Southern Hills Golf Course

Southern Hills Golf Course in Hot Springs is the southern Black Hills municipal course, a Richard Phelps (ASGCA) design that opened as a 9-hole layout in 1977 and was expanded to 18 holes in 2005. Phelps is the most prolific Rocky Mountain / High Plains golf architect of the late 20th century (Golf Club at Red Rocks, Cherokee Ridge, Highlands Ranch), and Southern Hills is one of his characteristic muni-scale works, routed sympathetically through the red-rock Spearfish Formation terrain that makes Hot Springs one of the Black Hills' most visually distinctive towns. The course features over 380 feet of elevation change across 18 holes, including one par-3 with a 35-foot tee-to-green drop that plays dramatically shorter than its yardage suggests. Red rock canyons frame the fairways, ponderosa pine stands provide natural boundaries, and the contrast between green fairways and red sandstone gives Southern Hills a color palette unique in the Black Hills golf region. For the southern Black Hills / Custer / Mount Rushmore trip visitor, Southern Hills is the value-tier anchor, a 90-minute drive south of Deadwood and Sturgis pairs naturally with Hart Ranch Golf Club and Red Rock in Rapid City for a three-round Black Hills circuit.