Honey Creek Resort: The Preserve

Tom Clark designed the Preserve at Honey Creek Resort, Iowa's only resort state park, which opened in 2007 alongside the resort's lodge and cottage infrastructure on 850 acres of pristine wilderness along the shores of Lake Rathbun. The resort features a 105-room lodge with a 60-foot two-sided fireplace inspired by Frank Lloyd Wright architecture, plus 28 luxury cottages. The course itself threads through rolling southern-Iowa hardwood forest and Lake Rathbun's shoreline bluffs. Clark leaned into the natural topography rather than flattening it, with elevation changes and tree-lined corridors that surprise first-timers expecting flat Iowa cornfield golf. Peak green fee runs $55-85 for resort guests. Fits a Des Moines trip as the 'Iowa resort state park weekend' destination, the 2-hour drive southeast from Des Moines rewards groups willing to venture beyond the metro courses.