Des Moines (South)

Des Moines Golf and Country Club was founded in 1897, with Warren Dickinson, one of the original founding members, setting out the club’s original 9-hole course. Just six years later, the club relocated next to the Waveland Municipal Golf Course, with Tom Bendelow designing the layout.

In 1923, the club was on the move again, this time to the 147-acre Ashworth Estate, to the west of Des Moines. In the early 1960s, the club got wind of plans to build an interstate highway through the course so land was purchased in Dallas County to allow the construction of two new 18-hole layouts.

Both courses were designed by Pete Dye, with the North opening in 1968 and the South following a year later. The club has since hosted the US Senior Open in 1999 and the Solheim Cup in 2017, with a composite course (nine holes from each course) used for the more recent event, which Pete Dye and Tim Liddy renovated in 2014 in readiness for the 2017 Solheim Cup.

In The American Private Golf Club Guide, author Daniel Wexler says “the South course pretty well matches its sister for both challenge and style, and boasts two notable holes going out, the 487-yard 2nd (which tempts one to drive across its water-guarded dogleg) and the 460-yard 4th, a long two-shotter angled between lakes.”