BRANSON, Missouri — Standing on the tee of the second hole of Buffalo Ridge Golf Club, there’s plenty competing for your attention. The Ozark Mountains, rolling in the distance; an expansive limestone outcropping on your left; a fence line to keep out the herd of buffalo on your right; and a sweeping, downhill par-4 immediately in front of you.
Swimming in sensory overload, it’s easy to lose track of where you are and that you need to hit a tee shot to move this round along. This is Branson, Missouri, emerging Midwestern golf outpost where more people are coming to play golf, not just for something to do during the day while waiting for the nightly entertainment to come around.
Branson has plenty of top-tier golf, boasting four of the top 10 courses in Missouri, according to one publication’s ranking. The area’s golf menu has become both broad and deep. Branson has something for every golfer regardless of age, from the tournament player to the rank beginner.
Branson rose up in the southwest Missouri Ozarks as a something-for-everyone family destination, which CBS’ iconic newsmagazine “60 Minutes” breathlessly declared in 1991 “the live music capital of the entire universe.”
Each year, more than 10 million people stream into Branson, a city of about 13,000 residents, to be endlessly entertained with amusement parks, dining, shopping and, of course, more than 100 shows per week in the city’s 50 theaters and entertainment venues.
An abundance of quality golf is relatively new to Branson and most of it is thanks to Johnny Morris, the billionaire founder of Bass Pro Shops and the owner/developer of Big Cedar Lodge near Branson. Today, Big Cedar has three 18-hole courses, all designed by top names in architecture – Buffalo Ridge (Tom Fazio), Payne’s Valley (Tiger Woods) and Ozarks National (Bill Coore and Ben Crenshaw).
In total, Big Cedar occupies about 4,600 acres of golf, along with an abundance of outdoor and nature activities such as fishing, boating, hiking, along with spa and wellness offerings.
There was golf pre-Morris in Branson. Buffalo Ridge was Branson Creek – built in 2010 – before Morris bought it in 2013 and, along with Fazio, spruced it up and renamed it, even going so far as to bring in a herd of buffalo to live alongside the course. It was Morris’ first 18-hole property.
Branson Hills, also among Missouri’s top 10 courses, was designed by Chuck Smith, with consultation from former PGA Tour player and CBS commentator Bobby Clampett, and opened in 2009.
Ledgestone Country Club, thought to have the best mountain views in the area, is also well-regarded, as is Thousand Hills Golf Resort, a delightful par-66 that plays more difficult than the short yardage on its scorecard would indicate.
Morris hired Jack Nicklaus to design Top of the Rock, a nine-hole par-3 that opened in 1996 and is connected to the main Big Cedar Lodge. Getting lost in the scenery will distract from the fact that the 9-holer requires full attention at times. It has four holes longer than 160 yards and the third hole tips out at 202 yards.
The PGA Tour Champions used Top of the Rock in the Bass Pro Shops Legends of Golf at Big Cedar, the first time a par-3 course has been employed in an official Champions Tour event, which ran from 2014-19.
Top of the Rock had a massive driving range, designed by Arnold Palmer, but in 2015, a sinkhole was found. Instead of repairing it, Morris had the range dug out to the tune of 82,000 truckloads of dirt. What was found was a massive limestone formation with a canyon 210 feet deep. Morris gave it the name “Cathedral of Nature.”
Morris and Fazio worked on Buffalo Ridge and at Morris’ insistence, some water features were installed, apparently because he likes waterfalls, which can be found on all Big Cedar courses. They also exposed some rock formations but, Fazio says, the original layout wasn’t disrupted.
Coore and Crenshaw have the reputation of laying the golf course onto the existing topography as much as possible. At Ozarks National, which opened in 2019, they did just that. The course runs through valleys and along ridges to create its elevation changes.
Payne’s Valley —named as a memorial to the late Payne Stewart, a Missouri native — was designed by Woods and Beau Welling, the senior design associate for Woods’ firm. It was the first Woods-designed public access course. Payne’s Valley opened in 2020 with the Payne’s Valley Cup, a televised match with Woods and Justin Thomas taking on Rory McIlroy and Justin Rose.
The other two par-3 courses at Big Cedar are Mountain Top, a wide-open, 13-hole course that’s walking only. Often, parents can be seen accompanying their young children at Mountain Top as part of their introduction to golf.
Cliffhangers, an 18-hole par-3 course, was created by Morris and his son, John Paul. Built into the side of a mountain next to Payne’s Valley, the course winds to-and-fro down the hill and is often the scene of a good time. The first hole requires that you putt down the hill to the green and the third hole gives you a tee shot literally through a waterfall.
All of which makes the city of Branson’s entertainment offerings more of an attraction for something to do at night while waiting for the golf courses to open.