The last time a PGA Tour event was held in Asheville, Ben Hogan won it in 1942. And this September, the Tour finally returns.
The Biltmore Championship in Asheville is a brand-new PGA Tour event set for September 17–20, 2026, at The Cliffs at Walnut Cove in Arden (just minutes from downtown Asheville). The course is a Jack Nicklaus design, sitting at 7,167 yards in a valley between the Pisgah National Forest and Blue Ridge Parkway. It’s one of the most dramatic settings ever for a professional golf tournament.
The announcement was made jointly by the PGA Tour, Biltmore Estate, and Explore Asheville as part of a four-year agreement. It marks the seventh time a Tour event has been to Asheville, and the first time since the Asheville Land of the Sky Open ran from 1939 to 1942. Ben Hogan was on the verge of leaving the game after years of disappointments until a swing through North Carolina in 1940 changed everything, and Asheville played a starring role.
Over the coming months, we’ll look at how this tournament fits into the larger recovery and renaissance of golf in Western North Carolina. Visit biltmorechampionship.com and pgatour.com for ticketing details and volunteer opportunities.
At the turn…
An uncertain future — Last fall, owners of Boone Golf Club unveiled plans to convert the 18-hole Ellis Maples loop into a housing development with a reconfigured nine holes and a driving range or Topgolf-style facility. A community campaign of over 1,700 supporters pushed back and the course opened for the 2026 season as a semi-private club with putting green and tee box improvements on the way. What happens beyond this year is still an open question.
Hit the trail — If you happen to head to Boone this year, hit the Boone Greenway Trail for a short hike and then head over to Appalachian Mountain Brewery for a Boone Creek Blonde or a Long Leaf IPA. They host live music on most Fridays and Saturdays.
An introduction to WNC Golf Insider.
This is the very first dispatch from WNC Golf Insider, a newsletter connecting golfers to the courses and culture of Western North Carolina. It’s delivered once a week as a quick read before your first tee shot.
Golf has been part of this region longer than most people realize. Donald Ross came to the mountains in the early 1900s and shaped courses here that still define how mountain golf plays — crowned greens, false fronts, deceptive slopes, layouts that work with the terrain rather than against it. Ross’s designs for the golf course at the Omni Grove Park Inn and the Asheville Municipal Golf Course opened in the mid-1920s; the Muni was the first public course in North Carolina and became the first integrated public course in the Southeast. Linville Golf Club, tucked into Avery County at nearly 4,000 feet, has been in continuous operation since 1892. And Blowing Rock Country Club is the only Seth Raynor layout in the state, circa 1915. Long before destination golf was a marketing concept, people were making the trip to Western North Carolina specifically to play here.
The region that surrounds all of these golf courses is unlike anywhere else in the country. Western North Carolina is the kind of place where a craft brewery, a James Beard-nominated restaurant, and a trailhead can all share the same block — and where the same person who plays at the Wade Hampton Golf Club on Saturday might be hiking the Art Loeb Trail on Sunday. The mountains draw people who take their pleasures seriously; the local food and drink scene has become a genuinely world-class destination. The outdoor culture is inseparable from daily life and the creative community that rebuilt Asheville after Hurricane Helene has made the city something rare — a mountain town with real cosmopolitan energy. Golf fits into this culture naturally and always has.
At WNC Golf Insider, we have cataloged more than 80 courses across 6 distinct subregions, each with its own terrain, character, weather, and playing conditions:
Asheville Basin — The urban core of WNC golf. Historic Donald Ross designs, accessible public tracks, and resort courses all within reach of downtown Asheville.
High Country — The northern spine of the Blue Ridge, where courses sit at 3,000 to 5,500 feet. The most extreme elevations in eastern golf where altitude shapes every shot.
Hendersonville Plateau — Mountain plateaus meeting the dramatic eastern escarpment. Refined private clubs and accessible public courses along the ridge where the mountains begin their descent.
Smoky Mountain Corridor — Deep river valleys framed by the Great Smoky and Plott Balsam ranges. Lush, green, and dramatic; it’s some of the most scenic layouts in the Southeast.
Highlands Plateau — The highest concentration of exclusive private mountain communities in the east. Highlands, Cashiers, Sapphire: Where the air is thin and the greens are fast.
Foothills — Where the eastern Blue Ridge softens into rolling farm country. Laid-back public tracks, underrated private clubs, and some of the best golf values in the region.
Every Wednesday you’ll get the stories, tips, and local knowledge that matter to golfers who actually play here — course news, competitive highlights, playing advice built for the mountains, and the kind of regional intel that doesn't show up anywhere else.
The mountains are full of stories worth telling about golf in Western North Carolina. We’ll be here to share them.
