A Complete Guide to the Best Private WNC Golf Courses Near Asheville (2027)

Everything a round requires sits within Walnut Cove’s Club Village. At its center is the Tudor-style clubhouse, where a farm-to-table English-style tavern, dining room, wine lockers, wine room, and board room offer members places to gather and refuel. Nearby, the golf house handles the rest: men’s and women’s facilities with showers, lockers, and a terrace, plus easy access to the practice area and full-service golf shop. The pro shop carries clothing and accessories with a notably wide selection of women’s products — fitting for the home facility of the UNC Asheville Women’s Golf Team.

Meanwhile, members can keep busy with a calendar as full as the facilities. Walnut Cove’s course has hosted The PGA's Biltmore Championship Tournament, UNC Asheville women’s golf tournaments, and the LPGA-USGA Girls Golf Academy, alongside a year-round slate of club championships, member/guest events, men’s and ladies’ days, afternoon women’s programs, and seasonal events. Many of these social groups are member-run and open to new residents.

Members also enjoy reciprocal privileges at six other clubs in The Cliffs Clubs system, including access to other premier courses. Those seeking a golfside home should look into enclaves within Walnut Cove such as Somerset and the Village Townhomes, which are closest to the course and Club Village.

The club's facilities house formal and casual dining, a pro shop, a fitness center, a pool, tennis courts, and bedrooms. The clubhouse was originally designed by Edward L. Palmer, and when the Biltmore Estate Company ran short of funds to finish it, Edith’s daughter, Cornelia, became the owner and financed its furniture and equipment. It’s the perfect place to have a drink with friends, play cards, or enjoy a nice dinner.

What distinguishes the club is its atmosphere: an old-fashioned experience with a flavor of the Gilded Age. This is a century-old club soaked in tradition, where you still wear a sports coat to dinner. Over the years it has welcomed esteemed guests like presidents William Howard Taft and Calvin Coolidge, John D. Rockefeller, and Queen Juliana of Holland, among others.

Golfers can warm up at the practice area, which includes a 25-tee driving range along with putting and chipping greens. Personal training and golf clinics are available to help perfect your swing, as is the SkyTrak indoor golf simulator. Beyond golf, members enjoy an Olympic-size swimming pool, indoor and outdoor tennis facilities, indoor pickleball courts, a new 2,500-square-foot fitness center and rec rooms. Those interested can join men’s, women’s, or youth programs and lessons for swimming, water aerobics, tennis, and more.

As for culinary delights after a round, fine mountain views await al fresco diners, with indoor dinner and cocktail options as well — all ages, casual, or buttoned up. The club’s setting adds to the appeal: These established North Asheville neighborhoods sit within easy reach of the city’s restaurants, nightlife, shopping, and cultural opportunities.

Champion Hills complements its top shelf golf experience with a suite of private club amenities designed to elevate daily living. At the center of the community stands a full-service mountain-style clubhouse, offering fine and casual dining, including al fresco terraces and the Fazio Pub with menus that highlight regional flavors and seasonal ingredients.

Wellness is a cornerstone of life at Champion Hills. The fully equipped fitness and wellness center features modern training equipment, dedicated class space, a heated pool, and a Hydro Spa—supporting a holistic approach to health and vitality. For recreation, residents enjoy lighted Har-Tru® tennis courts, tournament-level bocce courts, and more than 17 miles of hiking trails that weave through the natural terrain.

To complement the course, Kenmure offers a Toptracer range and golf shop. The shop is staffed by two Class-A PGA professionals, offering instruction, demo clubs, custom fittings, equipment, and apparel.

The Kenmure Sports Center is equipped with cutting-edge fitness gear and offers personalized training with certified trainers in yoga, tennis, physical training, and more, along with yoga and Pilates classes. It houses an indoor saline pool that hosts water aerobics, artistic swimming, reserved lap swimming times, and free swim, while an outdoor heated pool opens from Memorial Day to Labor Day each year.

The racquet offerings are extensive: four Har-Tru clay courts for longer rallies and easier play on the joints, two hard courts for a faster game, and four designated pickleball courts with lessons available from tennis pro Shirish Deshpande, a certified pickleball instructor. Two brand-new bocce courts round out the complex.

Dining at Kenmure spans the casual and formal. The Grill is the club’s most popular gathering spot, a relaxed setting for lunch, dinner, or drinks on the patio, with chef-driven weekly features, seasonal a la carte menus, and mountain views. For more formal evenings, the beautifully restored Sears Dining Room delivers elevated dining. It's suited to private events and culinary experiences such as prix fixe dinners and wine pairings. A curated wine list and signature cocktails support both, and the club’s calendar brings members together through events like themed dinners, culinary pop-ups, outdoor barbecues, monthly wine tastings, and holiday brunches. The club also hosts weddings and milestone celebrations, and serves as a hub for social activities, with various clubs and an active community association.

The clubhouse campus centers on the Summit House, where a two-story fireplace anchors the main dining room and a cantilevered terrace opens onto long views, with a private dining room and wine cellar alongside. Thirsty golfers will want to stop by the neighboring Mine Tavern, which pours handcrafted cocktails and regional beers within an indoor-outdoor setting. Meanwhile, a small market covers grab-and-go needs.

Two more gathering places sit elsewhere on the property: the Outpost, assembled around a chimney left from the old garnet mine and timbers salvaged from a Revolutionary War fort, with rocking chairs on a veranda above the treetops; and the Boarding House, a great house encircled by cabins, where the floorboards and screen doors creak by design and a marketplace now serves three meals a day plus provisions, baked goods, and wine. The kitchen works offers seasonal, farm-to-table fare that changes each week, featuring local meats, cheeses, and produce, with a wine list reaching from the West Coast to Europe.

Everyday routines run through the Ruby Valley Fitness and Wellness Pavilion like lap swimming, tennis, massage, and time with the a trainer. Inside are cardio machines and free weights, a studio built for yoga, Pilates, boot camp, and TRX classes, a members’ lounge, two treatment rooms, and a garden designed for unwinding. Outdoors there are Har-Tru courts programmed with camps, lessons, leagues, and tournaments across every age and ability, a Junior Olympic heated pool beside a kiddie pool, and patio seating with table tennis and foosball.

The rest of the mountain offers more still: an equestrian center at 3,300 feet with club horses, boarding and corrals, plus guided rides on groomed trails. The Dark Ridge Camp, tucked into a far corner beside a fast-moving stream, boasts open-air pavilions, wood-fired grills, and rustic cabins. Finally, a conservancy center with an on-staff naturalist and 42-plus miles of trails offer even more ways to appreciate the mountains.

Springdale welcomes both members and daily fee players, with memberships available to those seeking a home course in the mountains. The golf amenities include a lodge-style clubhouse, a full-service pro shop, clinics led by the resident professional, and practice areas for driving, putting, and short game. Carts are fitted with GPS and stocked with water, tees, and towels, and the Village Grill, a service window near the course, serves casual sandwiches and on-course refreshments.

Rocky Face Tavern is the dining centerpiece: a 7,000-square-foot room that won Golf Inc.’s Golden Fork Award in 2023, serving Appalachian-inspired classics in a warm lodge setting with an outdoor fireplace and views over the 18th green. Social life centers on the Village Gazebo, where people gather around fire pits, Adirondack seating, and charcoal grills. The resort also offers a heated pool, a year-round hot tub, a 24/7 fitness center, and meeting and event spaces, along with planned activities such as outdoor movie nights, marshmallow roasts, and storytelling sessions. Scenic hiking trails run along nearby Pisgah Ridge.

The Overlook Clubhouse is the center of activity, a 26,000-square-foot building with panoramic views over the golf course and the surrounding mountains. A $2.5 million renovation in 2018 added The Grill and enlarged the Blue Ridge Lounge, and the dining now runs across three rooms: the Overlook main dining room for evening service, the Blue Ridge Lounge with a full bar and dance floor, and The Grill for casual lunch and drinks. A large outdoor dining and entertainment area faces west toward the sunsets. The building also holds the Cherokee Room banquet facility, which seats 120, along with meeting spaces, a library, a wellness center with fitness equipment and an exercise studio, the golf pro shop, and locker rooms with showers for members and guests. Private functions — birthdays, cocktail parties, full weddings and receptions — can be arranged in the Cherokee Room or the Blue Ridge Lounge, which seats 90.

Fitness has its own home in the 12,000-square-foot Activity and Wellness Center, a two-story facility with exercise equipment, activity and meeting rooms, a floor exercise classroom set up for interactive online instruction, locker rooms with showers, and an outdoor pavilion, classroom area, and amphitheater on the grounds. A certified personal trainer works there full time, handling personal training and physician-directed pre- and post-operative programs; residents pay a nominal annual fee for equipment access, and classes are sold individually or in packages. Group classes span several styles of yoga, stretch and balance, water aerobics, total body and body weight training, and floor work, held at the center, outdoors at the Atagahi Park pavilions, and at the pool. The swimming pool has lap lanes, with mornings given over to lap swimming and water aerobics and free swim the rest of the day until dusk; it closes seasonally in the colder months.

Beyond the clubhouse, the recreational range is wide: a full pickleball complex with six courts and an active club offering training programs, four ClayTech tennis courts open year-round, two bocce courts with a league, four private lakes stocked for bass, trout, and bluegill, more than twenty miles of volunteer-maintained hiking trails reserved for property owners and their guests, member-designed organic gardens, several large community parks, and a dog park. More than sixty resident clubs and volunteer groups give the community its social structure.

Mountain Air Country Club is member-owned, and its amenities gather around the Slickrock Village Green at the top of the community — a village green in the old sense, where people meet, eat, and spend time together, with the finest views on the mountain. Four dining venues sit here, all reserved for members and their guests, with menus drawn from local sources and the club’s own community garden wherever possible. The award-winning clubhouse handles upscale dining, with meat, seafood, and vegetable dishes prepared by the club’s chefs; the Oak Room offers casual fireside dining over the village green; a casual clubhouse dining and bar area looks toward Roan Mountain; and Orville & Wilbur’s serves breakfast, lunch, and dinner seasonally in an open-air setting, with sandwiches, entrees, house-made soups, and a garden-fresh salad bar. Denim and shorts are welcome at the two casual rooms. The community organic garden has been running for more than a decade under a head gardener, and its harvest supplies a weekly garden market alongside produce from area farms.

Also on the green are the pro shop, a putting green that doubles as the site of community celebrations including the Fourth of July, the Bell Tower Amphitheater at the village entrance, an Outdoor Discovery Center with a full-time naturalist, the Mountain Market and Deli for groceries and provisions, and the Chautauqua Center, which holds a multi-sport simulator, a game room, and an activity center with its own programming.

Golf practice is handled at the Lost Chimneys Learning and Performance Center, an award-winning facility with two 17,000-square-foot grass tees, a short game area with putting green and bunkers, and five covered hitting bays fitted with ceiling fans and heaters. One bay carries V1 teaching software, four cameras, and a FlightScope X2 fitting tool, and the club’s PGA professionals offer group and private instruction with video swing analysis. A TruGolf indoor simulator lets members play Bay Hill, Bethpage Black, Harbour Town, Pinehurst No. 2, and Torrey Pines, in season or when temperatures drop, and it is available for small outings and social events. Racquet sports run on Har-Tru tennis courts and a pickleball court at the top of the mountain, with a tennis professional leading instruction, clinics, socials, and special events.

The 4,500-square-foot Wellness Center is open year-round with 24-hour access, holding strength and cardio equipment from True, Peloton, and Octane, a 1,900-square-foot group fitness studio, trainers and group classes, men’s and women’s locker rooms, and a relaxation balcony looking out over the mountains. Spa Tohi handles body treatments, with a dry sauna between them, plus a hot tub and pool. Beyond the built amenities are parks and trails, and a 2,875-foot private runway beside the clubhouse — the highest private runway east of the Mississippi, according to Private Air Magazine.

The club offers member perks, organized leagues, and events through the year, keeps a members’ area on its website, and crowned champions this season in the women’s, men’s, men’s senior, and men’s super senior divisions. A separate Amenities Association (which carries its own fee) opens up the clubhouse, swimming pool, tennis courts, and Robinson’s Pub.

Cummings Cove Golf and Country Club runs on two levels of membership. The Resident Signature Golf Membership carries full use of the facilities together with golf privileges: unrestricted course access, advance tee times, no additional greens fees, and use of the practice areas — putting green, chipping area, and net. It also includes complimentary GHIN handicap tracking, with dues billed monthly, no assessments, and a non-refundable initiation fee. The Lifestyle Social Membership covers full use of the same facilities, with golf available on a pay-per-play basis. The club also notes that a non-resident, golf-only arrangement does not include the fitness center, pool, or outdoor courts.

Both full memberships open up the same set of amenities. The clubhouse holds a restaurant and lounge. A sports complex and fitness center includes a heated swimming pool and hot tub. Outdoors there are two HydroCourt tennis courts and one DecoTurf, four pickleball courts, bocce, basketball, and a dog park. The golf shop sits beside the clubhouse near the Cummings Road entrance, with the practice area and putting green alongside. Social events are among the listed membership privileges, and the club’s own framing is that what distinguishes the place is less the facilities than the people — a community drawn from many different places, where newcomers find it easy to make friends.

Membership here is built around the course and the company. Members get exclusive access to a meticulously maintained 18-hole layout and unlimited play, along with the practice facilities — the driving range, the wedge course, and the lighted Himalayan putting green — and the pro shop. Member-only events run through the year, and private lessons are available on request. Club rentals and storage can be arranged for an additional fee.