Ozarks National Golf Course

Ozarks National is the Bill Coore and Ben Crenshaw course at Big Cedar Lodge that won Golf Digest's Best New Public Course in 2019, routed across exposed ridgelines in the Ozarks highlands with views that extend for miles across forested valleys and distant lake horizons. Coore and Crenshaw built their reputation on courses that reveal rather than impose, designs that follow the natural contours of the land. The terrain they were given here is among the most dramatic they have ever worked with.

The routing is the achievement. Coore and Crenshaw found a sequence of holes that crosses ridgetops, descends into valleys, and climbs back to elevated tees with a naturalness that conceals the engineering complexity. The 13th provides the most visible evidence of routing ambition: a 400-foot wooden bridge connects two sections of the course across a deep wooded valley. The bridge is functional infrastructure, but it is also a dramatic passage that resets the round's emotional register.

The playing experience rewards the ground game. Fairways are wide by modern standards, and the greens accept running approaches from multiple angles. This is not target golf. The penalty for a missed fairway is rarely severe, but the reward for finding the correct position is significant: a better angle, a simpler approach, a putt that works with the green's natural contour rather than against it. The distinction between good and optimal positioning becomes more apparent with repeated play.

The greens are large and subtly contoured. Several feature significant internal movement that creates pin positions ranging from accessible to genuinely difficult, all on the same green. Putting surfaces are maintained to speeds that reward touch and punish mechanical stroke patterns. That is the Coore and Crenshaw signature: a design that separates skill levels without resorting to forced carries or penal hazards.

Wind is a consistent factor on the exposed ridgeline holes. On calm days, the course plays generously. When the wind arrives, club selection on the par 3s shifts by two or three clubs, giving the course a links-like quality that distinguishes it from the sheltered valley courses in the region.

Ozarks National is walking only, with caddies available. The terrain is substantial and the walk is a genuine workout across the ridgeline holes, but the pace is manageable and the views justify the effort.