Par-Three Thrills, Mountain Views, and Bison Ribeye: Your Perfect Big Sky Golf Trip

It’s not just the views that are breathtaking in Big Sky, Montana. At more than 7,000 feet in altitude, the destination requires a day to adjust to the high country. Then you can enjoy some of the best and boldest mountain golf anywhere in the U.S. And don’t forget that altitude will cause shots to travel 10 to 15 percent farther in the thinner air.

Luxurious Stays at Montage Big Sky

Establish base camp at the exquisite Montage hotel, perfectly situated for all Big Sky activities, particularly if you’d like to enjoy a sublime trout carpaccio followed by a bison rib eye at the elegant Cortina, arguably the best restaurant in the area.

Montage Big Sky / Photo: Courtesy of Big Sky Resort

The hotel’s 139 guest rooms express modern mountain chic in a crafted lodge that’s home to a spa, music venue, sports bar with bowling alley, and more. Staff throughout are meticulously trained yet genuine in their cheerful efforts to provide superlative service.

Visible from Montage’s guest rooms and outdoor pool complex is the massive log clubhouse of the Spanish Peaks golf course, a Tom Weiskopf design largely free of housing and providing pristine views from 7,200 yards of great mountain golf. Weiskopf, who had a home on property, created corridors that showcase snowcapped peaks and wildflower meadows.

Spanish Peaks clubhouse / Photo: Courtesy of Zak Grosfied

Fairways wend through pine forests in solitude. Holes feature prodigious cape and bay bunkering (especially on dogleg turns), occasional blind shots, a cadre of forced carries, and superfirm greens that run faster than Usain Bolt after a triple espresso. The rugged track, which Weiskopf famously designed on horseback, has been ranked as high as number three in the state by Golf Digest.

Epic Golf Courses with Breathtaking Views

Following golf, how about a little more golf? Weiskopf’s final project was Tom’s 10, a collection of immaculate par-three holes inspired by some of the architect’s favorites from around the world. Hit mostly wedges to green sites reminiscent of Pine Valley, Royal Troon and number six at Riviera, featuring a bunker in the middle of the green.

Holes range from 90 to 161 yards and route over and around streams, wetlands and mountain forest, offering great wagering opportunities for serious competitors and a chance for the less experienced to enjoy 90 minutes of fun while finding out that perhaps golf isn’t as hard as they’d thought.

Jack Nicklaus’ Moonlight Basin may be one of the finest mountain golf courses in North America—though it’s not for the faint of golf balls. The course stretches to a discomforting 8,000 yards from the back tees and includes a hole playing an incomprehensible 777 yards. Still, a midfairway drop-off allowed even this aging golfer to legitimately claim that I hit a 460-yard drive: 230 to edge of an abyss that lent the shot an additional 230 yards of downhill yeehaw. Which is certainly fun to tell your friends.

Big Sky Resort Golf Course / Photo: Courtesy of Patrick J. Conroy

Bordering a wilderness area and and boasting more than 1,000 feet in elevation change between the high and low points, the course is never less than spectacular.  And yet as daunting as some shots are given the massive scale and the surrounding high peaks and deep ravines, it plays easier than it appears. Which isn’t to say that it’s easy—only fair, with hidden bailout areas and fairways that end up being wider than your first view of them suggests. The greens are complicated, but hitting short rather than long should minimize mayhem.

For an easy, scenic and walkable golf outing check out the Big Sky Resort Golf Course at the bottom of the valley. One of Arnold Palmer’s earliest designs routes through rolling meadows and around natural wetlands with sometimes narrow corridors.

Holes conclude on greens that are simple, and with little undulation—but which sometimes break in the opposite direction than you expect. Targets—especially when blocked by corner turns—are sometimes camouflaged by tall grasses and marsh flora, adding a Hail Mary aspect to some shots.

The back nine transitions into a more open and yet challenging collection of holes with raised greens and what seems like more money spent in crafting the fine features.