Anchorage Golf Course

Robert Trent Jones II designed the Anchorage Golf Course in 1987 on a piece of city-owned Anchorage, Alaska land at the foot of the Chugach Mountains. The course is the northernmost championship-quality public-access golf course in the United States, and the routing carries an unusual constraint: the playing season is roughly five months long, but those five months include the longest daylight hours of any American golf course — June rounds can tee off at 10pm and still finish in natural light. Jones routed the course around glacial moraine deposits left by the Knik Arm retreat, and the elevation changes through the front nine are the most dramatic of any course in the state.

The scorecard reads 6,585 yards from the back markers, par 72, with a slope of 129 and a course rating of 71.5. The yardage is moderate by championship standards, but the Alaska air is denser than the Lower 48 — Anchorage sits near sea level but the cold air through May and September means the ball flies measurably shorter than the same swing in California or Florida. The four par-3s sit between 149 and 216 yards. The 216-yard fifteenth is the longest one-shotter and plays directly across one of the property's natural drainages with Chugach views behind the green.

The number-one handicap is the 577-yard fourteenth — a par-5 that has the unusual property of being the hardest hole on the card. The 459-yard second-hardest is the par-4 ninth that closes the front; the 533-yard third-hardest is the par-5 eighth. Two of the top-three are par-5s, which reflects the way Alaska's short summer compresses the playable conditions: greens are firmer mid-season than at any other time of year, and the long approaches become harder.

The Alaska climate compresses the playing window into May through September, with the firmest fairway conditions arriving in late July and August. The course closes from October through April when snow covers the property. Walking is allowed; carts are standard for daily-fee play. The course is municipal-access daily-fee — any golfer with a tee time can play it.