Bully Pulpit Golf Course

Bully Pulpit is routed through the dramatic Badlands terrain just south of Medora, where the final five holes traverse buttes, ravines, and sculpted clay formations along the Little Missouri River. Michael Hurdzan designed the course to harmonize with the landscape rather than impose upon it, creating an unforgettable three-hole stretch through the Badlands at holes 14, 15, and 16.

Bully Pulpit Golf Course stands as among the dramatic public golf experiences in the American interior, a testament to what can be achieved when a gifted architect is given access to a truly exceptional piece of land. Located at 3731 Bible Camp Road, roughly three miles south of Medora in Billings County, North Dakota, the course is owned and operated by the Theodore Roosevelt Medora Foundation, the non-profit organization established in 1986 to preserve and promote the heritage and culture of the North Dakota Badlands region. The name itself carries historical weight. Theodore Roosevelt famously referred to the presidency as a "bully pulpit" — a platform from which to mobilize public opinion — and the course sits within sight of the Theodore Roosevelt National Park, the rugged landscape where the 26th president came to grieve after losing both his wife and mother on the same day in February 1884. Roosevelt returned to the Badlands repeatedly throughout his life, the untamed terrain helping to forge the conservation ethic that would define his presidency. The golf course honors that connection through its name and through its extraordinary setting along the Little Missouri River.

Architect Dr. Michael Hurdzan was engaged to design the course, and by his own account, the site left him speechless. Hurdzan, who had evaluated thousands of potential course sites across his career, declared the Medora property among the top he had ever seen outside of oceanfront land. He visited the site dozens of times before finalizing his routing, a process that required deep sensitivity to the fragile Badlands ecology. The course opened in 2005. Hurdzan conceived the layout as a journey through three distinct landscapes.

Approximately one-third of the holes play through traditional American parkland terrain — tree-lined, generous, and relatively forgiving — allowing golfers to find their footing in a new environment. Another third wind along the banks of the Little Missouri River in an open, links-influenced style, where the prairie wind becomes the primary defense. The final third plunges into the Badlands themselves, where buttes and canyons replace fairways and rough in among the surreal stretches in American golf. The back nine contains the course's signature sequence. The 14th hole, a 404-yard par four, and the 15th, a 161-yard par three, and the 16th, a 451-yard par four, are routed through a moonscape of eroded clay formations, with elevation changes reaching 200 feet between tee and green. The canyon winds that funnel through these holes make club selection a matter of genuine uncertainty, and the visual drama is unlike anything in the continental United States outside of a handful of desert courses in the Southwest.

From the championship tees, Bully Pulpit measures 7,166 yards at par 72. A course rating of 75.4 and slope of 133 from the back tees reflect the genuine challenge the routing presents, though forward tee options make the course accessible to a wide range of abilities. The greens are bentgrass, the fairways a mixture of native grass and maintained turf appropriate to the semi-arid climate of the Badlands. Recognition has been substantial. Golf Digest has consistently ranked Bully Pulpit among the best public courses in America, and USA Today named it the best public golf course in the country in 2025. Golfers from all 50 states and dozens of countries make the trek to Medora each season, drawn by a combination of historical resonance, natural grandeur, and a golf course that remains challenging and genuinely surprising from the first tee to the last green.