The top-rated public-access courses in Kansas offer some of the best green fees of such highly ranked courses in any state, with $100 going a long way to score a tee time and sample Golfweek’s Best Courses You Can Play list.
Take Firekeeper in Mayetta as Exhibit A. Designed by Notah Begay and Jeffrey D. Brauer and opened in 2011, Firekeeper is operated as an amenity with the Prairie Band Casino & Resort. It ranks No. 1 among public-access layouts in Kansas, and it’s also No. 18 on Golfweek’s Best ranking of casino courses in the U.S. Peak green fee is $100 on weekends, making it one of the best deals of any No. 1 public course on Golfweek’s Best list.
Golfweek’s Best offers many lists of course rankings, with the list of top public-access courses in each state 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 for Kansas is likewise included below. Tops on that list is one of the best classic courses in the U.S.
MORE: Best Modern | Best Classic | Top 200 Resort | Top 200 Residential | Top 100 Best You Can Play
(m): Modern course, built in or after 1960
(c): Classic course, built before 1960
Note: If there is a number in the parenthesis with the m or c, that indicates where that course ranks among Golfweek’s Best top 200 modern or classic courses.
* New to or returning to list
Best public-access courses in Kansas in 2022
Sand Creek Station in Kansas (Courtesy of Sand Creek Station)
1. Firekeeper
Mayetta (m)
2. Buffalo Dunes
Garden City (m)
3. Iron Horse
Leawood (m)
4. Sand Creek Station
Newton (m)
5. Colbert Hills
Manhattan (m)
Best private courses in Kansas in 2022
Prairie Dunes in Kansas (Golfweek files)
1. Prairie Dunes
Hutchinson (11c)
2. Flint Hills National
Andover (T116m)
3. Kansas City CC
Mission Hills (c)
4. Wolf Creek
Olathe (m)
5. Shadow Glen
Olathe (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.
