Golf courses by state
Iowa Golf Courses & Tee Times
Iowa has held a state amateur championship since 1900, when Dr. John Maxwell of Keokuk won the first Iowa Amateur at Des Moines Golf & Country Club. Des Moines is also home to some of the oldest city golf anywhere: Waveland was dedicated in 1901, and the city calls it the oldest municipal course west of the Mississippi. Bright Grandview followed in 1902. Golf is a big business here too. A 2025 study for the Iowa Golf Council put the industry at $818 million in revenue and 9,741 jobs.
Tee times in Iowa are easier to get when you know when they open. Yoink watches 86 public golf courses here, grouped into 7 markets: Eastern Iowa & Quad Cities, Omaha, Lincoln & Des Moines, Ames & Central Iowa, Waterloo & Northeast Iowa and more. Choose a market to see every course, then get an alert when a tee time opens or someone cancels.
Iowa golf markets
Eastern Iowa & Quad Cities
Blue Top Ridge at Riverside, Duck Creek, Emeis Golf Course…
Omaha, Lincoln & Des Moines
Copper Creek Golf Course, Otter Creek Golf Course, Tournament Club of Iowa…
Ames & Central Iowa
Briggs Woods Golf Course, Fort Dodge Country Club, Sunrise Pointe Golf Course…
Waterloo & Northeast Iowa
Gates Park Golf Course, Irv Warren Golf Course, Pheasant Ridge Municipal Golf Course…
Quad Cities
Pebble Creek Golf Club, Timberline Golf Course, Woods Edge Golf Course
Eau Claire & La Crosse
Elkader Golf Club
Sioux Falls & Eastern South Dakota
Rock Valley Golf Course
More Iowa
Albia Country Club, Appanoose Country Club, Bos Landen Golf Course…
Who runs public golf in Iowa
The Iowa Golf Association is built on member clubs, and golfers at those clubs are IGA members. It runs handicapping, course rating and rules on behalf of the USGA, plus the Iowa Amateur, played since 1900. Its foundation runs the Iowa Golf Hall of Fame, scholarships and junior golf. Iowa joined Youth on Course in 2018 as the 21st state: juniors 6 to 18 pay $60 a year and play participating courses for $5 or less. In Des Moines, the city parks department owns Waveland, A.H. Blank and Bright Grandview. North of town, the Tournament Club of Iowa in Polk City is the state's only Arnold Palmer Signature course and hosted the 2018 Iowa Amateur.
Public courses worth knowing in Iowa
- Waveland Golf Course: Dedicated in 1901 and called by Des Moines the oldest municipal course west of the Mississippi. Hosted the 1906 Iowa Amateur.
- Tournament Club of Iowa: The only Arnold Palmer Signature course in Iowa, laid out by Palmer's team in 2003. Host of the 2018 Iowa Amateur.
Towns with the most courses
- Davenport · 3
- Solon · 3
- Council Bluffs · 3
- Ames · 3
- Waterloo · 3
- Marshalltown · 2
- Storm Lake · 2
- Grinnell · 2
- Waverly · 2
- Pella · 2
- Oskaloosa · 2
- Amana · 1
- Coralville · 1
- Cascade · 1
- Marion · 1
- Muscatine · 1
- Bettendorf · 1
- Iowa City · 1
- Burlington · 1
- Asbury · 1
- Shellsburg · 1
- Pleasant Hill · 1
- Malvern · 1
- Pleasantville · 1
Getting a tee time in Iowa
The season in Iowa runs roughly from spring to late fall. The first warm weekends in spring and the cool, dry weekends of fall are the hardest to book.
Each course releases its tee times on its own schedule, commonly a week or two out, with residents of town and county courses often booking first. Leagues, outings and members claim chunks of the sheet in advance, and whatever prime weekend times are left tend to go on release day.
A full tee sheet rarely stays full. Many courses let you cancel without a fee up to 24 or 48 hours before your time, so spots tend to reappear in the last couple of days. A bad forecast shakes more loose, and a foursome that drops to three opens a single. None of it is announced. The time just shows up again on the booking page, and whoever looks first gets it.
Yoink
Every course in Iowa on one watchlist: all 86 of them
Yoink checks all 86 courses in Iowa every few minutes, so every open time is in one place and you're the first to know when one that fits your day, window and group appears, cancellations included.
Tee times in Iowa: questions
How do I get tee time cancellation alerts in Iowa?
Pick your courses in Yoink (86 in Iowa), set the days, time window and group size you want, and Yoink sends a notification when a matching time opens up. You book directly with the course.
When is golf season busiest in Iowa?
Demand peaks on spring and fall weekends. Weekend mornings are the hardest tee times to get.
When do tee time cancellations usually show up?
Mostly in the 24 to 48 hours before the tee time, as golfers cancel ahead of the course's cancellation deadline, and whenever the forecast turns.
Sources
Facts on this page come from these pages, checked 2026-09-28. Rates and booking rules change, so confirm with the course.
- iowagolf.org · association
- iowagolf.org · association
- iowagolf.org · association
- iowagolf.org · association
- iowagolf.org · association
- dsm.city · official
- golfwaveland.com · official
- tcofiowa.com · official
The best tee times in Iowa open up at random
Cancellations don't get announced. Yoink watches the sheets around the clock and buzzes your phone when one fits.