The Links at Galloway (Jay Allen/The Forkball)
Golf is still a huge public activity, here’s a list of the best Public golf courses in Tennessee. The list is compiled from various public and state databases.
This golf course article is a 2024 Dollars and Cents assessment. In population, TN is one of the the top 10 growing states. Being in the South, it also has the 15th most public golf courses. (According to Datascraper.com ) But conversely, it’s very lacking in public courses in the top 250 public course listing. You can find a list of many of the available public courses at TN Golf Trail.
There’s a dearth of public golf courses in TN. For a southern state it’s lower than many of its neighbors. TN has never made a priority of public golf courses. Nashville is Music city, USA, and Memphis is the birthplace of Elvis. In Nashville, insurance and healthcare (Hospital Corporation of America founded here) are public funding targets.
Reasons for Low Number of Public Golf Courses in Tennessee
But since there are wealthy people in Memphis, and many many wealthy people in Nashville (think country singers, but also managers, bands, and recording agencies) there is a plethora of country clubs and private resorts (especially towards the Great Smokey mountain national park). TN is 15th in the country in public courses. It sounds high, but per capita it is not in the top 25. TN lags behind Georgia and Kentucky, and is just barely ahead of it’s poorer neighbors Alabama and Mississippi. Arkansas is a special case since it’s home to Walmart, and thus many private clubs dominate the golf course infrastructure.
TN has 0 public golf courses on the Golf Magazine top 100. There are a couple that have shown up in a couple of niche publications, including one that the LPGA has used in a tournament several years back.
Memphis has 28 courses within a 15-mile radius, 18 of which are public courses and 9 are private courses. These have 23 18-hole courses and 5 nine-hole layouts.TN this year is allotting a substantial sum to upgrade several state park golf courses. Also, some cities are making metropolitan public golf courses a financial priority. We’ll take a look at some of the more popular public golf courses in the state, from various rating sources. Also, we’ll look at reasons why private courses have outpaced public courses in TN. Finally, we’ll see why TN courses might be underrated, and give a quick comparison to some of the other nearby states, and why they may be overrated. (Hint: marketing).
Top Courses, and Courses Under Change Currently
Golf Courses In Tennessee (arcgis.com) This list is included only to be illustrative of how few of the top (12 in this case) golf courses in TN are public courses. According to this map, that would be Mirimichi (Memphis), Hermitage (State park), Sewanee, Sweetens Cove (near Chattanooga), and Stonehenge (near Knoxville). Almost all those listed are adjacent to large towns. TN has a higher average income near the big cities, not unique, but in TN it’s somewhat amplified.
Another measure of a state public golf courses is the Golf Digest List of top 100 in America. There are no TN courses listed in this year’s Golf Digest top 100. But there have been substantial millions put into several TN golf courses, and that might change next year.
Here’s a list of known closings over the last 5 pandemic years, with possibly some of these re-opening later:
Pine Lakes GC, Alcoa, TN – Closed 2019; Millstone GC, Morristown, TN – Closed 2019; Lost Creek GC, Jefferson City, TN – Closed 2019; Buffalo Valley GC, Unicoi, TN – Closed 2018; Baileyton GC, Baileyton, TN – closed in the past few years; Royal Oaks GC, Maryville, TN – closed 2018; Bays Mountain GC, Seymour, TN – closed 2017; Ross Creek Landing GC, TN – Jack Nicklaus State Park course (Bear Trace) – Closed a few years ago,. Chickasaw GC, Chickasaw State Park, TN – Jack Nicklaus state park course (Bear Trace) – Closed a few years ago re-opened as vendor-run, no longer branded as part of Bear Trace
