Top public and private golf courses in Arkansas

Arkansas features plenty of variation in terrain, with plenty of mountainous golf in the north of the state. But to find the highest-ranked public-access golf course in Natural State, head south toward the Louisiana line.

There, in El Dorado, you’ll find Mystic Creek Golf Club, a Kenneth Dye Jr. layout that opened in 2013. Mystic Creek is the top-ranked layout in Arkansas on Golfweek’s Best Courses You Can Play list for public golf.

Golfweek’s Best offers many lists of course rankings, with the list of top public-access courses among the most popular. All the courses on this list allow public access in some fashion, be it standard daily green fees, through a resort or by staying at an affiliated hotel. If there’s a will, there’s a tee time.

Also popular are the Golfweek’s Best rankings of top private courses in each state, and that list is likewise included below.

MORE COURSES: Best Modern | Best Classic | Top 200 Resort|
Top 200 Residential | Top 100 Best You Can Play

Best public-access courses in Arkansas

Big Creek in Arkansas (Courtesy of Big Creek)

1. Mystic Creek
El Dorado (m)

2. The Ridges at Village Creek
Wynne (m)

T3. Hot Springs CC (Arlington)
Hot Springs (c)

T3. Big Creek
Mountain Home (m)

5. Mountain Ranch
Fairfield Bay (m)

Best private courses in Arkansas

The Blessings in Arkansas (Adam Woodard/Golfweek)

1. Alotian Club
Roland (m)

2. Texarkana CC
Texarkana (c)

3. The Blessings
Fayetteville (m)

4. Hardscrabble
Fort Smith (c)

5. Chenal (Founders)*
Little Rock (m)

How we rank courses

The hundreds of members of the Golfweek’s Best ratings panel continually evaluate courses and rate them based on 10 criteria on a points basis of 1 through 10. They also file a single, overall rating on each course. Those overall ratings are averaged to produce these rankings.