Hot Springs Country Club - Park Course

The Park Course at Hot Springs Country Club is one of the most architecturally significant courses in the American South, a Willie Park Jr. original, routed by the World Golf Hall of Fame Scottish architect who shaped many of the British Isles' and early America's great courses. Park Jr. laid out the initial 2,465-yard 9-hole course in 1898, making Hot Springs CC one of the oldest continuously-operating clubs in the South. The course was redesigned in 1920 by William H. Diddel to extend to 18 holes, and underwent an extensive Coore & Crenshaw renovation completed in 2001 (some sources cite 2008). Today the Park Course plays 6,836 yards par 72 with a 72.7 rating and 131 slope. The Coore & Crenshaw touch is what pushes this into must-play territory for architecture-minded visitors, the restoration-minded renovation recaptured Park Jr.'s Victorian-era strategic vocabulary while adding the modern conditioning and turf standards of a top-tier resort course. The longest hole is the par-5 12th (519 yards); the shortest is the par-3 15th (181 yards). For a Hot Springs visitor, the Park Course is the architectural history lesson, three of the most influential architects in golf-history collaboration across a century.