Emerald Hills Golf Club
Arnolds Park, Dickinson County, Iowa · Okoboji & Iowa Great Lakes golf market
- Access
- public
- Holes
- 18
- Architect(s)
- Jay Gordon Bennett
- Gated
- No
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Emerald Hills Golf Club is an 18-hole public course in Arnolds Park, built in the early 1970s to a Jay Gordon Bennett design, that has become the Okoboji & Iowa Great Lakes market's most direct current example of golf-and-housing co-development. The existing Emerald Meadows townhome community sits directly on the course's 12th green, with unit patios and balconies opening onto fairway and green views and the Arnolds Park water tower beyond -- a straightforward, already-built case of homes literally sited on a public golf course.
More significant is a genuinely current, newsworthy development this research pass chased down directly (the original exploreokoboji.com article could not be fetched, but its substance was independently confirmed through search-indexed coverage and matching local news reports): Emerald Estates, a roughly 38-acre, approximately 97-lot residential development on land between the golf course and the Lower Gar Recreational Area. The project is being run as an explicit partnership -- Randy and Molly Rohlfsen, the course's owners, working with the Spirit of Okoboji investment group (led locally by Drew Hage), which has taken a silent-partner stake in Emerald Hills and commissioned a golf-course architect to plan a simultaneous course expansion alongside the new housing. As of the most recent reporting found, site work and groundbreaking were underway, with the course expansion planned to unfold over roughly a year while keeping all 18 holes playable throughout -- a real, current example of a golf course's own ownership group co-developing adjacent housing, not proximity marketing by an unrelated builder.
Golf & Course
Emerald Hills plays to a par-72, 6,651-yard layout across hilly terrain with tree-lined doglegs, water hazards, and fast, undulating greens; multiple regional sources note it carries the highest course and slope rating in the immediate area. The club is currently owned and managed by PGA professional Randy Rohlfsen, with a reported multi-year ownership transition to Nick Christensen (Bank Midwest) underway per late-2026 local reporting.
Membership & Access
Does buying a home here include club membership?
Emerald Hills is a public, pay-to-play course with posted green fees (reported roughly $30-$65 depending on season/day/holes) and membership described as available, though this session could not confirm current membership tiers or dues from the club's own rates page (blocked from direct fetch). Living at Emerald Meadows or in the planned Emerald Estates does not include or require club membership -- golf access is purchased separately by anyone, resident or not.
Living in Emerald Hills Golf Club
Emerald Meadows is a built, occupied townhome community directly on the course's 12th green, with an HOA (emeraldmeadows.org) charging a reported $500 annual fee plus modest fire-hydrant and quarterly water charges. Emerald Estates, still in development, is planned as roughly 97 additional residential lots on 38 acres between the course and the Lower Gar Recreational Area, sold by the Spirit of Okoboji group to builders/developers of whole neighborhood sections rather than as individual retail lots, per local reporting.
Location & Surrounding Area
Arnolds Park sits at the narrows between West Lake Okoboji and Lower Gar/East Okoboji, putting Emerald Hills within a few minutes of the Arnolds Park amusement park and lake district as well as the broader Iowa Great Lakes dining and boating scene.
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What Buyers Should Verify
- Confirm current Emerald Estates lot availability, pricing, and construction timeline directly -- this research found only site-work/groundbreaking-stage reporting, not a completed development.
- Confirm current Emerald Hills membership tiers and dues directly with the club; this session could not fetch golfemeraldhills.com/rates/ directly.
- Confirm current course ownership status given the reported multi-year transition from the Rohlfsens to Nick Christensen.
Notable
- Emerald Meadows townhomes are built directly on Emerald Hills' 12th green, with unit patios opening onto the course.
- Emerald Estates, a roughly 97-lot, 38-acre residential development next to the course, is being co-developed by the course's own ownership (Randy and Molly Rohlfsen) alongside the Spirit of Okoboji investment group, with a simultaneous golf-course expansion planned as part of the same project.
- Local reporting in 2026 described a multi-year (3-5 year) planned ownership transition of the course itself from the Rohlfsens to Nick Christensen.
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US Golf Living provides independent real-estate research and can connect consumers with real-estate professionals. Golf membership, availability, fees and approval are determined independently by the applicable club.