Top Golf Courses in Cincinnati
Cincinnati stakes a strong claim as Ohio’s best sports city. However, its golf scene is vastly underrated. The Ohio Valley’s hilly terrain is ideal for scenic and challenging courses. The top golf courses in Cincinnati are spread across the state and many rank as top in the state by user reviews on GolfAdvisor.com.
The top golf courses in Cincinnati line the perimeter of downtown, which emerged years ago as a trading route along the Ohio River that separates the Buckeye state from Kentucky. Northwest of the city is Aston Oaks Golf Club, a Jack Nicklaus layout with a pair of scenic par 5s. It gets nearly universal five-star reviews on Golf Advisor for its plush conditioning, beautiful setting and elevation changes.
More quality public courses are northeast of the city, headlined by the Shaker Run Golf Club, where the original 18 by Arthur Hills dates to 1979. A third nine by Dr. Michael Hurdzan and Dana Fry was added in 1999. A new owner and new condo construction has things buzzing in 2018. Courses like Heatherwoode Golf Club in Springboro, Beckett Ridge Country Club in West Chester and the historic Grizzly course at the City of Mason Golf Center showcase plenty of redeeming qualities, too. The Grizzly course, designed by Nicklaus and Desmond Muirhead, has a long history of hosting tournaments from the PGA Tour, PGA Tour Champions, the LPGA Tour and the Symetra Futures Tour spanning four decades. A four-hole Academy Course, featuring a par 3, two par 4s and a par 5, is a great place to practice or teach a new golfer the game.
A trio of the top golf courses in Cincinnati are located southeast of downtown: Legendary Run in Cinci proper and Elks Run and the Golf Club at Stonelick Hills, both in Batavia. Legendary Run Golf Course, a Hills course ranked among the top 20 in the state by Golf Advisor users from 2015-17, has an extra par 3 at the end of its routing to settle all bets. The combination of woodlands and a meandering creek give Elks Run, a Greg Norman design, plenty of personality and charm. Stonelick Hills, owned and designed by Jeff Osterfeld, made the Golf Advisor national top 50 in 2017. User reviews added up to No. 35 nationally, quite an honor for a course in southern Ohio few golfers outside of the region know much about.