Why Des Moines Belongs on Your Golf Bucket List

Mention Iowa golf to most guys and they default to the cornfield jokes. Here is what those guys do not know: Des Moines has hosted the Solheim Cup, the U.S. Senior Open, and an annual PGA Tour Champions event with eight World Golf Hall of Famers in the field. There is a Pete Dye club, an Arnold Palmer course, a Tom Fazio layout, and a recently restored William Langford classic all within thirty minutes of each other. Throw in solid public tracks at small-town prices and you have a legitimate buddy trip destination hiding in the middle of the country. Set up shop at Qube Hotel Polk City and you are sleeping next to one of the marquee courses before you even head out for the day.

What Makes Des Moines a Real Golf Destination

The credibility comes from the events. Des Moines Golf and Country Club hosted the 1999 U.S. Senior Open, drawing a record 200,000 fans, then brought the Solheim Cup to town in 2017 on a composite layout assembled from its two Pete Dye courses. The Principal Charity Classic, a PGA Tour Champions event, has been played at the Langford-designed Wakonda Club since 2013, and Iowa native and major champion Zach Johnson is in the field for the 2026 tournament running June 10 through 14. Before Wakonda, the tournament lived at Glen Oaks Country Club, a Tom Fazio design west of Des Moines that hosted the event from 2006 through 2012. That is a lot of professional pedigree in one mid-sized city.

The other thing Des Moines has going for it is variety. You can play a Palmer-designed resort course in the morning, a public layout in the afternoon, and drive past a Pete Dye club on the way back to the hotel. The drives between courses are short. The green fees outside the private clubs are reasonable. And the food and bar scene in downtown Des Moines is a lot more interesting than the flyover crowd gives it credit for.

Where to Play

Tournament Club of Iowa, Polk City

This is the headliner for public golf in central Iowa. An Arnold Palmer layout that brings water into play on more than half the holes, sitting on five hundred acres between Saylorville Lake and Big Creek State Park. Voted one of Golf Digest's Top 10 Best New Upscale Courses in 2004 and named to the magazine's best-in-state list from 2003 through 2008. If you only have one round to play in Des Moines, this is the one. And if you stay at Qube, it is the view out your window.

Wakonda Club, Des Moines
Private, but worth understanding because it is the centerpiece of the Iowa golf calendar. Built by William Langford in the 1920s, the course underwent a major Tyler Rae renovation in 2023 that reestablished Langford's trademark style of large plateau greens, steep-faced bunkers cut into their bases, and wider strategic fairways. For the 2024 Principal Charity Classic, every bunker was rebuilt and five new greens were added at holes 2, 5, 9, 15, and 17. If you can get on as a guest, jump on it.

Des Moines Golf and Country Club, West Des Moines
Also private, also worth knowing. Two Pete Dye courses, the North opening in 1968 and the South a year later. Solheim Cup and Senior Open pedigree, and the kind of place where the bunker faces remind you exactly whose drawing board this came off of.

Glen Oaks Country Club, West Des Moines
Another private. A Tom Fazio design that served as the venue for the Principal Charity Classic from 2004 to 2012. Three major architects represented in one metro area is a real flex.

Jester Park Golf Course, Granger
Public, and a perfect counterpunch to TCI. An 18-hole championship course plus a par-three layout and a state-of-the-art practice facility, set in beautiful country near Saylorville Lake about twenty miles northwest of Des Moines. The kind of muni that punches well above its weight.

Beaver Creek Golf Course, Grimes
Twenty-seven holes split into three nine-hole courses, each with its own personality, set among trees and water features. Mix and match for thirty-six in a day if your group has the legs.

Otter Creek Golf Course, Ankeny
A 2007 redesign by Paul Miller turned the old Donald Rippel municipal layout into a daily-fee course winding through nearly a hundred residential lots. Firm, fast, and a different look from anything else on the list.

Waveland Golf Course, Des Moines
Worth playing for the history alone. Built in 1901, it is the oldest municipal course west of the Mississippi and the only municipal layout that golf writer Davy Hoffman included in America's Greatest Golf Courses. Old-school parkland with character.

Why Qube Hotel Polk City Is the Smart Base Camp

Here is the math. Stay downtown and you are paying city rates for a room that is twenty minutes from your first tee time. Stay at Qube Hotel Polk City and you are sleeping at the Tournament Club of Iowa with a view of the 17th and 18th holes from the room. Beaver Creek, Jester Park, and Otter Creek are short drives. Wakonda and Des Moines G and CC are within thirty minutes if you have lined up an invitation. And downtown Des Moines is twenty minutes south when the group wants real food and a real bar after the round.

Polk City itself is quiet in the best way. Saylorville Lake and Big Creek State Park sit right next door for fishing, boating, or sitting on a dock with a cold one and rewriting your scorecard in your head. The hotel is modern, the rooms are clean, and Qube runs twenty percent off rack rate, which leaves more in the budget for green fees and the bar tab. Book the room facing the Tournament Club, set the alarm, and walk to the first tee.

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Des Moines is the kind of golf destination most guys drive past on the way to somewhere they assume is better. Their loss. Plan the trip, book the room at Qube Hotel Polk City, and find out why this part of the country has hosted more meaningful tournaments than most cities twice its size.