Horseshoe Bay Golf Club

Overview: Horseshoe Bay Golf Club is a private 18-hole course, playing to par 72 on Wisconsin’s Door Peninsula. The routing uses the rolling ground and bluff country around Green Bay, with tree-lined fairways, sand bunkers and changing views creating a distinctly Door County setting. The championship tees measure 7,101 yards, while three additional tee sets make the course playable at different lengths. Its parkland classification understates the importance of the surrounding shoreline, orchards and historic farm landscape.

History: The course sits on land associated with Horseshoe Bay Farms. Frank E. Murphy began acquiring the farms around 1900, and the historic Horse Shoe Bay Barns were built in 1916. An earlier 1922 attempt to establish a country club produced a clubhouse but never a golf course. The Murphy Cowles family revived the idea in 1995 through the Horseshoe Bay Farms development, and the present 18-hole course opened in 2000. The result links a modern private club to a property with a much older agricultural story.

Did You Know? The club’s farm history is still visible during a round. The original apple orchard and the historic red barn remain part of the visual identity of the property, so the course does not feel like a layout imposed on an anonymous development site. Robbins and Lussier also designed a substantial short-game area overlooking the bay, extending the same relationship between practice, landscape and water beyond the 18 holes.