The Broadmoor

Spencer and Julie Penrose's 1918 resort in Colorado Springs, with 784 rooms, Donald Ross and Robert Trent Jones Sr. courses that have hosted nine USGA championships, and three wilderness camps.

Jack Nicklaus won the 1959 U.S. Amateur at The Broadmoor. Annika Sorenstam won the 1995 U.S. Women’s Open here, and Padraig Harrington the 2025 U.S. Senior Open. In all, the resort’s courses have hosted nine USGA championships, seven of them on the East Course, and the Colorado Golf Hall of Fame is on site.

Golf came with the hotel. Spencer and Julie Penrose built The Broadmoor in Colorado Springs, and it opened on 29 June 1918. Penrose had asked Donald Ross to lay out the first 18 holes. They opened on 4 July. Robert Trent Jones Sr. was hired in 1948 to add nine holes, and the East Course as it plays now opened in 1952, his holes mixed with Ross’s. The West Course pairs Ross holes from 1918 with Jones holes from 1964. It sits higher, with more doglegs and steeper greens. Both are open only to overnight guests and Golf Club members.

This is a big hotel, with 784 rooms, suites, cottages and brownstones. At the top is the Estate House, a five-bedroom house of 12,000 sq ft designed by Thomas MacLaren in the late 1920s. There are about 20 places to eat, among them The Penrose Room, Summit, Ristorante del Lago and La Taverne. The Spa at The Broadmoor has a Himalayan salt sauna, a steam room and an oxygen room, and like the courses it is kept for overnight guests and members.

Further out, the resort runs three all-inclusive wilderness camps: Cloud Camp, The Ranch at Emerald Valley and the Fly Fishing Camp. Beyond the grounds it also runs zip lines, Seven Falls and trips up Pikes Peak on the cog railway.