Alcester Golf Course

Alcester is a small town in the southeastern corner of South Dakota, sitting near the Iowa and Nebraska state lines where the Big Sioux River drainage shapes the rolling agricultural landscape. This part of the Great Plains doesn't announce itself dramatically, but the open skies and quiet farmland give a round of golf here a particular unhurried character that's harder to find than people expect.

A par-68 layout in a rural community like this almost certainly reflects the practical tradition of small-town Midwest golf — a course built and maintained by the people who play it, designed to fit the land available rather than to impress a resort audience. These clubs are often the social center of their communities, where the same groups have teed off on Saturday mornings for decades and where the regulars know every bounce and break by heart.

Alcester sits in Union County, one of South Dakota's more temperate corners, with a longer growing season than the rest of the state. Expect genuine Midwestern golf: straightforward, unpretentious, and rooted in the simple pleasure of getting outside.