Ozarks National Golf Course

Bill Coore and Ben Crenshaw opened Ozarks National in 2019 on a piece of southwestern Missouri ridgeline land owned by Johnny Morris, the founder of Bass Pro Shops, on what is now part of the Big Cedar Lodge resort complex south of Branson. The course was built into the natural Ozark topography with minimal earthmoving — Coore and Crenshaw's signature approach — and the routing crosses three different ridges with views down into the White River valley below. Big Cedar Lodge also includes the Tom Fazio Buffalo Ridge course and the Jack Nicklaus Top of the Rock par-3 course, but Ozarks National is the resort's primary championship layout.

The scorecard reads 7,036 yards from the back markers, par 71, with a slope of 131 and a course rating of 73.5. The five par-3s — Coore and Crenshaw built five one-shotters into the routing rather than the conventional four — sit between 144 and 254 yards. The 254-yard fourteenth is the longest one-shotter and plays directly across an Ozark valley with the ridge visible behind the green. The four par-5s range from 517 to 597 yards. The 597-yard ninth is the longest hole on the card and plays as a three-shot par-5 because the layup zone narrows between two natural ridges.

The number-one handicap is the 481-yard fourth — a long par-4 with a tee shot that plays from an elevated ridge down to a fairway that the player cannot see all of from the tee. The 446-yard second-hardest is the par-4 sixteenth; the 480-yard third-hardest is the par-4 eleventh. All three of the top-three are par-4s, which is the slope signal that Coore and Crenshaw used the topography to defend the rating rather than back-tee length.

The Ozark Mountain climate compresses the prime playing window into April through November, with the firmest fairway conditions arriving in October. The ridge location moderates the property's temperature in summer compared to the Missouri lowlands. Walking is encouraged for member play; carts are standard for resort guest tee times.