Blue Top Ridge at Riverside Casino

Rees Jones opened Blue Top Ridge at Riverside Casino & Golf Resort in 2009 (some sources date it to 2008), about 20 minutes south of Iowa City. The course is one of his more brawny modern designs — 7,505 yards from the championship tees, 77.2 rating, and a 141 slope. The routing crosses three distinct landforms: a prairie front nine, a river-plain stretch on the Iowa River for the 4th through 6th, and a back nine carved into a hillside with elevation that defies the state's flat reputation. The PGA's GolfChannel feature on hidden Iowa gems flagged it as one of the state's best modern public layouts. Casino-resort pricing puts it in the $-to-$$ band — well below what a Rees Jones design typically commands elsewhere. As an Iowa road-trip stop it pairs naturally with Tournament Club of Iowa and Spirit Hollow as a three-day Eastern-Iowa loop covering the state's best public layouts.