Blue Top Ridge at Riverside

The Blue Top Ridge course at the Riverside Casino & Golf Resort is a Rees Jones design that debuted in 2009. Holes are laid out on the floodplain of the meandering Iowa River with several fairways routed around man-made lakes.

It’s been described as “golf's answer to Field of Dreams – a sporting oasis in the middle of an Iowa cornfield” where holes are laid out across three different landforms; the front nine starts in a prairie before dropping down to a river plain at the 4th, with the back nine climbing high above the hotel.

Highlight holes include the par five 7th, rated stroke index 1, which doglegs right across water to the green. This is a lengthy hole at 615 yards but it’s rather dwarfed on the back nine by the longest hole in the state at the 665-yard 16th where it drops down to a valley before climbing over a creek to a raised green.