Football season is back, and for golfers that raises an important question: If you're traveling to see your favorite NFL team this fall, why leave the clubs at home?
Last year, Inside the Scoring Zone looked at some great golf destinations to pair with a college football weekend. This year, we're going pro.
But we gave ourselves one rule: skip the obvious big-city destinations. No New York. No Los Angeles. No Chicago.
Instead, we went looking for smaller NFL markets where football is part of the culture—and where a really good public-access golf course can turn a Sunday football trip into a full weekend.
The five we chose couldn't be more different. One is a Ryder Cup/PGA Championship venue. One is a historic muni designed by one of golf's legendary architects. One lets you play four holes inside one of the most famous racetracks in the world. And one has sheep wandering around the golf course and a Director of Golf whose Instagram videos might make you want to visit the golf shop as much as the first tee.
Here are five NFL golf road trips worth putting on the calendar in no particular order.
ONE QUESTION
If you could plan one golf-and-NFL road trip this fall, where would you go?
Green Bay | Pittsburgh | Kansas City | Indianapolis | Nashville
Think we missed a better one? Tell us the NFL city—and the course you'd play.
GREEN BAY PACKERS — GREEN BAY, WISCONSIN
PLAY: Whistling Straits — The Straits Course
There may not be a better combination of two iconic American sporting experiences.
Few places in professional sports feel quite like Green Bay on a football weekend. It's a relatively small city built around a team that has become part of its identity. Lambeau Field isn't tucked away in some distant entertainment district; it's right there in the middle of Green Bay.
Then there's the golf. Drive roughly an hour south toward Kohler and you'll find Whistling Straits, home to one of America's most recognizable golf courses. Pete Dye created the Straits Course along two miles of Lake Michigan shoreline, producing something that looks much more like links golf across the Atlantic than what most golfers expect to find in Wisconsin.
The championship résumé speaks for itself. Whistling Straits has hosted three PGA Championships and, most recently, the memorable 2021 Ryder Cup.
No, this isn't the bargain round on our list. It's the splurge. But if we're building a bucket-list golf-and-football weekend, it's awfully difficult to top Whistling Straits on Saturday and the Packers at Lambeau on Sunday.
Just pack for Wisconsin weather. All of it.
WHY IT MAKES THE TRIP
Two bucket-list sporting experiences in one weekend.
PITTSBURGH STEELERS — PITTSBURGH, PENNSYLVANIA
PLAY: Olde Stonewall Golf Club
If Green Bay is our bucket-list choice, Pittsburgh might be our sleeper.
About 40 minutes outside the city in Ellwood City sits Olde Stonewall, a golf course that looks like it should require knowing the right member just to get through the front gate.
It doesn't. It's public.
Olde Stonewall opened in 1999 and quickly began collecting national recognition, including recognition from Golf Magazine and Golf Digest among America's notable public courses. The course winds through the hills of western Pennsylvania with dramatic elevation changes, rock walls, water and some spectacular views. Visually, it's unlike anything else among our five choices.
Pittsburgh already makes a great football road trip, with the rivers, bridges, neighborhoods and stadium setting creating a distinctly Pittsburgh experience. Add a fan base that doesn't exactly need encouragement to wear black and gold, and there's plenty of atmosphere before kickoff.
Put Olde Stonewall on Saturday together with the Steelers on Sunday and you've got a pretty compelling fall weekend.
One warning: Don't confuse public with easy.
WHY IT MAKES THE TRIP
A spectacular public course hiding less than an hour from Pittsburgh.
KANSAS CITY CHIEFS — KANSAS CITY, MISSOURI
PLAY: Swope Memorial Golf Course
This might be our favorite golf story of the five, because you don't have to spend hundreds of dollars to play historically significant golf. Sometimes you just need to find the right muni.
Swope Memorial sits in Kansas City's enormous Swope Park and was redesigned in 1934 by legendary architect A.W. Tillinghast. Golf architecture fans know the name. Tillinghast's résumé includes Winged Foot, Baltusrol and Bethpage Black, and Kansas City has one of his designs that ordinary golfers can actually play.
Even better, the timing couldn't be better. Swope Memorial reopened in July 2026 following an extensive renovation of its greens, bunkers, tees, drainage and irrigation. The project was designed to respect Tillinghast's original architectural intent while bringing the course infrastructure up to modern standards.
There's plenty of history here, too. Ben Hogan and Sam Snead played Swope, and the course hosted the Kansas City Open. Today, you can catch views of the Kansas City skyline while you play—and apparently even hear the occasional roar from the lions at the neighboring Kansas City Zoo.
Then on Sunday, you're headed to one of the great environments in professional football: a Chiefs game at Arrowhead. Throw in some Kansas City barbecue and the itinerary practically writes itself.
Tillinghast. Barbecue. Chiefs.
We're not sure we need to add anything else.
WHY IT MAKES THE TRIP
Classic architecture, a fresh restoration and one of the best golf values of the five.
INDIANAPOLIS COLTS — INDIANAPOLIS, INDIANA
PLAY: Brickyard Crossing Golf Course
This is the course you tell your buddies about afterward.
There are plenty of Pete Dye golf courses. There are not plenty of Pete Dye golf courses where four holes sit inside the Indianapolis Motor Speedway.
Brickyard Crossing dates all the way back to 1929, with Dye redesigning the property in 1992. Today, 14 holes sit outside the Speedway before you cross into the infield to play four holes inside one of the most famous sporting venues in America.
Think about that for a moment. You're standing over a five-footer inside the same 2½-mile oval that hosts the Indianapolis 500.
Brickyard Crossing has some legitimate professional golf history of its own, too, having hosted professional tournament golf over the years. But its real appeal for this list is the experience itself. There simply aren't many places where the setting becomes as much a part of the round as the golf course.
Indianapolis might not be the first city someone mentions when you say "golf destination," and that's precisely why we like it. Play Brickyard Crossing on Saturday, head downtown for the Colts on Sunday, and you've combined two completely different sporting experiences into one weekend.
WHY IT MAKES THE TRIP
Where else are you going to play golf inside the Indianapolis Motor Speedway?
TENNESSEE TITANS — NASHVILLE, TENNESSEE
PLAY: Hermitage Golf Course — President's Reserve
Nashville doesn't need our help convincing people to spend a weekend there. We're just suggesting that you put your golf clubs in the car.
Just outside Nashville, Hermitage Golf Course offers 36 holes of public golf. Our choice is President's Reserve, a Denis Griffiths design that winds through roughly 300 acres of Tennessee wetlands along the Cumberland River.
It's a very good golf course, but that's only part of why Hermitage made our five.
THEN THERE ARE THE SHEEP.
Yes, those are actually sheep.
More than 40 Scottish Blackface sheep roam the Hermitage property year-round, providing a nod to golf's Scottish roots and creating a sight you're unlikely to encounter during your regular Saturday foursome. They've become such a recognizable part of Hermitage that they're essentially the club's mascots.
But even the sheep may not be Hermitage's biggest personalities.
"GOLF SHOP, THIS IS CHRIS."
If you follow golf on Instagram or TikTok, there's a pretty good chance you've already encountered Chris Pierce, Hermitage's Director of Golf.
His recurring "Golf shop, this is Chris" videos poke fun at the phone calls, requests and conversations that happen in golf shops everywhere. The humor is sarcastic, the situations are ridiculous, and if you've spent much time around golf courses, some of them are painfully believable.
So we're adding something unusual to our normal course recommendation: Before you make the trip, follow Hermitage Golf Course on Instagram. Consider it part of your pre-trip research.
Then play President's Reserve, find the sheep, stop in the golf shop to see if Chris is there and head into Nashville for the rest of the weekend. Between the golf, a Titans game and everything Nashville has to offer after the round, there are worse ways to spend a fall weekend.
WHY IT MAKES THE TRIP
A terrific public golf course with enough personality to make the golf part of the story.
SO...WHERE ARE WE GOING?
What started as a search for great public golf near NFL cities quickly became something a little different. The five destinations we settled on aren't necessarily the five "best" golf courses near NFL stadiums, and they're certainly not meant to be ranked against one another. They're five places where the golf gives you a compelling reason to turn a football game into a long weekend.
That's also what makes the list interesting. Whistling Straits is a Ryder Cup venue and a legitimate bucket-list splurge, while Swope Memorial gives everyday golfers the chance to play a historic A.W. Tillinghast design without a bucket-list price. Olde Stonewall brings dramatic western Pennsylvania golf to a Steelers weekend, Brickyard Crossing lets you play four holes inside Indianapolis Motor Speedway, and Hermitage combines a terrific public course with wandering sheep, a hilarious Instagram presence and everything Nashville has waiting after the round.
There's really no reason to compare them. Each offers something completely different, and that's the point.
If you're already traveling somewhere to watch football this fall, take a look at what's available within an hour of the stadium. You might discover that the golf becomes every bit as memorable as the game.
Leave Friday. Play Saturday. Football Sunday.
Then drive home Monday wondering why every football road trip doesn't work this way.
And if you've already found a great golf-and-NFL combination that we missed, tell us about it. With 32 NFL teams and a lot of great public golf around the country, we're pretty sure there are a few more trips worth taking.
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