Winter Classic
The 7 best hockey cities for golf, according to former NHL players
It’s now the heart of the NHL season—with the upcoming Winter Classic on New Year’s Day leading into All-Star Weekend soon after. Puckheads will have hockey on their minds all throughout the winter and spring. If you’re planning a trip to a game in a warm-weather locale, you might be wondering if golf should be part of those plans. And to that we’d say: Of course!
Though some of the best golf can be found near popular NHL stops such as New York, Boston or Chicago, where golf is unlikely this time of year, there are a number of cities where your sticks should, in fact, travel with you. We polled a handful of former NHL players, including Jeremy Roenick, Darren Pang, Brad May and John-Michael Liles, for their favorite cities for golf. Based on their input and our editors’ insights, we’ve put together a guide of the best cities for golf on the NHL schedule.
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7. Tampa Bay Lightning
A golf trip to Tampa can be as ambitious or convenient as you’d like. If you’re looking to play the best courses in the region and you're willing to drive 70 minutes, head inland to Streamsong Resort, where there are three courses ranked on our 100 Greatest Public list. One of the most highly anticipated course openings in 2024 is Cabot Citrus Farms, just over an hour north of Tampa, where there are two redesigned layouts, a 10-hole course and an 11-hole par-3 course. If you’re looking for options closer to the city when headed to a Tampa Bay Lightning game, check out these courses.
Innisbrook Resort: Copperhead
Palm Harbor, FL
Vinoy Golf Club
Saint Petersburg, FL
6. Dallas Stars
Coming off a Western Conference Finals appearance in 2023 and again one of the best teams in the league this season, now is a great time to be a Dallas Stars fan. If you’re heading to see a Stars game at the American Airlines Center, there are plenty of great options in the DFW area to get a few rounds in. If you stay at the Four Seasons in Irving, you can play the longtime PGA Tour host TPC Las Colinas. Stevens Park, a quality municipal just outside downtown Dallas, is the most convenient option if you’re heading to a game.
From Golf Digest Architecture Editor emeritus Ron Whitten: Stevens Park Golf Course, a municipal operation in a revitalized area of Oak Cliff just southwest of downtown Dallas, isn’t exactly a preservation of the past, but a celebration of it. The original design was by a pair of club pros, Jack Burke, father of 1955 Masters champ Jack Burke Jr., and Syd Cooper, father of Lighthorse Harry Cooper, one of those “best players never to have won a major.” The course was built on land donated by Walter A. Stevens and his sister Annie Laurie in memory of their parents, Dr. and Mrs. John H. Stevens.
From Golf Digest Architecture Editor emeritus Ron Whitten: A decade after golf architect Tripp Davis created one of the finest replica courses in the country, The Tribute Golf Club on the shoreline of Lake Lewisville north of Dallas, he returned and built another 18 adjacent to it called Old American Golf Club. The two have same architect, the same owner, a shared clubhouse and a shared shoreline, but they differ in many respects. The Tribute, a compact core layout with returning nines, duplicates famous British golf holes. Old American, a residential development course laid out in loop design—nine holes out and nine holes back, to maximize holes along the lakefront—was inspired by National Golf Links and Shinnecock Hills, so it also looks linkslike, with some scattered trees. But there are no template holes on this 18. Old American is a Tripp Davis original. As befits a design by one of the more talented golfers among the golf architecture community, it features options and bunkers galore and holes that demand oodles of local knowledge. When it opened in 2010, Tripp told a reporter that Old American was, "the most strategic course I've done." Now over a decade later, I suspect he still feels that way.
5. Carolina Hurricanes
It’d be a crime to keep the Carolina Hurricanes off this list. PNC Arena, often called "the loudest house in the NHL," is just an hour’s drive from Pinehurst, America’s golf mecca, and an even closer commute to three of the state’s most famous colleges: NC State UNC, and Duke. Play a quick 18 at their university courses before attending a hockey game or even an ACC basketball game—another bucket-list event.
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4. Florida Panthers
You don’t have to be an expert travel agent to recognize that an NHL arena in Florida belongs on this list. But the amount of decent public golf near Amerant Bank Arena actually surprised us. Fort Lauderdale isn’t a mecca of great public golf, but Miami is very doable from Sunrise, Fla., again, if you time it right with traffic. There are some great, historic tracks and luxurious resorts worth visiting—that are also under an hour from the arena of the defending Eastern Conference champs.
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3. San Jose Sharks
San Jose is one of our favorite places to fly into for golf. You’re about an hour away from great golf in nearly every direction. It’s just a little over an hour to Pebble Beach, which is always worth trying to get to, and courses near San Francisco or Oakland are both doable if you time it right with traffic. Brad May and Pang both called this one of their favorite cities for golf on the road. Even if you’re looking to play your golf closer to the SAP Center for a San Jose Sharks game, you have a number of great options.
CordeValle Golf Club
San Martin, CA
2. Vegas Golden Knights
T-Mobile Arena is one of the best new sports venues in America, and we'd highly recommend parlaying a trip to watch the Golden Knights with some golf (if not to just get away from the tables!). Though high-roller jaunts Shadow Creek and Wynn Golf Club are likely to be the first courses on any list of Vegas golf, we've chosen to highlight some more affordable options that are among our favorites around Sin City.
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1. Arizona Coyotes
When our panel of former NHL players were asked which hockey city had the best golf, Phoenix was the unanimous winner. We’re not surprised, as the Phoenix/Scottsdale areas is perhaps the most popular golf trip destination, with over 200 courses in the area. In the private club scene, Pang says Whisper Rock Golf Club, just north of Scottsdale, is his favorite golf experience anywhere, even beating out Michael Jordan’s South Florida golf playground, The Grove XXIII. In terms of public golf, we’ve gathered the best options that are close to Mullett Arena.
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