to the U.S. Senior Open. The property additionally homes the Colorado Golf Corridor of Fame.
6. CommonGround (Aurora) [V, P]
7. Bear Dance (Larkspur) [P]
8. Sanctuary (Sedalia)
9. Riverdale Dunes (Brighton) [V, P]
10. Frost Creek (Eagle)
How we rank our programs
For our newly launched High 100 U.S. and High 100 You Can Play lists — a course of that helped us create 50 best-in-state rankings — every panelist was offered a poll that consisted of 609 programs. Beside the checklist of programs had been 11 “buckets,” or groupings. If our panelists thought of a course to be among the many high three within the U.S., they ticked that first column. In the event that they believed the course to be amongst Nos. 4-10, they checked that column, adopted by 11-25, 26-50, and so forth out to 250+ and even a column for “take away.” Panelists had been additionally free to write down in programs that they felt ought to have been included on the poll.
Factors had been assigned to every bucket; to reach at a mean rating for every course, we divide its mixture rating by the variety of votes. From these level tallies, the programs are then ranked accordingly. It’s an deliberately easy and easy course of. Why? As a result of it traditionally has produced outcomes which can be broadly lauded. Like the sport itself, there’s no must unnecessarily complicate issues or attempt to repair one thing that already works so effectively.
The important thing to the method is the expertise and experience of our panel. Hailing from 15 nations and all of the worldwide golf meccas, every of our 127 handpicked panelists has a eager eye for structure, each regionally and globally. Lots of our panelists have performed greater than 1,000 programs in 20-plus international locations, some over 2,000. Their handicaps vary from +5 to fifteen.
As a result of the character in fact score is so intensely subjective, nobody opinion carries the day. The one means, then, to construct significant consensus is to include this variety of panelists and experiences into one rating.
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