The Best Golf Courses in Marin County
Marin County has a golf identity problem: it is home to one of the most historically important courses in America, and most golfers who cross the Golden Gate every weekend have no idea. The best golf courses in Marin County span the entire arc of the game in Northern California — from Alister MacKenzie's very first design commission in North America, awarded at Meadow Club in 1926, to a 1919 municipal nine that still threads through mature redwoods at the base of Warner Canyon in Mill Valley.
That range is the point. Marin is not a resort destination and it does not play like one; it is a county of seven very different answers to the same question. Two of the best rounds here — Meadow Club and Marin Country Club — are private, but the public golfer is far from shut out: Johnny Miller's StoneTree, Forrest Richardson's re-imagined Peacock Gap, and the hilly, tree-lined Indian Valley all take daily-fee tee times, and two terrific nine-holers cover the quick-round end of the spectrum.
Here is Marin's complete golf picture in one guide, in the order we would rank them.
1. Meadow Club — Fairfax (Private)
Meadow Club is where any honest ranking of Marin golf starts: in the Bon Tempe meadow near the base of Mount Tamalpais, where Alister MacKenzie — working with Robert Hunter — built what he called "The Old Course in America." Engaged in August 1926, this was MacKenzie's first design commission in North America, the beginning of the career that later produced Cypress Point and Augusta National. A multi-year restoration by Mike DeVries, begun in 1999, expanded the greens back to their historic dimensions and rebuilt the bold, irregular bunkering, so the par-71, 6,734-yard layout reads much as MacKenzie and Hunter first imagined it. It is private — members and guests only — which is the only thing keeping it a secret.
2. StoneTree Golf Club — Novato (Public)
StoneTree is the best public tee time in Marin — a 2000 design from a team led by Johnny Miller together with former USGA president Sandy Tatum and architect Jim Summers. It is a course of two distinct halves: a flatter front nine threading wetlands, ponds, and marsh on the valley floor, then a back nine that climbs into oak-covered hillsides with real elevation change and tighter, tree-lined corridors. At 6,782 yards and par 72 with a 138 slope from the championship tees it is the sternest daily-fee test in the county, though tee sets ranging down to roughly 5,083 yards keep it playable for everyone.
3. Peacock Gap Golf Club — San Rafael (Public)
Peacock Gap is the county's most approachable full-size round: a par-71, 6,261-yard daily-fee layout set at the base of San Pedro Ridge near San Pablo Bay. William F. Bell's original 1960 design was effectively re-imagined in Forrest Richardson's mid-2000s renovation, which rebuilt greens and bunkers, created new holes at Nos. 5 through 9 and 17, and converted acres of managed turf back to native grass. The result is flat, walkable, and honest — just bring wind protection, because the bay-side setting turns breezy.
4. Indian Valley Golf Club — Novato (Public)
Indian Valley is Marin's public mountain-goat round, carved into the wooded hills on the western edge of Novato by Robert Nyberg in 1958 and renovated by Kevin Ramsey in 2004. Expect genuine elevation changes, doglegs through tree-lined fairways, small and fast greens, and streams and ponds bringing water into play on many holes. At par 72 and 6,374 yards with a modest 123 slope, it rewards accurate irons and course management far more than distance — and despite the hills, it stays very walkable.
5. Marin Country Club — Novato (Private)
Marin Country Club is the county's other private track: a classic mid-1950s Lawrence Hughes routing through the rolling terrain of Ignacio Valley, refined by a full John Harbottle III renovation in 2007. Bentgrass fairways and greens, tree-lined corridors, and an extensive bunker network make the par-72, 6,485-yard course a genuine precision test — 72.1 rating and 135 slope from the tips. If a member in Novato offers you an invitation, take it.
6. Mill Valley Golf Course — Mill Valley (Public)
Mill Valley Golf Course is the oldest golf course in Marin County and easily its most charming: a 9-hole, par-33 layout established in 1919 and routed by greenskeeper-professional John H. "Dad" Clark through 42 acres of hills, creeks, and mature redwoods at the base of Warner Canyon. Originally a private club, it went public when Depression-era voters approved a bond for the City of Mill Valley to buy and operate it in 1939. At just over 2,140 yards it is a short-game clinic inside a redwood grove — there is nothing else like it in the Bay Area.
7. McInnis Park Golf Center — San Rafael (Public)
McInnis Park is Marin golf's utility player: a 9-hole, par-31 executive course designed by Fred Bliss and opened in 1993 inside the county-owned park off Smith Ranch Road in San Rafael. The roughly 1,843-yard layout mixes short par 4s with testing par 3s over mostly flat, walkable ground, and the real draw is the ecosystem around it — a large two-tiered Toptracer driving range repeatedly recognized by the Golf Range Association of America, a teaching academy, and a full-service restaurant. This is where Marin actually practices.
How to Pick Your Marin Round
If you can wrangle an invitation to Meadow Club, cancel whatever else you had planned — first-commission MacKenzie, faithfully restored, is bucket-list architecture. For a daily-fee tee time, StoneTree is the test and Peacock Gap is the friendlier bay-side walk, with Indian Valley the pick when you want hills and quiet. And when you only have a couple of hours, Marin's nines — redwoods at Mill Valley, Toptracer and wedges at McInnis Park — are two of the best short-course arguments in Northern California.