Green Spring sits on the north side of Washington City, in the older Green Springs subdivision off Telegraph Street that gave both the neighborhood and the course their name. Gene Bates routed the eighteen in 1989 — the first golf course in Washington City, predating Coral Canyon by more than a decade — and the layout has stayed in the same configuration since.
A Three-Hundred-Foot Drop on the Signature Hole
Bates routed the course across the bench where the basalt flow meets the sandstone, and the elevation change shows up most dramatically on the par-3 sixth. The tee sits high on a black-rock outcrop; the green sits roughly 100 feet below, with desert wash and sandstone framing the carry. It is the hole the course gets photographed on. The rest of the front nine plays through the more traditional desert-and-grass framework — wide fairways, mature trees from the original 1989 plantings, contours that come from natural drainage rather than imported earthwork.
The Older Course in Washington City's Lineup
Where Coral Canyon up the road is the post-2000 master-planned course with the Keith Foster pedigree and the post-2020 renovation, Green Spring is the older neighbor — the course that established Washington City as a golf town before the Coral Canyon master-plan got built. The clientele reflects that. More locals, more retirees who bought into Green Springs in the 1990s, fewer destination golfers. The rates are friendlier than the resort tier and the pace of play tends to be faster.
Year-Round Golf in the Virgin River Basin
Green Spring sits at roughly 2,800 feet and stays open year-round. Winter rounds come with the temple in the distance and the Pine Valley Mountain in the mid-ground; summer rounds happen at sunrise and finish before the heat arrives. The course is on the Red Rock Golf Trail loop with Sky Mountain, Sand Hollow, Sunbrook, and the other public-access Washington County layouts.
For visitors stitching together a Washington County card, Green Spring is one of the budget-friendly mid-week rounds — a real Bates routing in good shape, with a signature hole that holds up against any of the more famous par-3s in the region, and tee times that don't require booking three weeks out.