Gold Mountain (Olympic)

Gold Mountain's Olympic Course is a John Harbottle III design that plays every bit of its 7,003 yards from the back tees, and it's routinely rated the best municipal golf in Washington—a state with no shortage of good public courses. The par-72 layout runs through tall Puget Sound firs with water in play on a run of holes down the stretch, guarded by bunkers and, on a few hillsides, thickets of blooming yellow gorse.

It's a cart course, not a walking one, and at $85 a round (peaking around $108) it's priced like the muni it is—but the conditioning and the views don't know that. On a clear day the Olympic Mountains rise over the treeline from a couple of the back-nine holes, a reminder of where you are on the map. Most golfers get here from Sea-Tac by way of the Seattle–Bremerton ferry, a scenic 90 minutes that's part of the trip rather than a tax on it.

The pond hole

Water in play all the way to the green

A green tucked behind a pond ringed with bunkers, backed by fall color in the treeline—one of several holes at Gold Mountain where the water dictates the shot.