The Minot Country Club: Golf in Minot, North Dakota

Minot International Airport (MOT) is 5.6 road miles from The Minot Country Club, at 1912 Valley Bluffs Dr in Minot, Ward County. By road from the club, Apple Grove Golf Course is 3.6 miles away and Souris Valley Golf Course is 5.4 miles away, both of them in Minot; Hawktree Golf Club in Bismarck is 108.0 miles away, and The Links of North Dakota in Ray is 99.4 miles away, each figure measured by OSRM's driving profile from the club's own coordinates. Bismarck Municipal Airport (BIS) is 113.6 road miles from the club, and Hector International Airport in Fargo (FAR) is 269.6 road miles away.

Golf Digest's 2025-'26 Best in State ranking lists The Minot Country Club first among North Dakota's six ranked courses, displaying the access label "Public" and recording the facility type as "Daily Fee," with a $105 weekend fee as of the ranking data's own November 14, 2025 update. The club plays across multiple tees ranging from 4,485 to 6,870 yards, per the club's own site. Golf Digest's panel counts for all six ranked North Dakota courses range from two to eight evaluations; Minot's #1 ranking rests on two, tied with Fargo Country Club for the fewest on the list, and its 3.6 rating is tied for the lowest, alongside the two Private-labeled clubs on the list. Golf Digest's own caveat about the state: "Though we struggle to get sufficient panelist coverage up in North Dakota, anyone who reports back about their experience at venues such as Hawktree Golf Club in Bismarck, Bully Pulpit in Medora or The Links of North Dakota are all happy they made the trip." No source available for this guide explains why Minot ranks first despite the lowest panel score and its absence from that same sentence.

Not by any route the club publishes. The Minot Country Club's own site calls itself "a private club" in its own copy — on its clubhouse page: "one of the most extensive and varied social calendars of any private club in the area." Its "TEE TIMES" navigation link sits under a "MEMBERS PAGE" menu and opens a member login. Its reciprocal-play program, OpenRounds, is described on the club's own site as "an exclusive online platform offering streamlined private club tee time accommodations, providing our members direct access to other private clubs nationwide," with access to that network "included in your membership." The club's membership page directs prospective members to "contact our Membership Director at (701) 852-3591." No page found on the operator's own site publishes a green fee, a public tee sheet, or a guest-without-member policy, and no season — opening date or closing date — is published for the course anywhere on the club's own site. The only sourced avenue for a visitor is to call the club directly at (701) 852-3591 and ask.

Apple Grove Golf Course is the nearest other publicly accessible course to The Minot Country Club: 3.6 road miles, in the same city and in the same county, Ward County. It is a 9-hole course at 3910 20th Ave SE, and the operator's own words carry its access case — "Apple Grove Golf Course is a 9-hole golf course located in Southeast Minot. We are proud to be locally owned and operated and strive to provide the best golf experience for all of our visitors." No membership requirement, no guest-of-member language and no exclusion sentence appears anywhere on applegrovend.com. Its Booking & Membership page carries a public "Book a Tee Time" link and, separately, sells "2026 Early Bird Season Passes" — a pass sold alongside public play, not a gate in front of it. That booking link resolves to the Whoosh platform, whose own API, queried with no account and no authentication, returns supportsPublic: true for the club, records it as Minot, North Dakota, and lists a single department of type GOLF whose only facility is named "Golf Course."

Finding this course took a directory rather than a map. Apple Grove carries no leisure=golf_course object in OpenStreetMap at all: an area pull around its address returns nine mapped holes, nine fairways, nine greens, twelve tees, bunkers and water hazards, but no course polygon and no name, so a standard sweep of the map cannot see it. It surfaced instead in the North Dakota Golf Association's own course directory, which lists it "Public - 9 Holes" at 2604 Valley Street, Minot, and in GolfLink's Minot city page, which counts seven courses in the city. North Dakota Tourism carries the operator's own address, "Number of Holes: 9", "Public" and the word "Seasonal."

What the operator does not publish is a season or a price. Its site states "7 Days a Week: Weather Permitting" and hours of 8am to 6:30pm, and no opening date and no closing date appears anywhere on it, so openness on any given date is unverified; this guide does not infer a winter closure from latitude. There is no green-fee schedule either. GolfLink shows $49 but labels the figure itself — "These rates are an estimate of what you might expect to pay at Apple Grove with a cart. Actual rates may vary" — so it is a third party's estimate, not the operator's rate, and this guide does not publish it as a fee. Par and yardage are contested between sources: North Dakota Tourism gives par 30 and 1,671 yards, GolfLink par 29 and 1,538 yards, and the operator publishes no scorecard. The course's own number is 701-852-5460.

For eighteen holes instead of nine, Souris Valley Golf Course, run by the Minot Park District, is 5.4 road miles from The Minot Country Club and states on its own site, "We welcome all golfers to the Souris Valley golf course." Its Vermont Systems tee sheet returned bookable slots without a sign-in on two sampled dates. Hawktree Golf Club, in Bismarck, Burleigh County, is Golf Digest's #2 in North Dakota and carries the same "Public" label; at 108.0 road miles from The Minot Country Club it is not this guide's second course, and it was named here previously on rank rather than on distance.

Minot's own tourism site, visitminot.org, lists Hyatt House Minot and Hotel Revel among its lodging, and JL Beers and Ironhorse Kitchen + Bar among its restaurants.