Warnimont Golf Course in Milwaukee is an 18-hole par-3 along Lake Michigan built on a former Army missile base. It winds through woods and wildflowers, and you'll often have doves perched on the edges of the greens, cooing for you to sink that very miss-able putt after your tee shot sat ten feet from the pin. Meanwhile, a shirtless man with a gold Rolex and a bag light with just a 4-hybrid, wedge, and blade putter, looking like Pat Simmons if he'd chosen to haunt muni fairways, gives you a squint. He doesn't need to speak; the glance alone makes you question why you ever called ahead for a tee time at a place where nobody does, while also letting you know you've stumbled into somewhere loose, free, and wonderful.
It's not long at 2,717 yards, but the holes will make you miss, make you feel like you're playing golf rather than navigating a spreadsheet. A slice right on 7, and it disappears into the water, ready for some Thursday morning league player with a ball retriever to rescue it. Pull one left and you're tangled in tall prairie grasses and wandering turkeys. It doesn't matter if you're young or old, seasoned or brand new--anyone who's ever picked up a club will find themselves at home here and loving every moment of it.
The Glen Golf Park in Madison doesn't feel city-bound at all, especially after its 2022 reopening. Even though it sits right in town, "The Glen" is quiet and tucked away, the kind of place where you can nearly forget you have neighbors. The closest are Forest Hill Cemetery, the Village Bar, and the squirrels leaping through giant oak trees. Hole 5 feels like a quest. It's 443 yards to the pin--your drive carries over a stretch of prairie, then tumbles down a hill, threads a ravine framed by oaks, and climbs back up to an elevated green. It isn't a course you just play; it's one you explore. Every hole gives you something different. The rises and drops test your swing, and the tricky greens can turn a simple chip into a triple bogey. The four par-3s slip through native grasses, less like golf holes and more like puzzles. The payoff isn't just the shots you hit well; it's the walk itself. The smell of flowers in the air. Sunlight flashing off your ball like it belongs in the landscape. Late in the day, you might spot locals lining up putts, trading childhood stories from playing hide and seek in the cemetery next door or remembering how Glenway used to be.
See Golfers Play at The Glen Golf Park from Village Bar
These are places where golf actually works. Compact, untamed, forgiving when it needs to be, harsh when it doesn't.
Then there are the places that boast about being 18-hole championship courses. The kind taken straight from graph paper to bulldozer: efficient, maybe, but infinitely humorless. One straight par-4 after another, bunkers left and right, and throngs that can seem allergic to common courtesy. Everything gleams except the golf, and some of the people. Like the employee who must mention to one and all their "executive course, if you want something easier." Nope. I just want a beer, my clubs, and a walk through the woods. No rangefinder-waving guy blasting Kid Rock from a Bluetooth speaker. No polishing off a sixth double transfusion. Just me, the trees, and the quiet.
Sure, these places have perfect surfaces, perfect angles, every hole designed to look like it belongs on a magazine cover and just about as horizontal, too. Fun for an afternoon, sure, but when everything is nudged toward non-technical, perfectly manicured holes the game also flattens out. Golf isn't a photo-op where you strut around in PXG polos, careen your cart across the fairway, and throw off my wife's approach shot. It's meant to be a little remote, a little frustrating, and a lot grounding.
Warnimont and Glenway understand something simple: limits are essential. Some unstated courtesy and sedateness are essential. They force creativity, invite fun, and make a short round feel long, a simple hole feels alive and the whole thing a pleasurable experience. The wild and maybe even a little weird municipal. A thing you walk off feeling like you did something--that's the one that earns your love. Not the polished, soulless mega-course that fills social media feeds. As our friend Max James likes to put it, "These places aren't really courses at all, they're vibes."