Sand Hollow Resort’s Championship Course is considered a diamond in the rough in Southern Utah. With steep ridgelines, deep canyons, and expansive elevations, the Championship Course provides one of the most incredible golf experiences in the country – and national rankings prove it. The underrated golf course continues to climb the ranks among top resort courses in the United States.
In 2012, the Championship Course cracked John Garrity’s Top 50 for the first time with a ranking of #20. Instead of basing the rating system primarily on cosmetic features, John’s Top 50 algorithm considers other factors, such as average green size, proximity of sand bunkers to overhanging tree limbs, horsepower of beverage carts, and horsepower of beverage-cart girls, and awards plus-or-minus points for each variable.
“I would rate Sand Hollow number one among desert and mountain courses,” said John Garrity’s Top 50 course-ranking director, Gary Van Sickle, “not to disparage Arizona’s 51st-ranked Desert Mountain. I’d rank Sand Hollow higher even than Tom Fazio’s Vegas stunner, Shadow Creek, which, to be honest, I’ve never been invited to play — hint, hint — or 51st-ranked Coyote Springs, which I’ve had the pleasure of playing and recommending to travelers to Vegas who don’t mind an hour’s drive to a nest of mountain ranges not far from Mesquite, Nevada, which, as you know, is headquarters for the Re/Max World Long Drive Championship ….”
Sand Hollow Resort’s Championship Course has since garnered several other notable rankings including ranking 56th on Golfweek’s 2019 Top 100 Courses You Can Play, 41st on Golfweek’s Top 100 Resort Courses, and this year cracked Golfweek’s Top 200 Modern Courses for the first time, with a ranking of 156th. Golfweek’s rankings are determined by members of their course-ratings panel who continually evaluate courses and rate them based on 10 criteria. The overall ratings on each course are averaged to produce a final rating for each course. Then, each course is ranked against other courses in its state, or nationally, to produce the final rankings.
In just 12 years since Sand Hollow Resort opened, the Championship Course has become a favorite, not only in Utah, where it has ranked #1 by Golfweek since 2008, but also among golfers across the country.