Apple Valley Golf Club is an 18-hole public course in Howard, Ohio, set in Knox County's gently rolling farmland south of Mohican State Forest. Designed by William Newcomb and John Robinson and opened in 1972, the par-72 layout stretches nearly 7,000 yards from the tips and has earned a four-star rating from Golf Digest for its conditioning and design quality.
History
Apple Valley Golf Club in Howard, Ohio has served the Knox County community and Central Ohio golfers as one of the region's most respected public courses since opening in 1972, designed by architects Bill Newcomb and John Robinson on property in the rolling hills of Knox County that provided the natural setting for a course of genuine distinction. The course was developed largely due to the efforts of Newcomb and Robinson on land whose topographic character in the Knox County hill country made it well-suited to a golf course of strategic interest, and the Mickley family has operated the course since 1982, providing the continuity of family ownership that has sustained its quality and community character across more than four decades. Bill Newcomb's design background included early work under Pete Dye, and the influence of Dye's strategic approach and use of natural terrain is evident in the Apple Valley layout's sensitivity to the existing landscape.
Newcomb applied the principles he learned to a Knox County canvas where the rolling, wooded terrain provided natural elevation changes, water features, and tree-lined corridors that he and Robinson used to create a course that blended seamlessly with the natural surroundings rather than imposing an artificial design upon them. This design philosophy — which Dye himself always championed — produced at Apple Valley a course that feels discovered rather than constructed, using the land's existing character as the foundation for strategic challenges. The course plays to 6,946 yards from the back tees at a par of 72, a length that provides genuine competitive challenge while remaining accessible to the recreational golfer the club was built to serve.
Golf Digest and other leading golf publications have rated Apple Valley consistently among the finest public courses in central Ohio, a recognition that reflects both the design quality Newcomb and Robinson brought to the property and the Mickley family's commitment to maintaining the course at standards appropriate to its design distinction. Apple Valley's competitive resume extends well beyond typical daily-fee course ambitions. In 1977, just five years after opening, the course hosted the NCAA Division III National Championship, a major collegiate event that placed the layout under the scrutiny of the nation's top small-college golfers and their coaches.
The course has also served as the venue for the Ohio Public Links Championship and Ohio's Division I High School Regional Championship on a recurring basis, establishing itself as the premier public course venue in the central Ohio region for competitions that require a championship-caliber facility. Howard, Ohio sits in Knox County's rural landscape north of Columbus, in a community better known for its agricultural character and the presence of Kenyon College in nearby Gambier than for destination golf. Apple Valley's emergence as a nationally recognized public course in this unlikely location reflects both the exceptional quality of the Newcomb-Robinson design and the Mickley family's sustained commitment to course maintenance and community service that has made the facility a regional treasure for central Ohio golfers across more than five decades.