The Story
Walla Walla was famous for two things — sweet onions and, lately, world-class wine — when a golf course arrived in 2009 to claim a third. On a sweep of rolling agricultural land west of town, with the Blue Mountains standing along the horizon, Pacific Northwest architect Dan Hixson laid out Wine Valley as one of his first original designs. He had made his name with Bandon Crossings on the Oregon coast; here he had something different to work with — open ground, endless sky, and wind with nothing to slow it down.
Hixson's response was to build big. The fairways at Wine Valley are enormous, draped over the natural roll of the hills rather than cut into them, punctuated by ragged-edged bunkers that look blown out by the wind itself. The greens are bold and full of movement, and with no trees to block the breeze or frame a target, every shot is a conversation between the player, the ground, and the weather. It is inland golf that plays like links golf, a thousand miles from the sea.
The golf world noticed quickly. Wine Valley became a fixture on GOLF Magazine's Top 100 Courses You Can Play and ranks among the best public courses in Washington — remarkable standing for a course in a farm town of thirty thousand. In 2025 the USGA brought U.S. Open Final Qualifying to Walla Walla, putting Wine Valley on 'golf's longest day' with a handful of coveted spots at the national championship on the line.
But Wine Valley's real genius is the trip itself. You come for a weekend, play thirty-six across the wheat hills, and spend the evenings in tasting rooms downtown. The course asks for every shot you have and gives you room to hit it — which is why golfers who make the drive to Walla Walla almost always make it again.