Southgate runs along Tonaquint Drive on the southwest side of St. George, where the Santa Clara River meets the Virgin River drainage and the bench drops toward the older Bloomington neighborhoods. It opened in 1970 as the city's second municipal course — Dixie Red Hills had been there since 1965 — and for two decades it was the only eighteen-hole public option in town.
A Walking Course With Water on the Front
The front nine is the water nine. Eight of those nine holes carry water in play — small ponds, lateral hazards along the drainage, the Santa Clara channel feeding into the routing. The back nine changes character: tighter fairways, hillier ground, the kind of short par-4s that reward placement over distance. Par is 70, the layout is short by modern Washington County standards (Sunbrook, Sand Hollow, and Black Desert all play longer), and locals walk it the way locals walk Dixie Red Hills.
Game Improvement and a Cafe
Southgate has the most-built-out practice facility of the four city courses, a game-improvement center with PGA professionals on staff and a full-service short-game area. The on-site Southgate Cafe runs breakfast and lunch service from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. daily — eggs, sandwiches, the kind of menu that exists because retirees finish nine holes at 10 a.m. and want to sit down somewhere that isn't a chain.
The Quiet Course in the Municipal Lineup
Of the four municipal courses, Southgate is the one locals reach for when they want to play eighteen quickly. The pace is faster than Sunbrook (twenty-seven holes, more out-of-towners), the rates are friendlier than the high-season Dixie Red Hills weekend, and the layout is forgiving enough that a mid-handicap player walks off without losing a sleeve of balls.
City of St. George Leisure Services books the tee times centrally with Sunbrook, Dixie Red Hills, and St. George Golf Club. Snowbirds figure out the rotation by their second or third winter. In summer the parking lot empties out, the locals tee off at first light, and Southgate stays open year-round under the heat the way the lower-elevation courses do.
For visitors stitching together a multi-day round of municipal golf in Washington County, Southgate is the par-70 walker's day in the lineup — short, friendly, water on the front, hills on the back, and a sit-down cafe between rounds.