Call the Bella Vista golf office to book a Saturday tee time and you'll notice something before you ever swing a club. The community lists seven golf courses, but its own phone directory only gives you five numbers to reach them. Highlands has its own line. Scotsdale has its own line. So does the original Bella Vista Country Club course. But Kingswood and Berksdale share a single number, and so do Dogwood Hills and Brittany. The phone list mirrors a grouping that shows up on the ground too, where two of the courses are paired into named complexes and three stand on their own.
That distinction matters more than the "seven courses" headline the Property Owners Association leads with on its own site. Three of those courses stand alone, each demanding its own commitment of time and attention. The other four come in pairs, bundled at the same location so a big round and a fast round are never more than a cart path apart.
The Two Pairs That Already Know Your Mood
Kingswood and Berksdale share the Kingsdale complex and its one phone line. Kingswood is the full 18, laid out with open fairways and mostly flat terrain that plays fast for golfers of every skill level. Berksdale sits right next to it, a nine-hole, par-36 course built for the round you can actually finish before dinner. It's also in the process of earning certification through Audubon International's Cooperative Sanctuary Program, a distinction tied to how the course manages water, wildlife habitat, and turf rather than how it scores on a difficulty chart. Rental clubs are available for adults and juniors, which tells you who the course is built to welcome.
Dogwood Hills and Brittany make up the Metfield complex on the east side of Highway 71. Dogwood Hills winds through Metfield's townhomes, Bella Vista's wooded land, and a stretch of Benton County's rural edge, with gentle terrain by local standards and long walks between green and tee. Brittany rounds out the pair as a short executive course, five par-3s and four par-4s over 1,889 yards from the white tees. It recently added a new par-3 layout and an extra teeing area, a small but real investment in the course whose whole job is to be the fast option.
Neither pairing asks you to drive across the village to match your day. If you have forty-five minutes and a beginner in tow, you already know which parking lot to pull into.
The Three Courses With Their Own Line
Highlands, Scotsdale, and the original Country Club course don't share anyone. Each has a dedicated phone number, and each asks for a different kind of commitment.
Highlands opened in 1990, designed by Ault, Clark & Associates with Bill Love, and it's built for shot-making more than convenience. Dramatic elevation changes and views across the Ozarks come with four sets of tees to match the terrain to your handicap. The driving range closes every Monday until 9 a.m. for maintenance, a small operational detail that tells you this course gets treated like the community's showpiece.
The original Country Club course is the oldest of the seven, opened in 1968 and designed by Joe Finger. Age didn't make it harder. It made it the one you can walk. Long fairways flanked by mature trees, few hills, and several holes where Little Sugar Creek comes into play along a course that mildly rolls through the valley beside Highway 71. It's also the regular stop for the Cooper Community Charity Classic, one of the few events on the Bella Vista golf calendar with a name attached to it rather than just a tee time.
Scotsdale, opened in 1987 by designers Tom Clark and Bill Love, is the one course here that plays like two different rounds stitched together.
One Course, Two Different Eras
The front nine at Scotsdale isn't the course it was five years ago. A renovation completed in 2021 reworked the fairway turf and replaced the greens with Champion Bermuda grass, the same surface used on several of Bella Vista's other courses. That front nine is flatter, more open, and the creek that twists through it comes into play on every hole.
| Front Nine | Back Nine | |
|---|---|---|
| Era | Renovated 2021 | Original 1987 design |
| Terrain | Flatter, more open | Elevation changes, blind shots |
| Greens | New Champion Bermuda | Elevated, undulating, faster roll |
| Feel | Approachable | The course's real test |
The back nine never got touched. It's still the 1987 layout, routed on what golfers who play it regularly describe as rollercoaster terrain, with blind shots created by the elevation changes and greens that roll noticeably faster than the putting surfaces anywhere else in Bella Vista. The par-5 18th, closing out that back nine, gets called the locals' favorite hole in Bella Vista's own course materials, and it's easy to see why once you've played the front nine's calmer version of the same course.
You can play Scotsdale a dozen times and experience it as two separate golf courses depending on which nine sticks with you that day.
Where the Round Actually Ends
The Scotsdale Clubhouse and Pub trades on that Scottish-links identity all the way to the bar, with a scotch and ale selection paired against the Bella Vista Brat, a house specialty that shows up on more than one course's menu around the village. Dogwood Hills and Brittany keep it simpler with a snack bar built for a beer and a brat after a quick nine, not a sit-down meal.
The bigger kitchen sits behind BV Bar & Grill and LakePoint, both run under Chef Jerry James, who trained at the Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park and spent years as a corporate chef across several venues at Fairfield Glade in Crossville, Tennessee, before joining the POA as Head Chef of BV Bar & Grill when it opened in 2018. He was later promoted to lead the kitchen at LakePoint. Neither of those is attached to one specific course, but they're the destination once the round is finished, regardless of which of the seven you played.
The Groups That Already Sorted This Out
The Bella Vista Women's Golf Club plays every Thursday from April through October, and its Firecracker scramble, a two-person handicapped format with lunch and awards afterward at the BV Rec Center, runs at Kingswood. Kingswood's flat, open layout is one of its defining features.
None of this required a decision tree. The people who golf here regularly already sorted themselves by mood and time before anyone wrote it down. The quick-round crowd gravitates toward Berksdale and Brittany. The all-afternoon players book Highlands or the back nine at Scotsdale. The walkers who want a low-key round with a creek in view head for the original Country Club course. The five phone numbers follow the same lines, with one for each standalone course and one for each pair.
If you're the kind of person who already has a favorite nine and finds yourself wondering what it would take to live closer to it, Cindy Carfaro can walk you through what's actually available near whichever course keeps pulling you back.
