# What is Sky Mountain Golf Course in Hurricane? > A city-owned public course on the bench above Hurricane, open since 1994. What it is like, what living near it means, and who it suits. - Author: Kelsey Earl, Realtor, Keller Williams South Valley - Location: Hurricane, Utah - Section: The Washington County Insider - Published: 2026-11-03 - Canonical: https://homesbykelseyut.com/blog/what-is-sky-mountain-golf-course-in-hurricane - Contact: 801-419-8917 ยท Kelsey.earl@kw.com --- **Quick answer:** Sky Mountain is a city-owned public 18-hole course on the bench above Hurricane, open since 1994 and designed by Jeff Hardin. It is a municipal course with resort-quality views, which is an unusual combination. For buyers, the relevant part is that it is public rather than a gated club, so living nearby does not require membership. --- Sky Mountain Golf Course is a city-owned public course on the bench above Hurricane, Utah, open for play since 1994. It is an 18-hole par 72 laid out by Arizona architect Jeff Hardin. The interesting part is the ownership. This is a municipal course that looks like a resort course, and that distinction has real consequences for anyone thinking about buying a house near it. Sources: City of Hurricane and Foretee course listing for ownership, opening year and designer; Deseret News, May 1996, for contemporaneous coverage of the course as one of Utah's newest. ## What it actually is A public course run by the City of Hurricane, at 1030 N 2600 W. It sits up on the bench, which is the reason it looks the way it does. The elevated position gives it long views over the valley toward Zion and the Pine Valley Mountains. It was built alongside a large housing development, which is the standard pattern for golf in this county and worth understanding as a buyer. The course came with houses, and the houses were sold partly on the course. Reviewers consistently describe it as scenic and more challenging than its municipal status suggests. I will not quote yardage or ratings here, because the published figures disagree with each other depending on the source and tee set, and a wrong number is worse than none. ## Why "public, city-owned" is the detail that matters Most of the golf communities people consider in Washington County involve a private club, a gated entrance, or an association that ties membership to the property. Sky Mountain does not work that way. That produces a specific set of trade-offs: | | Sky Mountain (municipal) | A private club community | |---|---|---| | Membership to play | Not required; open to the public | Usually required or strongly tied to the home | | Who is on the course | Residents, locals, visitors | Members and guests | | Monthly obligation | None attached to the house by the course itself | Often a dues obligation regardless of play | | Access if you do not golf | You pay nothing for it | You may pay anyway | | Course condition | Depends on a municipal budget | Depends on member dues | If you do not golf, a municipal course next door is close to a pure positive: you get the open space, the views and the mature landscaping without a dues bill. If you golf seriously, the calculation flips. A public course means tee-time competition and visitor play, and a club exists partly to avoid both. [The golf communities across Washington County differ a lot on exactly this axis](/blog/what-are-the-golf-communities-in-washington-county), and [whether a golf-course home is worth it](/blog/should-i-buy-in-a-washington-county-golf-community) turns more on that structure than on the course itself. ## Living on or near a golf course here, honestly I am Kelsey Earl, a Realtor with Keller Williams South Valley, and I have watched enough golf-course purchases to know which ones people regret. **The good, which is real.** Open space that cannot be built on. Mature trees and turf in a desert, which is otherwise rare. Long sight lines. A quiet backdrop most of the day. On a course like this one, the view of the Pine Valley Mountains across the fairway is the thing people fall for, and it is genuinely lovely. **The costs, which nobody mentions at the showing.** Maintenance starts early, and that means mowers and blowers at dawn through the growing season. Golf balls land in yards on certain holes, and some lots take them regularly, ask which. Play runs along your fence all day in season. And a course is irrigated ground, which means more insects and more standing water than the desert around it. **The structural risk.** A municipal course depends on a city budget. A private course depends on membership. Both can change, and a golf-course lot whose course closes is a lot facing a vacant field with an uncertain future. This is not a prediction about Sky Mountain, which has operated since 1994 and is a civic asset the city has invested in. It is the question to ask about any golf-course purchase anywhere. **Which lot, specifically.** On a golf course, the house matters less than the hole. A lot on a quiet par three behind a green plays very differently from a lot on the right side of a long par four where every slice ends up. Walk the hole, not just the yard. ## Who this suits Someone who wants the amenity without the obligation. That is the honest summary of a municipal course, and it is a good fit for the kind of buyer Hurricane attracts anyway. People who wanted more ground and fewer rules than St. George offered, and who are not looking to join anything. It also suits a buyer who golfs occasionally rather than constantly. Public access and no dues is the right structure for someone who plays a few times a month and would resent paying for a membership they underuse. It suits someone less well if they want a club social life, guaranteed weekend tee times, or the particular condition standard that member dues buy. ## How it fits the rest of Hurricane Sky Mountain is one of several reasons Hurricane has grown into more than a farm town on the way to Zion. [The town's growth has its own drivers](/blog/why-is-hurricane-utah-growing-so-fast), and recreation is a real one. The course, Sand Hollow, Quail Creek and the trail network all pull in the same direction. That said, the course is not the main event here. [What there is to do in Hurricane](/blog/what-is-there-to-do-in-hurricane-utah) runs heavily to water and dirt rather than fairways, and [the amenities the city offers](/blog/what-amenities-does-hurricane-utah-have) are worth looking at as a whole before deciding a golf-adjacent lot is the thing you want. ## What to do next If a Sky Mountain lot is on your list, go stand in the backyard on a weekend morning in spring. You will learn how early the maintenance starts, how much play runs past the fence, and whether golf balls are a feature of that particular yard. None of that is in the listing. Then ask the ordinary questions you would ask about any Hurricane property: what the water arrangement is, what is approved on the undeveloped ground nearby, and what the association does and does not control. [The best neighborhoods in Hurricane vary widely](/blog/best-neighborhoods-in-hurricane-utah), and a course-adjacent subdivision is its own thing rather than a sample of the town. [Tell me which hole the lot backs](/contact) and I will tell you honestly whether that is one of the good ones or one of the ones that collects golf balls. --- Source: https://homesbykelseyut.com/blog/what-is-sky-mountain-golf-course-in-hurricane Any market figure in this post is accurate only where a date and source are stated alongside it.