The Best Cheap Golf Courses in Los Angeles
Everyone hunting cheap golf courses in Los Angeles eventually learns the same lesson: the famous publics eat your budget one marquee tee time at a time, while the LA County system and a handful of small-city munis quietly serve up the best golf-per-dollar in Southern California. The courses on this list are not consolation prizes. Several of them were laid out by the Bell family — the architects behind a huge share of LA's golden-age golf — and one of them just got rebuilt by Gil Hanse, the same designer who restored Los Angeles Country Club's North Course.
This is a different list from our roundup of the best municipal golf courses in Los Angeles, which covers the big city-run names. Here the only criterion is value: county and small-city courses priced under the headline publics, where weekday and twilight windows turn a decent deal into a great one. Every one of these is genuinely public — no member sponsor, no lottery, just a tee sheet.
Eight courses made the cut, ordered roughly by how strongly we'd argue for them. Two are short courses on purpose — because the cheapest good golf in LA right now might be nine holes long.
1. Chester Washington Golf Course — Los Angeles
Chester Washington is the best argument on this list that cheap and important are not opposites. Open since 1928 and redesigned by William F. Bell in 1970, this LA County muni was Charlie Sifford's home course, the site of Maggie Hathaway's 1955 fight that integrated every county course, and the only course in the county portfolio designated a Los Angeles County Historical Landmark. The golf holds up too: par 70 at 6,286 yards sounds tame, but grabby Kikuyu fairways and tight Poa annua greens push the slope to 124 and punish lazy approach play.
2. Alondra Park Golf Course — Lawndale
Alondra Park is the South Bay's everyman facility, and we mean that as high praise. The 1947 William P. Bell and William Johnson layout gives you a full par-72 regulation course at 6,445 yards — flat, walkable, and honest — and the property backs it up with a separate 18-hole par-3 course and a night-lit range. If your budget only covers one membership-free home base near the beach cities, this is the volume play.
3. Los Amigos Golf Course — Downey
Los Amigos is what a county course should feel like: a 1966 William F. Bell parkland design, Bermuda from tee to green, a night-lighted range, and The Hazard Bar & Grill waiting when you're done. Par 71 at 6,212 yards with a 118 slope is approachable, and six sets of tees running down to about 4,050 yards make it one of the friendliest places in the county system to bring a beginner. It runs one of the busiest value-priced tee sheets in the county, so book ahead — the regulars already know.
4. Mountain Meadows Golf Course — Pomona
Mountain Meadows is the most golf course you can buy at county prices — a William P. Bell design later remodeled by Ted Robinson, playing 6,440 yards of genuinely hilly foothill terrain with blind tee shots, side-hill lies, and a slope of 129 that outmuscles most munis. The par-4 10th, with a tree standing in the middle of the fairway, is the kind of decision-forcing hole you usually pay resort money for. The course notes it has been named Los Angeles County Course of the Year seven times in eight years, and after a round here you'll understand why.
5. Marshall Canyon Golf Course — La Verne
Marshall Canyon is the scenery pick: a 1966 LA County course routed through tree-covered canyon land in the foothills above La Verne, where deer wandering the fairways are part of the deal. At par 71 and 6,110 yards it won't beat you up off the tee, but the fast, heavily undulating greens — the course's calling card — carry the 122 slope on their own. For an escape-the-city round at a county green fee, nothing else on this list touches it.
6. Alhambra Golf Course — Alhambra
Alhambra is the confidence-builder — a compact city-owned par 71 that started as a 1956 William F. Bell nine and grew into today's 18 with Algie Pulley's 1977 expansion. The unusual card of four par 5s and five par 3s packed into 5,478 yards creates real scoring chances, and the course itself boasts that many guests card career-best rounds here. Add the night-lighted Toptracer range and this small-city muni quietly does everything a budget golfer needs from one address.
7. Vista Valencia Golf Course — Valencia
Vista Valencia proves the executive course is the most underrated format in budget golf. The 1966 Terry E. Van Forder layout squeezes nearly 50 bunkers and water on ten holes into a par 61, capped by an island-green par-3 17th reached only by a bridge — a legitimate postcard hole at short-course prices. Regulars report finishing in about three and a half hours, and the lighted par-3 Chica nine and lighted range mean the golf doesn't stop at sunset.
8. Maggie Hathaway Golf Course — Los Angeles
Maggie Hathaway is the cheapest Gil Hanse tee time in America. The nine-hole, 835-yard par-3 in South LA's Jesse Owens Park — open since 1962 and named for the civil rights activist who integrated county golf — reopened in March 2026 after a ground-up Hanse redesign, with bigger, contoured greens and sandy waste areas from the same firm that restored LACC's North Course for the 2023 U.S. Open. As a short-game school, a first course for kids, or a spare-hour fix, it embarrasses places charging five times as much.
Maggie Hathaway Golf Course
Los Angeles, CA
How to Pick Your Round
Want a full 18 with history baked in? Chester Washington, no contest. The stiffest test per dollar is Mountain Meadows; the prettiest walk is Marshall Canyon; the family-and-range hangouts are Alondra Park and Los Amigos. After work, chase the lights — Alhambra's Toptracer range or Vista Valencia's lighted Chica nine — and if you only have an hour, Maggie Hathaway's Hanse-built par-3s are the best cheap golf decision in Los Angeles right now.
Whichever you choose, the budget play is the same everywhere: weekday mornings and twilight windows are where these courses go from affordable to almost free. Book the off-peak slot, walk when you can, and put the savings toward more golf.
Maggie Hathaway Golf Course
Los Angeles, CA