Crow Valley Golf Club

Crow Valley Golf Club is a private club on the northeast side of Davenport, Iowa, close to the city line with Bettendorf, in the part of eastern Iowa that forms one half of the Quad Cities. OpenStreetMap and the club’s own website give its address as 4315 E. 60th Street, Davenport, IA 52807. Its single 18-hole course was designed by John Cochran and, according to IllinoisGolf.com and Golf Course Gurus, opened in 1970. It is a par 71 that measures 6,774 yards from the back tees on the scorecard the club publishes today.

The club’s claim to a place in golf history is short and precise. From 1971 through 1974 it was the first home of the Quad Cities Open, the tournament now known as the John Deere Classic, a regular stop on the PGA Tour. Wikipedia’s record of the event lists Crow Valley as the venue for those first four editions, before the tournament moved across the Mississippi River to Oakwood Country Club in Coal Valley, Illinois, where it stayed from 1975 to 1999. So the claim sometimes repeated in passing, that the club hosted a PGA Tour event in the 1970s, holds up, with one nuance: the first edition, in 1971, was a so-called satellite event, and the tournament only became an official PGA Tour event in 1972.

Today the club presents itself as a family country club as much as a golf course. Its website calls it “a community within a community” and puts a swimming pool, tennis and pickleball courts, dining rooms and a wedding and banquet business alongside the golf. This page is a portrait built from public sources; because the club is private, most readers will only see the course as a member’s guest.

Thirty-four founders and a course built for the tour

IllinoisGolf.com, a regional directory that also covers the Iowa side of the Quad Cities, says the club was founded in 1969 by thirty-four golf enthusiasts on 160 acres straddling the Davenport and Bettendorf city limits, and that the course opened in 1970. Top100GolfCourses.com also writes that the course was built by 34 local members. The founding group has its own place in regional golf history. The Iowa Golf Association’s Hall of Fame entries for Bob Fry, a local professional, and for Franklin “Whitey” Barnard credit both men with developing the club, alongside the Chicago Bears quarterback and Heisman Trophy winner Johnny Lujack, Jim and Ray McGloughlin of John Deere, Nic Chirekos and others. Wikipedia’s article on the Velie Memorial Cup, the Quad Cities inter-club competition, describes Lujack as a founding director who also played on the club’s teams.

The ambition was clear from the start. Top100GolfCourses.com says Cochran designed the course “with the PGA Tour in mind,” and the Iowa Golf Association’s entry on Fry says the course was built with input from the tour. Fry had a head start: according to the same entry and to Wikipedia’s article on him, he had persuaded Arnold Palmer and Gary Player to play an exhibition at Davenport’s Emeis Golf Course in 1961, then ran a small professional event at Emeis in the mid-1960s before it lapsed. Wikipedia adds two details about the club itself: it was first planned as a men-only club but soon admitted women, and Fry holds its course record of 62. In a chapter of his history of the tournament, “Magic Happened,” the Quad Cities writer Craig DeVrieze quotes Barnard explaining the founders’ thinking: “We felt we needed some notoriety at Crow Valley.” DeVrieze also describes the club in its earliest days as sitting “out in the middle of nowhere.”

The Quad Cities Open years, 1971 to 1974

DeVrieze’s account dates the first Quad Cities Open to September 16, 1971, played as a satellite event under the umbrella of the Chicago District Golf Association. It drew a field of 131 players, and the pro-am sold out in a single night; parking and tickets ran short and shuttle buses had to be brought in. He also recounts a dispute over the hole location on the 14th green that led tour officials to change the pin during the round. Wikipedia’s article on Fry quotes the local Times-Democrat calling the event “probably the best of the 16 satellite stops on the tour in 1971.” According to Wikipedia’s winners table, the four Crow Valley editions finished as follows:

• 1971: Deane Beman, 277 (7 under par), two strokes ahead of Dow Finsterwald.
• 1972: Deane Beman, 279 (5 under), one stroke ahead of Tom Watson, in the first year the event counted as an official tour event.
• 1973: Sam Adams, 268 (16 under), three strokes ahead of Dwight Nevil and Kermit Zarley.
• 1974: Dave Stockton, 271 (13 under), one stroke ahead of Bruce Fleisher.

The 1973 edition is the best documented hole by hole. A Substack history of that season by Larry Baush, built from contemporary reports, gives the course as 6,501 yards and par 71 that year, with an 18-hole Monday qualifier in which a 74 or better earned one of 30 spots. Rain softened the greens early in the week, John Schroeder set a competitive course record of 63 in the second round, and Kermit Zarley told reporters the course had “played a lot easier than most of us expected.” Adams finished with birdies at the 17th, a par 3, and the 18th, a par 5, where Zarley had eagled shortly before. The same account notes that soybeans were growing beside the 14th hole, a reminder of how rural the setting still was.

DeVrieze writes that the 1974 edition moved to July and became the first of fifteen consecutive Quad Cities Opens played opposite the British Open, and that Stockton won it with a closing 64. Hardee’s, the restaurant chain, had sponsored the 1973 and 1974 events and withdrew in early 1975, leaving the tournament’s future in doubt. The event survived, moved to Oakwood in 1975, and lives on today as the John Deere Classic. The Iowa Golf Association’s entry on Barnard quotes DeVrieze saying that “no man was more influential in this event’s inception than Whitey Barnard,” and says Barnard put his own money into the tournament to keep it afloat.

The club has stayed active in amateur golf since. The Iowa Golf Association announced that its 2020 Iowa Senior Amateur, played August 24 to 26, would be the first edition held at Crow Valley. The club was also a pillar of the Velie Cup: Wikipedia lists 23 Crow Valley titles between 1970 and 2013, one of them shared, and says the club stopped taking part in 2022.

What the course asks of you

The setting is not the flat Midwestern farmland that visitors might expect. Top100GolfCourses.com describes a course “routed around a ridgeline, Crow Creek, and opposing hills,” which divide it into three distinct sections of play, and one of its reviewers praises the way the routing uses that central ridge, playing along the top of it and across it. IllinoisGolf.com mentions mature trees, a creek and significant elevation changes. The club’s own description is short: “Challenging and exciting, Crow Valley is firm and fast.”

The card is unusual. The scorecard on the club’s website lists five par 3s and four par 5s, which is how a 6,774-yard course ends up at par 71 with relatively few par 4s. The front nine is a par 35 and the back nine a par 36. The club’s card lists four sets of yardages without naming the tees; the longest set reads as follows:

• Front nine: 1st, par 4, 380 yards; 2nd, par 5, 589; 3rd, par 3, 191; 4th, par 4, 389; 5th, par 3, 187; 6th, par 4, 422; 7th, par 5, 569; 8th, par 4, 425; 9th, par 3, 203. Out: 3,355 yards, par 35.
• Back nine: 10th, par 4, 361; 11th, par 3, 207; 12th, par 5, 517; 13th, par 4, 381; 14th, par 4, 435; 15th, par 4, 425; 16th, par 4, 400; 17th, par 3, 181; 18th, par 5, 512. In: 3,419 yards, par 36.

Golf directories that publish ratings use a slightly shorter set. GolfPass lists Gold tees at 6,715 yards (rating 73.0, slope 133), Blue at 6,405, White at 6,074, Silver at 5,578 and a forward Red tee at 5,284 yards. Golf Course Gurus, an independent review site, gives 6,774 yards from the championship tees with a rating of 73.4 and a slope of 138, which matches the club’s current card. Whatever the exact figure, the bentgrass course is of moderate length by modern standards; reviewers describe its difficulty as coming from the ground, the creek and the greens rather than from distance.

Several holes come up again and again in published descriptions:

• The 3rd, a par 3 of about 190 yards that Golf Course Gurus names the best par 3 on the course, with a drop of about 30 feet from tee to green, a creek short of the putting surface and three bunkers around it. A recent reviewer on Top100GolfCourses.com also lists it among the standout holes.
• The 7th, a par 5 of about 570 yards with a creek along the right side and a green set on a plateau roughly 25 feet above the fairway, according to Golf Course Gurus.
• The 13th, a par 4 of about 380 yards with a downhill drive, an uphill approach and a circular bunker in front of the green, often played in a crosswind.
• The 14th, the hole Golf Course Gurus calls the signature: a downhill par 4 of about 435 yards that bends right, with a pond and an inlet to carry on the way to the green. It was already the scene of a pin-placement dispute in 1971.
• The 15th, a par 4 of about 425 yards and the number one stroke-index hole on the club’s card. A tree guards the corner of the dogleg, and Crow Creek runs in front of a green sitting about 20 feet above the fairway.
• The 18th, a short par 5 of about 510 yards that turns almost 90 degrees to the left and gives a genuine birdie chance to finish. Adams and Zarley both made their late moves there in 1973.

The greens are the element that every source dwells on. Golf Course Gurus describes them as firm but receptive and among the best-conditioned it has seen; a reviewer on Top100GolfCourses.com warns that they currently have some steep slopes and are slick, and that the bunkers are saucer-shaped and partly hidden behind raised edges. That same reviewer writes that a renovation led by the architect Michael Benkusky is planned to address bunkers and greens that have become too severe for modern green speeds. We could not confirm the scope or timing of that project from the club or from the architect, so treat it as one reviewer’s report. For club golfers, the absence of long forced carries and waste areas, noted by Golf Course Gurus, makes the course more forgiving off the tee than its slope suggests.

What golfers say

Because Crow Valley is private, public opinion is thin. The material summarized here comes from the reviews posted on Top100GolfCourses.com when we read them in October 2026, dated October 2025 and August 2026, and from the long review on Golf Course Gurus. Review pages on GolfPass and Golf Digest exist but could not be opened when we prepared this page, so we have not used them. These are other people’s opinions, not ours. Nobody from Panxis has played the course, and we name no reviewer.

What comes up in its favor

• Conditioning: the greens in particular are described as near-perfect, and a recent reviewer praises the course’s condition and its staff.
• The routing: reviewers like the use of the ridgeline and the creek, and the way the course plays over and around the high ground.
• The back nine, which Golf Course Gurus considers clearly the stronger half, writing that if both nines were that good, the course would be among the best in Iowa.
• Playability: few forced carries, no waste areas, little risk of losing balls, which makes it what one reviewer calls a great “everyday” course for a family club.
• Individual holes such as the 3rd, 14th, 15th, 16th and 18th, and details like the club’s logo and tee markers.

What comes up against

• A lack of standout holes: one recent reviewer writes that “every hole is good, but no holes are knock-your-socks-off good.”
• The front nine, judged solid but less compelling than the back.
• Greens with steep slopes that become severe at today’s speeds, and saucer-shaped bunkers that can be hard to see from the fairway.
• Limited national profile: Golf Course Gurus notes that other Iowa courses get more national attention.

Getting there and playing

Crow Valley is a private club. Directories such as IllinoisGolf.com and OpenGolfAPI list it as private, its website offers a form to request membership information, and there is no public tee-time booking. Non-members play as guests of a member or through events organized at the club; the website has pages for hosting golf outings and banquets, and a “Be Our Guest” page with the club’s dress code. On the course, the practice facility and the putting greens, men and juniors must wear collared shirts (mock turtlenecks are accepted); women may wear slacks, cropped pants, skirts, culottes or shorts reaching beyond mid-thigh; denim is not allowed from Memorial Day to Labor Day; tank tops, T-shirts, sweatpants, swimwear and bike shorts are banned; golf shoes or sneakers are required; and hats facing forward and tucked-in shirts are strongly encouraged. Food and drink bought off the premises may not be brought onto club property.

The club says it has expansive practice facilities, regular clinics, private lessons with its PGA professional staff, and indoor simulators for practice through the winter. Golf Course Gurus describes the course as walkable with carts available, and IllinoisGolf.com lists carts as available and walking as allowed, with no caddies. GolfPass gives the outdoor season as April 1 to November 1; as with any course in eastern Iowa, the actual dates depend on the weather and on the club’s decisions.

The club sits in northeast Davenport, near the Interstate 74 and 53rd Street corridor according to IllinoisGolf.com. Measured on the map, in a straight line, it lies about 6 miles northeast of downtown Davenport and about 9 miles north of Quad Cities International Airport in Moline, Illinois; those are not road distances. As a private club, Crow Valley does not publish green fees or membership rates, and we do not report any; the club’s website is the place to ask.

How we built this page

The factual frame comes from public sources: OpenStreetMap and Wikidata for the location, address and identifiers; the club’s website, crowvalleygolfclub.com, for the scorecard, the amenities, the practice offering and the guest dress code; Wikipedia’s articles on the John Deere Classic, on Bob Fry and on the Velie Memorial Cup, and the Dutch Wikipedia article on the club, for the tournament results, the founders and the inter-club record; the Iowa Golf Association for its Hall of Fame entries on Fry and Barnard and for the 2020 Iowa Senior Amateur; Craig DeVrieze’s history “Magic Happened” and Larry Baush’s account of the 1973 tournament for the Quad Cities Open years; and IllinoisGolf.com, GolfPass, OpenGolfAPI, Golf Course Gurus and Top100GolfCourses.com for the course data, ratings and reviews.

Where sources disagree, we say so. The opening year is 1970 in IllinoisGolf.com, GolfPass and Golf Course Gurus, while IllinoisGolf.com dates the founding to 1969, DeVrieze writes that the club opened in 1969, and Wikipedia’s article on Fry says it was founded in 1970. The club is in Davenport according to its own address, OpenStreetMap and Wikidata, but several historical sources place it in Bettendorf, and the tournament records often call it Crow Valley Country Club. The back-tee length is 6,774 yards on the club’s current card and in Golf Course Gurus (rating 73.4, slope 138), but 6,715 yards in GolfPass, OpenGolfAPI, IllinoisGolf.com and the Dutch Wikipedia (rating 73.0, slope 133); the course measured 6,501 yards for the 1973 tournament. The forward tee is 5,284 yards in GolfPass and 5,329 in Golf Course Gurus. OpenGolfAPI credits Chris Gray as well as John Cochran; every other source names Cochran alone. The 1971 event was chaired by Jack Groves according to DeVrieze, while the Iowa Golf Association says Barnard chaired it. The club’s card gives the same stroke index to the 1st and 5th holes, an apparent error, so we have only used its index for the 15th. The renovation by Michael Benkusky comes from a single reviewer and is unconfirmed.

Some details will age: the reviews read in October 2026, the tee ratings, which are revised periodically, the dress code and the planned renovation. The opinion section reports recurring themes rather than individual voices. Nobody from Panxis has played or visited this course, and this page is no substitute for a round.

The club has not paid for this page, has not seen it before publication and has no say over its content. This page contains no commercial link and earns us no commission. If you know the club and something here is wrong or out of date, write to us and we will correct it. The club’s golf page carries its current scorecard, and Wikipedia’s history of the John Deere Classic lists every winner since the first edition at Crow Valley.

Other courses nearby

Closest to this one in our United States directory:

• Rich Harvest Farms — 104 mi
• University Ridge Golf Course — 111 mi
• Wing Park Golf Course — 118 mi
• Kemper Lakes Golf Club — 134 mi