Best Golf Courses Near Atlanta

"Best" is doing a lot of work in headlines like this. Best by price? By design pedigree? By how hard you have to work to get a Saturday tee time? We're going to use a metric that matters: would a regular player drive back for a second round.

Here are the golf courses near Atlanta we'd actually play again, within two hours of Hartsfield. Public and semi-private, with a few resort courses where you can book as a guest. No private-only clubs on the list because most of you can't play them.

The honest ranking criteria

Three things matter. Does the layout make you think, or does it make you grind. Are the conditions consistent or does it depend on the day. And does the staff treat a daily-fee guest like a member or like a walk-in.

Distance from Atlanta matters, but not the way most lists rank it. A 30-minute course that plays slow and crowded is worse than a 90-minute course that moves.

Apple Mountain Golf Club (Clarkesville, GA)

90 minutes north of the perimeter on 441. Phillip Ballard design, opened 1994. Par 72, 6,428 yards from the Blue tees. Slope 119, rating 69.9. Mountain course. You get real elevation changes on the front nine, tighter fairways through hardwood forest on the back. Greens are fair and roll true most of the year.

18 holes with cart starts from $49 weekday, $65 weekend. Senior (59+) and military rates from $51 Monday through Thursday. Junior $20 weekday, $25 weekend. Walkers welcome, and the walk is honest but doable if you're in shape. Driving range is $5 a bag. The practice facilities are the weak spot. Small range, one putting green. That's the tradeoff for the rate.

Why we'd play again: the pace of play is the best within two hours of Atlanta. Weekday rounds move in 3:45, weekends in 4:15. That's not normal for a public course at these rates. Part of the reason is the resort. Most players are staying on property, which spreads the tee sheet.

See the course page for the scorecard and hole-by-hole breakdown.

Bear's Best Atlanta (Suwanee, GA)

35 minutes north of the city. Nicklaus design, par 72, 7,050 from the tips. The gimmick is that each hole replicates a signature hole from another Nicklaus course. Sounds dumb, plays well.

Conditioning is consistently good. Greens are quick. Green fees run $85-$135 depending on day. Peak weekend mornings push higher. Practice facilities are strong.

Why we'd play again: the variety. Every hole looks different. The downside is the pace. Weekend rounds push past five hours regularly. Go weekday if you can.

Reynolds Lake Oconee (Greensboro, GA)

75 minutes east. Six courses at one resort. You're paying resort rates ($175-$295 depending on course and season), and access usually requires a stay or playing as a guest of a member.

The Great Waters (Nicklaus) is the one to play first. Oconee (Fazio) second. The other four are all good. Conditioning is the best on this list.

Why we'd play again: the range of courses. If you're making a golf trip of it, you can play three different designs in three days and they all feel different. Not a regular-weekend option for most players, but unmatched as a trip.

Stone Mountain Golf Club (Stone Mountain, GA)

25 minutes from downtown. Two 18-hole courses: Stonemont and Lakemont. Stonemont is the Robert Trent Jones Sr. design, par 72, more of the traditional look. Lakemont has more water and shorter holes.

Green fees $55-$95. Conditioning runs hot and cold depending on season. Pace is slow on weekends.

Why we'd play again: the convenience. Closest quality public option to the city. Stonemont on a weekday morning is the best version of this course.

Chateau Elan (Braselton, GA)

45 minutes north. Two 18-hole courses (Chateau and Woodlands) plus a 9-hole par-3. Resort property with a winery attached.

Green fees $95-$145. Stay-and-play packages drop that. Conditioning is consistent. Pace is decent. The Chateau course is the better of the two.

Why we'd play again: the all-in-one factor. Golf, hotel, wine, spa, dinner, all on property. A good trip for couples where both play, or where one plays and the other drinks.

Cuscowilla (Eatonton, GA)

100 minutes east. Bill Coore and Ben Crenshaw design, 2000. Par 70, 6,847 yards. Ranked in the Golf Digest top 100 public.

Green fees $125-$175. Conditioning is excellent. The layout rewards placement over distance. Small, undulating greens.

Why we'd play again: the design. Coore-Crenshaw courses in the Southeast are rare, and this one is the best. If you can play only one course on this list, make it this one, assuming budget isn't the constraint.

Quick table

What we'd tell a friend

For a Saturday morning with the usual group and a budget under $100: Apple Mountain. The drive's an hour extra from the perimeter, the pace beats anything closer, and the rate is the easiest sell to the group.

For a birthday round where you're trying to impress: Cuscowilla. Or Bear's Best if the drive is a problem.

For a weekend trip: Apple Mountain stay-and-play. Two rounds, two nights in a two-bedroom suite, split four ways. It's the math that wins.

For a once-a-year buddy trip: Reynolds. Six courses, two to four nights, and you'll leave wiht stories.

What we'd skip

We're not going to name names, but a rule of thumb: any "resort" course inside the perimeter with a tee sheet that books out five hours of tee times a day for 10 months of the year is going to be slow. Rate doesn't matter. The math is the math. Drive an hour out and your round gets 45 minutes shorter.

Also skip anything described as a "championship course" without an actual tournament history. That phrase means nothing and usually the course is fine but not special.

For more on mountain courses in particular, see Mountain Golf in Georgia: Where to Play. For the regional roundup, Blue Ridge Mountain Golf covers courses from North Georgia into Western North Carolina.